Sales & Marketing Consultant, Bestselling Author & Sales Conference Speaker

This blog is about marketing, and today we’re going to talk about the most fundamental aspect of marketing – how to sell. As a business owner, you undoubtedly know quite a lot about how to sell, and have likely been selling something, in one form or another, for much of your working life. However, it never hurts to revisit the basic, and maybe you’ll pick up something extra that you missed along the way.

In short, the keys to effective selling are knowledge and effort. If that sounds overly simplistic, allow me to explain a bit further.

Know Yourself, Know Your Customer, and Know your Competitor

The first step to successful sales is having a full range of knowledge, about your own company and product, as well as about your customer’s needs, and your competitor’s company and his products.

Every single time that you talk to a customer, you should start the day by researching their company. Strive to never give the same sales pitch to two different customers. Research each customer individually, and look for ways that a relationship with your company can bring them a unique benefit.

When customers are confronted by a salesperson who truly knows what they’re talking about, and who truly understand both their own company and the wider industry, they are automatically less defensive, and much more likely to walk away from the conversation one step closer to making a purchase.

Put in the Effort

Even more important than sales knowledge and techniques is putting in the full effort required to close a deal or make a sale. Never treat a customer like someone who you can do without; every time you make a sales pitch, you should tell yourself that there is no failure – that the company is on the line and you absolutely have to make this sale.

This is doubly important if you’re no longer directly involved in the sales aspect of your business, and you rely on others to do it for you. In your hiring and training processes, ensure that motivation is your primary goal. Never hire someone for sales based on their knowledge of the industry, however encyclopedic it may be. The determining factor in the success of a salesperson is their motivation level, and ensuring that they’re going out every day, meeting with clients, and taking the risks required to make sales.

These may seem like fundamental issues, but it is the fundamentals that make sales, and making sales makes companies.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

http://www.seanmcpheat.com

I’ve just got back from a 2 week vacation in Disney World, Florida and we had a blast!

And there were so many marketing and sales lessons to be had that I could write about 50 blogs on them.

But the overall lesson that I’d like to bring to your attention was how they made me feel as a customer.

I stand corrected, because they didn’t make me feel like a customer at all. They made me feel like a friend and that we were the only people in the resort.

And that’s the lesson…

Whatever you do, whether it’s your sales process, your customer service, no matter what it is, it should be geared around your client.

As consumers we all want and more importantly have a deep down desire to feel special and important. And we ultimately rate our experiences on the feeling that it gives us and in turn that creates an emotion that we associate with that experience and then we want to feel that emotion again and again!

So what are you doing to make your clients feel important and special?

Imagine that they were your only client. What would you do? How would you treat them? How could you surprise them?

How can you create the emotions associated with feeling like THEY ARE your only client?

If you have this mindset with all of your clients then you’re not going to go far wrong.

……..I’m booking Disney again next year by the way.

Happy selling

Sean

Sean McPheat

http://www.seanmcpheat.com

Check out some free Internet Marketing audios at my Internet Marketing Academy

Before you can make a sale you must put yourself in the shoes of your customer. From your own perspective as a salesperson you anticipate a need, illustrate the need, and inspire action. The product leaves your shelf permanently.

Things are much different from the viewpoint of a customer. When he or she decides to purchase a product he’s going to go through a very specific cycle:

• First he’ll decide he needs a product.
• Then he’ll go out and shop for it, comparing several different brands.
• He’ll then purchase the product.
• Afterwards, he’ll own and use the product until its lifetime ends.
• Finally, he’ll aim to replace the product.

It’s usually those last two points that most salespersons forget about. We are so excited about our products that we tend to be blind to the fact that they’ll eventually get old, stop working, and need to be replaced. I’m not talking about defects, either. I’m talking about good, old-fashioned wear and tear over the course of several years.

What will your customer do when his product finally reaches the end of its life? Will he come back to you for a replacement or upgrade or will he look to another company or brand.

The way you view the stages of the customer experience will significantly impact your future sales. You can either keep in touch and hope they still appreciate you enough to purchase from you again in the future, or you can relax and let your competitor sell his product as a replacement instead. The choice is really up to you, but I hope you choose the former!

Sean

http://www.seanmcpheat.com