Hands Up all the Sales People in the Room
Recently attended a fantastic event where the founder of ActionCOACH Brad Sugars, a good friend, gave an insight as to what it takes to finish your business. Get to the point where the business can stand on its own, a commercial profitable enterprise that works without the owner. And that may be you. In fact you may have been there with me at the event.
So picture the scene, 190 business owners in the room, all engaged with the presentation, participating with the questions, scribbling away the notes to make sure they have the memory jogger in the morning so they can apply the learning. There’s a real buzz in the room. Brad asks the question:
‘Hands up all the sales people in the room’
Across the audience about 8 or 9 hands go up. In his definitive Australian way he looks across the audience and sighs, ‘hmmmmm’. Follows up with another question, ‘So, team remind me, how many of you are business owners’. there is a reflective pause before the room raise their hands, swiftly followed by ‘so how many sales people are there?’ The vast majority of hands remain, hoisted.
For the rest of the evening Brad dispensed gem after gem to advise and guide the business owner congregation on what and how they finish their business. Throughout he teased the audience with the challenge to buy his books relative to the specific topic being discussed. At the end of the evening he asked the audience to invest in themselves and actively put their learning into action and invest in a business plan. Actively put into action what they had been the learning. Yep, he sold to the room. He offered those who were ready a way to make a difference, essentially how to solve their problem.
After-all what is sales, determining a value proposition which solves another parties problems. Ahhhh, are you suffering these problems? Yes. Here’s a load of solutions, would you agree?….Yes, ok buy this as the solution. Now my blog isn’t about selling from stage, if that’s what you’ve heard go back and read it again. Rather it seems and has been my experience that businesses owners are really keen to be their own boss, grow an empire, own a business, interestingly there are also two almost universal challenges, which seem intrinsic to business. The first is asking for the sale and the second, funnily enough asking for the money (I’ll cover that one in another blog).
No Sales Please We’re British!!
So back to the point when Brad encouraged the room to buy a solution, there was a distinct shift in the mood, ‘NO SALES PLEASE WE’RE BRITISH’. I watched on with fascination at the back of the room, not because I thought everyone should buy buy buy, rather how we generally find it uncomfortable being sold too. Yet here we are a room full of business owners, a roomful of salespeople.
Now, this wasn’t an isolated incident having completed the 2017 UK Finish IT tour a similar response was had across the UK. I use this as an example to share the point that so many SME businesses fail to make the sale because they are uncomfortable with selling in the first instant and don’t like being sold too. Interesting for each example I have come across they are almost fanatical about their product or service. Yet will feel the challenge when it comes to making the sale.
Now before I go on I should stress that I’m not in the ‘always be closing camp’, that’s old school. ABC had its day and the famous depiction from the film Glengarry Glen Ross is a great explanation of ABC selling, and why today it doesn’t work. So today most will agree that number one in making the sell is building relationships, know, like and trust are key. Seeking to solve their problem and offering an ethical solution which is right for them. Essentially offering the value in your service or product for their benefit, and along the way make profit.
Now, this isn’t about getting tied up on the sell from stage, it’s about the reaction of being sold too indirect relations to how your selling. How many sales are you losing because you fail to see the buying signs? How many sales are you missing because you haven’t got a sales process? How many sales are you losing because your salespeople aren’t trained? And what’s your mindset for sales? In my business when it comes to sales calls we have a simple rule, ‘treat all salespeople as we want our salespeople to be treated’.
5.5 Top Tips for Focusing on the Sale
So what is it about selling that we are so, seemingly, very British? You’re in business, you have a product or service, you believe in it so sell it. Here’s my 5.5 tips on getting focused on sales:
- Do your homework. Know your prospects, who they are, where they are (and interestingly where they are in concentration, and start with your neighbours), seek to understand why they need to buy from you and what they are actually looking for.
- Training, Training, Training. Spend the time to train your sales force. don’t just assume that ‘this stuff sells itself’ that’s BS. Have proper training in place to make sure your sales force understand how to sell your product or service.
- Role Play. With training role play making the sale, dealing with objections, dealing with different behavioral types. Selling based on human interaction, so practice with other humans. Oh and I can hear you all say ‘e-commerce’, well that’s a human interaction with your website so make sure their interaction with it works, go through the sales process regularly.
- Move from ‘we’ to ‘you’. Whether verbal interaction, written interaction make sure you are referring to them and not you. Don’t make the sale about how good ‘we are’, make the sale about the benefits ‘you’ gain.
- Positioning. When you enter into a sales conversation set out the agenda, make it clear that if certain circumstances are right and we see the benefits then can we agree to ask the question, even make a decision today. Oh, and that’s the sales question!
5.5 Expect to ask for the Sale. Don’t be shy, have the confidence, commitment, and courage to ask for the sale. Be confident in what you are offering, which I am sure you are. Have the commitment to the prospect to ensure you will solve their problem, they will be better off after they have bought from you. Be courageous in sales, you’ll be surprised what will happen when you ask the question. You’ll be left in no doubt, you’ll be able to determine where the objections are and deal with those, or you’ll see that you as yet don’t have their solution.
Go forth and sell, sell with commitment, confidence with courage. Don’t reflect on why you didn’t ask the question, rather always expect to ask the question.
Now that’s worth thinking about.
Want to develop your sales, technique, train your sales team into a sales force, then get in touch. But beware if I have a solution for you I will ask you to buy from me!
Now there’s a challenging thought.
