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Selling
the Customer What the Customer Needs
(Not
What You Want)
In
the last issue of got sales?
I talked about Sam, an old acquaintance of mine.
Sam owned a small general store and suddenly found himself
competing with a couple of large department stores
(if you don't remember what he did, or if you forgot,
click HERE
for an archived copy of the Feb. 2004 issue). What
I did not discuss in that story was the first time
I met Sam.
The
first time I met Sam I had stopped in his
little general store while passing through town to buy some soda for
my
long car ride back home. His was the only store in
this very small rural town and he did a sizable
amount of business.
 As I walked down one of the
aisles to get to the refrigerated coolers in the
back where they kept the soda, I couldn't help but
notice that the shelves were loaded with
containers of salt for sale. There were salt
containers from the front of
the aisle to the back, from top to bottom, and on
both sides of the aisle. I couldn't
believe it, an entire aisle dedicated to just
salt.
I
grabbed a couple sodas and went to check out. As Sam stood there smiling
I said to him, "Excuse me, but I noticed you have hundreds and hundreds
of salts for sale." Sam simply said, "Yup. That's right."
So I said, "Well, you must be one heck of a salt salesman to sell that
much salt." Sam slyly responded, "Nope. Actually, I'm a terrible
salt salesman. But the guy who sold me all that salt, now HE was a great
salt salesman." Dumbfounded, I paid for my soda, went to my car,
and drove home.
Since
I had so much time to think during my long drive, I couldn't help but wonder
about how Sam's salt plight was so typical of customers who end up
purchasing something they don't really need. They purchase what the sales
person wants them to, which is not always what the customer really wants or
needs. Obviously, Sam did not need all that salt, but the salesman made a
good commission check on that sale nonetheless. Do you think that the sales
person who sold Sam all that salt has a snowball's chance in you-know-where
of EVER selling ANYTHING to Sam again? Of course not. If he sold Sam only
what he really needed at the time, he would have had a chance to develop a
relationship for life and, over that life-time relationship, he would end up
selling a lot more salt than he did in that one single sale.
This
is one of the biggest lessons in sales - Understand what the customer needs
and sell him the right solution for those needs. In doing so, you not only
have done right by the customer, but the customer will trust you and that is
how a relationship begins. Since customers are more knowledgeable, and even
sophisticated, in today's market, they are looking for sales people who are
more problem-solvers and planners who can work with them as a partner rather
than someone who is just trying to sell them something. Hence, sales reps
need to sell VALUE, not products or services. By developing your
relationship-selling skills you'll position yourself as a
partner who sells value, which will thus make you stand out from the normal crowd
of sales reps who are pushing products down their client's throats.
Relationship-selling
involves listening, instead of "telling". Asking the right
questions, shutting up, and carefully listening to the responses are the key
ingredients for doing this right. Prospects will tell you almost anything if
you show you care about them. The traditional "sales pitch" is now
replaced with an interview, with the goal of solving your prospect's
problems. By considering the prospect's bottom-line, instead of your own
quota, you create a win-win situation. By solving their problems, you will
get the sale and both of you will win.
In
a non-relationship selling environment, the sale rep spends very little time
in the early stages of the sales cycle. These stages include the initial
contact phase, where rapport needs to be built, and the qualification phase,
where it is established whether there's a good fit or not before wasting a
lot of time. As a result, that same sales rep ends up spending way too much
time presenting the solution, since they don't know exactly what the right
solution is. Hence, the negotiating and closing phases take proportionately
longer.
To
sell value and develop a relationship-selling environment, you need to
become a strategic partner who can bring value to the entire relationship,
right from the start. You also need to be easy to do business with. Don't
make every step a painful experience. Each step should be viewed as
something that is helping your prospect and driving them toward the
conclusion ("their" conclusion) that they would be crazy not to
purchase from you. If you are viewed as a valued problem-solver, then you
will actually help them make their decisions, which is what many customers
need. In other words, be part of their team.
Remember,
it's all about the customer, and not about what is best for you. So next
time, try positioning yourself this way instead of focusing on your own
needs. You'll end up selling a lot more salt than you ever did before.
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