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

In today’s marketing world of high-powered ad campaigns and high-tech internet marketing, its easy to overlook to lowly telephone. However, this simple device is still the lifeline of most business, and its often the best way to communicate with current and future clients.

People respond much better to a phone call than they do to a lot of other sales devices. Not only is a phone call much more personalised than, say, an email or a Facebook wall post, but it gives you an opportunity to tailor your speech to what the customer wants to hear, and gives you an opportunity to overcome their objections.

However, as powerful a technique as the phone call is, it also provides you with considerably more opportunity to alienate your clients that you get with most other sales techniques. Follow these three techniques to optimise your results when calling clients over the phone.

Bypass the Guards

As they say in sales, timing is everything. This is true in the most literal sense when you’re dealing with telephone marketing. The time of the day that you call can make or break you chances of success.

If you are calling a new client while they’re at work, you run the risk of getting stopped by gatekeepers, particularly if they’re a busy professional or manager. Gatekeepers are the secretaries and administrative personnel who surround your potential client or partner, and insist on taking a message. Bypass them by calling after before 9 am or after 5 pm. They’ll have gone home, leaving your client to take calls for themself.

Avoid Calling Your Clients at Home

Lastly, you run a risky gambit by calling people at home after work. People’s schedules vary widely, and you can never be sure that you’re calling at an appropriate time when you reach someone at home during the week. Calling a client during dinner or while they’re unwinding later is one sure fire to ruin the relationship. Unless it’s an emergency, save it for the daytime or the weekend.

Always Smile

Its sounds silly, but make sure that you’re happy while you’re talking to your clients. You can project confidence and enthusiasm through the telephone, and a lot of this is controlled by whether you’re smiling and thinking enthusiastically about building the relationship or selling your product.

On this same note, make sure to sound professional. Even more so than in face-to-face conversation, you can’t rely on pauses like “um” and “uh” to break up your sentences in a telephone call, and you must remember to be polite, and fill your speech with “thank you” and other words of consideration.

By following these few simple tips, you can improve your existing client relationships, and build new ones, over the telephone.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

http://www.seanmcpheat.com

When it comes to making a purchase, many potential clients believe that the only grounds on which they can successfully negotiate a better deal is price. The truth, however, is that if you want to remain successful – especially in this economy – you’ll need to learn how to negotiate along an entirely different set of terms.

Realistically speaking, people want to believe they are helping themselves. Throughout the course of your meetings and phone calls you should have been gaining a better understanding of the troubles your potential client is having in his business. When he attempts to negotiate price, you should be prepared with a better response – one that does not damage your bottom line but does increase the value of your product to your client.

What does this mean to you in the long run? It means you’ll have a happier client, a happier wallet, and you’ll be able to remain consistent when it comes to the way you price your products and services – the latter being the most important. Always remember that your products are priced properly at the start for a reason. Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking otherwise. Instead, help them to find added benefit.

Sean

http://www.seanmcpheat.com

I know that I tell you over and over again that you should be prepared for anything when you walk into a sales meeting but today I’m going to take part of that statement back.

When you go on a sales call you should NOT walk in prepared to negotiate on your price. Don’t even consider it before the meeting.

It is, of course, ok to consider it later on if it becomes absolutely necessary to making the sale but here’s the problem. The average salesman, upon deciding in advance to lower his price, will actually do so at some point during the meeting whether he is really pressed to do so or not. He already has the lower price in mind and he thinks it’ll drive the sale. Wrong.

The product you are offering is solid and valuable. Why do you need to discount it? No reason? I didn’t think so.

Besides, if you discount your products every time you make a sale you will end up taking away from your own commissions. Surprised by that? Don’t be. Did you really think your employer would want to give the discount out of his portion of the profit?

Negotiation is a great tool – when it’s appropriate. Be prepared to negotiate on other points (services, accomodations, etc) but don’t make a decreased price part of your thought process. Doing so will only hurt your bottom line.

Sean

http://www.seanmcpheat.com