closing sales Archives - Dr. Ivan Misner®

Selling has everything to do with finding out the buyer’s needs, collecting compensation, and completing the transaction. However, there would not be salespeople if it was that simple. The buyer’s needs could easily be fulfilled by a vending machine. In fact, many buyers shop online with only a vague sense of what might satisfy their needs. Turning a buyer’s vagueness into clear solutions is the job of the salesperson. The buyer is looking for the best solution, delivered in an effective and pleasurable manner. The search engine when shopping online cannot replace a well-trained salesperson.

Buyer’s thoughts are multifaceted

Buyers weigh the many pros and cons of a potential purchase when they shop. Some of these thoughts the buyer might share with the seller. Learning and adapting to the buyer’s various thoughts during the sales process is a complex and intricate task. It is the responsibility of the sales professional to ensure it happens.

The sales clock

Always look at both the buyer’s perspective as well as the seller’s demands with each sales scenario. Waiting out the sales clock after delivering your proposal can be stressful. As the seller, you have to earn a commission, meet monthly targets, and ensure your proper work scheduling. The last thing you want is for your own stress to create a negative impact on the buyer. Remember, it is all about the customer.

Three ways to tap into the buyer’s perspective

Attentive Listening

Attentive listening can help you, the seller, determine if the buyer is putting you off or merely attending to pressing internal demands.

Behavior Profiling

Modify your sales process to the style of communication most comfortable to the buyer. All customers prefer to communicate in a manner that is most familiar to them. Knowing the buyer’s behavioral profile will help you to customize a sales approach for each customer.

Product Presentation

Your sales presentation will have a strong influence on a successful sale. Talk about what the product will do for the customer rather than its features and keep the product presentation focused on the buyer’s needs.

Being able to read the buyer’s signals is crucial to meeting and exceeding the needs of your customers. Masterful salespeople combine a little science with human relation strategies to create a wonderful buying experience for their buyers, while still maximizing their commission. Most of the time, timing is everything.

The referral process (CLICK HERE to read a short overview of the referral process) can be broken down into eight easy steps. In a blog entry I posted last Monday, I explained step 1 (Your Source Discovers a Referral) and step 2 (Research the Referral). Today, I am going to talk about step 3.

Step 3. Check Back in with Your Referral Source

After learning all you can about the prospect’s company through your outside research, it’s a good idea, especially if the referral appears to be complex or of very high value, to call your referral source back to confirm or refine what you’ve learned about the prospect’s company.

You need to keep your referral source in the loop and out of trouble. Making her look good is a primary objective, perhaps even more important than the immediate sale, because you want this referral relationship to continue and to benefit both of you far into the future.

More important for your approach to the prospect, you need to know more about him personally, which is something you can assume your referral source is particularly well positioned to help you with.

Try to learn about what sort of individual you’ll be dealing with. What’s his personality type? Is he detail oriented? If so, he might want to see a lot of collateral material or samples. Is he hard driving and results oriented? He might just want to talk about your offerings, see your track record, and make a quick judgment. Does he like to have fun while he’s doing business? Perhaps you’ll join him on the golf course. If he’s all business, the office environment is probably better.

What are the prospect’s goals? Why is he interested in your products or services? Is he happy with his current provider or looking for a change? Is he ready to do business with you immediately based on the referral, or is he sending out requests for proposals to other companies?

What you don’t want to do is charge at the prospect with no idea of what is expected or desired. Having some certainty about these factors will help you put together a powerful presentation that is tailored to the individual and his company. This will help you accomplish your two most important objectives: closing the sale quickly and making your referral source look good.

If you have a testimonial you’d like to share about a time you successfully executed step 3 in the referral process and how it made for great results, or a story about how you learned the importance of step 3 after neglecting to complete it and suffering the consequences, please feel free to share by leaving a comment.

Be sure to check back in next week if you want to learn about step 4!