Dead Man Talking

If you are in sales and you just keep on talking instead of listening, you're a DEAD MAN! Well, not literally, I hope. But as far as getting that sale, you might as well be walking among the non-living because chances are you won't win over that client. They say that if you cross Selling with Talking, you get Stalking. So let's not stalk our customers. Your goal should be to ask the right questions in order to get the prospect to talk as much as possible. The more they're talking, the more you're learning - learning about their needs, pains, requirements, and what it is that you might be able to help them with.

Listening is something that is not natural for many people since it is human nature to prefer talking. And when people talk, their favorite topic is...you guessed it... THEM! People love talking about themselves. If you don't believe that, try this little game next time you're on a cross country flight. Try asking the person sitting next to you open-ended questions such as, "What kind of work are you in?" and "What made you decide to go into that field" and "What sort of challenges do you find are most common in the work you do?" Watch how quickly they jump all over those questions. Why? Because they get to talk about their favorite subject - Themselves. I used to do this when I flew cross country for a couple of years and I would actually have said almost nothing the entire 5 hour flight, while my seating companion blabbered on the entire trip. It's fun to do this, albeit rather trying on the nerves. But it is an excellent example of  my point.

So why is listening so important? Well, for one, we already mentioned that people prefer talking to listening. So, as a sales person you are actually letting them do what they want to do the most. Second, listening builds trust by showing you have respect for them. Also, listening compliments people by showing that you care. These are all reasons for listening that benefit the talker, or your client. But what about you -- the sales rep. How can listening help you?

The secret to getting your prospect or client to tell you everything is to simply listen. Acquiring the skill of good listening will increase the amount of money you earn, period...end of story. As we mentioned earlier, you have to ask the right kinds of questions first to get them to talk to begin with. Ask open-ended question, or questions that don't require a simple yes or no response. Build more questions based on the responses you get from your previous question. Ask questions about their company, their customers, what sort of challenges they are experiencing, what they did in the past to try to resolve those problems, etc. Get them to open up, then shut up and listen. You will gather very valuable information that will help you make a sale by getting them to purchase the exact solution to the problems they just described. But how do you listen?

A very good listening technique is called "Active Listening". Active listening involves a bit of body language and verbal queues. When they are speaking, respond to certain points or topics with comments such as, "Really!", "No kidding!", "Wow!", "What happened then?", or "Tell me more." This creates an interaction, but without you having to actually say anything. It also shows that your are paying attention and interested. Also, listen with your body. Lean forward and toward the client to show you are interested. Never slouch or sit back looking too relaxed, else it will appear that you are bored and not listening. Take notes. Even if they are not very meaningful or helpful to you later, taking notes shows that you are interested enough to log parts of the dialog for future reference. 

Practice this at home. No, I don't mean talk to yourself in the mirror and wait for an answer. I mean try this out on your family and friends. Try these same techniques on them and two things will happen. First, you will hone your skills for when you are in a selling situation, and we now know how that will help. Second, your family and friends will realize that you really care and may actually say, "Wow, you are such a good conversationalist." when ironically, you were just being a good listener. So don't be a "dead man" (or woman) - Be a good listener and watch your sales increase.

For information on sales training, including listening skills, click HERE.

Sales Efficiency Vs. Sales Effectiveness

Ok, so you have yourself one of those fancy new sales automation products or CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems. And, your sales and marketing people are running as efficiently as a well oiled machine. Your new software can tell your sales reps exactly when to call their prospect. It also shows them all the correspondence and meetings and phone calls that have been going on with that prospect since the beginning of time, as well as who in your company has been interacting with that same prospect. Oh! You don't have a system to help your sales and marketing people to be more efficient? Well, that's the subject of another article and you may not want to keep reading this one. In fact, you might want to contact us right away so we can discuss the many ways we can help you. However, if you already have a CRM or SFA (Sales Force Automation) system that your people are using, you are only half way there.

You've helped make your people efficient by giving them the tools to know what to do and when to do it, and even what's been happening with their account. But they don't know HOW to do it. Therefore, you haven't addressed their effectiveness. Let me give you an example. Your CRM/SFA system alerts you, or your sales rep, to visit the VP of Manufacturing at your prospect today at 2:00. But it doesn't tell you how to address their unique problems or situations. It turns out that this call is to address the needs-assessment phase of the sales cycle and there is a specific product line you are trying to sell to this VP. There is a specific competitor, or two, that have certain strengths and weaknesses that you need to counter or exploit. Also, there are special pricing considerations this client will want. So, before the call, you need to be prepared. How effective will you be when you need to collect all the information your company has that is relevant to this specific sales situation? And, how effective will you be when trying to find other experts within your company who can help provide guidance and wisdom to help you, or to find other sales reps who have sold into this same situation? How can you easily tap into the experiences and expertise of other people without spending enormous amounts of time or wading through tons of literature? You'll either spend a lot of time doing the research yourself, or just skip it and hope for the best. Either choice is not a good one.

So what do we do? We need a tool that allows us to become very effective very quickly and that can work stand-alone and/or with our CRM/SFA product. That tool is StreetSmarts by Involve Technology, Inc. StreetSmarts enables salespeople to collect and share vital yet elusive wisdom quickly and easily. Heads of sales are constantly looking for ways to significantly increase the sales performance of their teams in key areas:

• Focusing on high-win prospects
• Effectively educating prospects on how they can meet their needs
• Clearly differentiating capabilities compared to the competition
• Building a business case so funding for the purchase will be approved
• Justifying the pricing to avoid excess discounting
• Providing current references
• Effectively cross-selling and up-selling to maximize the value
• Have all this happen as quickly as possible so as not to drag out the sales cycle

Few sales reps excel at all the tasks listed above, most excel at one or two. What would it be worth if your sales team could tap into the expertise that already exists within your company? What if a team of advisors could be with your sales reps and channel partners at all times? StreetSmarts does this for you.

To find out more, call us at (702)655-5652 or send us an email at info@peaksalesconsulting.com. You'll be very surprised how effective you and your sales team will be.