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Understanding People - The Best Way to Maximise Sales
In the highly competitive world of sales it's often all too easy to ignore some of the more subtle skills of salesmanship as the pressure to identify leads, set up meetings and close deals becomes all encompassing. However, it is the finer points of being a salesman, and more importantly in engaging with people, that can lead to more success. The main core of salesmanship is the ability to engage with and persuade people. Although elements such as age, cultural background, language and individual personality can have a large impact on human interaction, there are some central rules that govern our behaviour and which have a profound effect on whether we immediately feel comfortable engaging with each other. By understanding people, you're in a much better position to push the right buttons to make a deal more likely. The following set of tips will help you to develop a killer toolkit to compliment your sales arsenal and boost your sales career. Know Thy Product Know your products inside out. Being able to answer any questions on your product will enable you to deal with any negativity or issues head on, and sets a far more professional air. You customers need to buy into you before they can buy into your product. If you don't know what you're talking about you cannot build the trust that you need to persuade that customer further along the sales process. Know the Industry Keep abreast of industry news, spending 20 minutes or so each morning to pick up on the recent headlines, and read a few news articles. All of this can be done online, and just a few minutes worth of research every day will give you an enviable battery of small talk topics for your particular market. For customers, speaking to someone who has a firm grasp on the current events in the industry is another demonstration of their commitment and enthusiasm to the industry, reinforcing your position as a member of your customer's particular group and not as an outsider. Be Personable Humans are highly visual, and a well presented person is instinctively trusted more than they more dishevelled competitor. When meeting clients dress for the occasion, be presentable, smart and ensure that you pay attention to the small details, all of which can help set you aside from the competition and make a more powerful first impression. It's very easy to try to adopt a persona that you think a client will like, but be aware that false personas are very easy to spot since they are so very unnatural. There are natural body language pointers that identify if you are lying or being deceptive, and adopting a false persona will start setting off these signals. Be approachable, open, and amenable. Listen to what your customer is telling you, and use that information later on to help communication further. Don't try to be someone that you're not, but instead focus on being someone that the customer feels they can talk to. Give Things Away At the start of any sales process customers will naturally be guarded and distrusting, it's natural human behaviour. Having some news articles, web links to useful information or other such resources can really help to demonstrate your willingness to help your customer as a whole, not just in making a sale. The resources should be related to the industry that your customer operates in, but perhaps not relevant to the sale you're trying to make. Being helpful outside of the sales process demonstrates that you're not just after the customer's money, but in developing a good professional relationship. Go That Extra Mile When attending a meeting do some extra research to find out a little more about your customer or their company. This will help you stand out amongst the competition and can help a customer feel more valued. Answer all calls in the timeliest fashion possible and deliver on any and all promises that you make to a customer. This is the best trust building tool that you have. A customer cannot buy from someone they do not trust. Building trust is the foundation to any ongoing relationship, and starting a commercial relationship off with a high degree of trust will maximise ongoing sales later, so going the extra mile will pay off. Use the Right Language All sales people are taught to use open-ended questions to keep a conversation going, one of the most basic communication principles. In addition, using the right words and being mindful of your body language will be crucial in developing a rapport with a potential customer. Often more than 55% of your communication is non-verbal, communicated through your body posture. Adopting a non-threatening, open body language is key to making your customer feel comfortable in your presence. If the customer doesn't feel comfortable then they won't trust you. If they don't trust you, they won't buy from you. Using the right words will also help you to take shortcuts into a customer's psyche. Using the same terminology as your customer is using can help to position you as part of a group, one of the pack. Using the right terminology indicates that you understand your customer and are not an outsider. Old School is Best School When it comes to human interaction face to face or vocal communication is still the absolute best form. This doesn't mean that there's no place for email or even social media in the world of sales, but technology should be a method for you to manage and source your customers. When it comes to the final stages use the phone and arrange face to face meetings. Human Schedules Spend time to understand how your customers structure their day. Are there obvious points during which a phone call from you would be more welcome? Is sending an email at a certain time likely to end in it being deleted or even plain ignored because you've sent it at the peak activity time of the day? Understand how your customers schedule their daily activities and plan your day around this. Don't call customers when they're likely to be at their busiest, and don't be prospecting for new leads when your current leads are more willing and able to take a call from you! NLP Studying the basics of NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming, can help you to make your own communication with customers far more effective by giving you an insight into the type of person your customer is and how to best structure your words and sentences to make your messages more acceptable to that customer. Study NLP and fully embrace what it offers.
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More Sales Skills Ideas and Tips Top 5 Reasons for Sales Objections and 5 Hints How to Avoid in the Future Are You Sabotaging Your Sales Growth? 10 Ways to Increase Your Sales |
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