Professional Selling Skills

Introduction - the following article provides a brief summary of the people issues to consider, the logical processes to follow and the sales techniques used in many larger sales driven organisations.  This has been produced where the typical scenario is a competitive and long sales cycle, with perhaps a large order waiting for the victor at the end. We have kept this article deliberately concise because too much 'sales jargon' can clutter the brain and create information overload.

Why is Professional Skills Important? - For new business start-up companies, the act of selling your company and yourself, is the number one priority.  Unfortunately, reading about professional sales skills on this (or indeed any other website) is never the same as actually doing it. Nether less, all small business owners have to sell to survive and thrive.  For the less experienced or nervous, practicing face to face selling through trial and error is essential.  Fear the cold calling, fear of asking for the order, fear of the unknown, is simply no excuse and may result in business failure.  As a small business person, if you are now in charge of your destiny for the first time, then get out there and sell, sell sell! - but please avoid the common pitfalls and mistakes!. Always remember, 'keep it simple, stupid'...

The Sales Cycle - the process of selling can be organised into logical steps which if properly understood, can help plan, monitor and review your sale campaigns. The main steps are as follows:-

• Define a Single Sales Objective (SSO) - it should always be (SMART) i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely .

• Define Buyers Business Requirements - following the first 'sales call' (see below), write down a specification of the buyer needs and wants during and after the meeting.

• Establish the Basis Of Decision/ Management Considerations - these are the reasons why they want to buy.

• Discover Background - understand the facts behind the current situation by asking lots of questions to qualify the opportunity.

• Submit a Proposal - a professional written short document outlining the various options and with a recommendation.

• Define Detailed Costs - of any solution, which ideally should include 3 options for the customer to choose from (as opposed to feeling boxed in with just one option).

• Clearly Establish the Business Benefits - always be clear about the differences between features, advantages and business benefits. Junior salespeople with verbal diarrhoea tend to use the 'scatter gun' features and functions approach without listening or turning these features into quantifiable and meaningful business benefits. You must be able to quantity and communicate your business benefits to the prospect, in terms of pounds, shilling and pence. If you can't explain to your prospect how your solution will make or save them time or money, your probably talking more about features and advantages than business benefits.

To make your job even harder, most buying decisions in large organisations tend to be dependant on the 'emotional wins' for the buyer, not business benefits. After all, its not their money they are spending - its the companies.  Business Benefits are product or service related; they describe the impact on the prospective customer business (lower total cost of ownership, increased efficiency, etc). Whereas 'Wins' are personal and describe how the prospective customer personally gains from the results i.e. (control of others/ subordinates, to be seen as the instrument of change, gain recognition, gets more leisure time). Wins are personal, non organisational, subjective and highly emotional). Remember that organisations obtain results, only people can win.

• Recommend an Implementation Plan - give the buyer some reassurance with a professional project plan. Let them own the implementation plan before closing. You could do this by asking them to amend the draft project plan. Use a project manager is possible to make it believable, realistically deliverable and include some contingency cost and time (to save you potential cashflow problems in the future)..

• Close the deal - always ask for this business. The customer is always waiting to be asked and may feel embarrassed asking how they go about placing an order.

  What Buyers are Looking for in You - the most important factor buyers are seeking is how you earn their trust. They are entering into a relationship. They are looking to see how well you behave during initial sales meeting, which will be taken as reflection of the quality of the delivery of your small business services. Buyers want to see you have prepared adequately, by coming armed with basic facts about the buyer or their company (that should have easily been investigated using market research beforehand). Buyers love to be educated so win their trust by being helpful and informative and creative from the beginning of the meeting. Always empathise with buyers concerns. If you know something they don't, never patronise or appear adversarial. Instead, respect their opinions by involving them in your thinking process. In addition, always listen before advising so you can convince them the issue is big enough to bother with. Any interruptions from the buyers should be gladly dealt with and welcomed, to avoid the ‘sales shpeel’ mentality of junior features and functions selling. Never rush into obvious closing techniques as most buyers, (whether experienced negotiators or not), will pick up on it and feel your more interested in the sale than their personal buying needs.

 The Sales Meeting - business owners must employ professional sales skills on a daily basis (even if its meeting with your bank manager to discuss an overdraft extension or small business loan). Yet most people fail to adequately plan a sales call meeting.  Try and invest some precious time in the basics to make your meetings more productive:-

• Preparation Prevents Poor Performance - (as the old sales adage goes), always prepare for all sales meetings with a written meeting plan. First, try and speculate the financial value your offering could represent for prospect buyer's company is implemented. Look at the impact on their business relative to the investment they must make. Keep things in perspective.  If what you're selling has minimal impact on their buyers overall business goals keep this in mind. In addition, to help prepare, obtain some background information to educate yourself on what the buyers company does… Gain basic facts before the meeting by analysing the prospects business in terms of its environmental threats and opportunities, discover their business objectives, products and services, competitors, financial performance, ownership, number of employees, structure, partners/ alliances. Most of this information in the public domain and can be easily obtained via their website, company reports, trade magazines and news reports.  Next, check you will be meeting with the correct person – do they have authority to raise a purchase order on the day? Confirm in writing a suggested agenda, so there are no surprises on either side. In the letter, always invite them to amend the agenda, so they ‘own it’ and feel they are in control of the proposed meeting. Your agenda must help to assist you in achieving your SMART sales objective.

• The Opening Statement - at the meeting (after the inevitable initial pleasantries), state your opening statement i.e. ““I am here to talk to you about your business needs, discuss possible solutions, provide an indication of how XYZ would tackle the problems as well as agree a way forward”. (choose your own words).  This may feel scripted and unnatural. However, it avoids meetings that lack business clarity and purpose and run the risk of reverting to a ‘comfortable chat’. If you are naturally shy or quiet, stating your objective at the beginning of the meeting helps boosts self confidence.  Anticipate possible objections and prepare counters for them. A useful tool is to prepare some matching case studies that resonate with the prospects situation.  From this point, follow your agenda to find out the specific business requirements of the prospect company.  There are a number of well established questioning techniques to achieve this such as S.P.I.N.  This involves establishing the facts of the situation, turning implied problems into explicit ones and gaining commitment through 'pay off' questioning.   However, it should be even more important to you to find out the 'emotional wins' of the prospect, by building trust and rapport....

• Building Rapport - when people are like each other they tend to like each other - if there is no rapport, a sales order is unlikely to follow.   We all use non verbal communications: tonalities, facial expressions, body postures, and physical actions to get our message across. To gain essential rapport, observe and listen to identify your clients preferred type of communication norms and then communicate in those norms back to them… . So (without trying to appear unnatural or overtly weird) subtly match and mirror the buyers tonality, keywords, language, tone, tempo and pace. In addition, matching their sitting position and breathing all helps to build rapport.   In addition we all speak in different ways; we talk about how we picture, say, and feel about ourselves.  For a fantastic in depth analysis on this area try reading UnlimitedPower from AnthonyRobbins. It is vital you listen to the language most commonly used by the prospect, in order to communicate back in their style of language.  To establish this, ask questions and listen to how your prospects:-

• Communicate Orally - "I saw this product at a trade show", or “I heard this product is the best", or “I just feel this product is best for me";

• View Situations - they will either being naturally 'moving away from' or 'going towards' people.  Simply ask them: "What's most important to you about this project?";

• Reasons with Possibilities - they will choose to act out of either necessity or possibility.  Ask: "what made you choose your last supplier?";

• Judge Their Effectiveness - ask: "How do you know when you've achieved the result you want?" - they will answer that they either seek assurance form others (external frame) or just made the decision themselves without any help (internal frame);

• Become Convinced - do they point out what's the same now as before or do they point out what's different .  Ask: “How do you compare this situation with that similar situation?"

• Make it Personal - take an active interest in the buyers own personal interests. Find out what their hot buttons are i.e. family names and ages, education, interests, where they live, come from, hobbies, political and moral attitudes, holidays, health, ambitions and so on. Take a real genuine interest and remember the answers and write them down after the meeting. Don’t be afraid to impart your personal interest to become a 'real person' not just a salesperson. Smile (and mean it). Be polite. Avoid highly divisive topics like politics as you may come unstuck very quickly.  Use first names if he or she asks, but start with Mr/ Miss to be safe.

  Telephone Objection Handling – of course, not all professional selling is face to face.  Many small businesses run telemarketing campaigns in their target markets, using limited in house resources or direct marketing organisations. Lets be honest, we all hate unsolicited cold calls from companies offering you the latest deals. So if your running the telemarketing campaign yourself, make sure you identify the right person to call  - especially if the purpose of the call is to obtain commitment for that all important foot in the door first meeting. Prepare your opening line carefully before you make the call to introduce yourself and your company… The general rule is to state the purpose of the call as soon as possible. Dispense with meaningless and time wasting small talk; buyer’s attention span is limited. Always confirm you heard and understand any possible objection they throw up to put you off. Do this by pausing, (to allow both of you to think and take a breath) then clarify and handle their objection with a valid explanation.  Always include a confirmation question at the end of the sentence. For instance, some common ones are:-

• I’m Not Interested - Mr Bloggs, I can understand you not being interested in something you have not had a chance to hear about. However, so you can judge this for yourself. WOULD YOU…

• I’m Too Busy - Mr Bloggs, I appreciate that you are a busy man, that is precisely why I am telephoning you for an appointment rather than calling on you on the off chance. WOULD YOU…

• Just Send Me Details - Certainly I will send you details Mr Bloggs, However, they won’t be of much value unless they are put into the context of your situation, that’s why this idea might be of value to you. WOULD YOU...

 Lastly, Some Gems of Wisdom...

• "Selling is about risk minimising"

• "Never confuse a sale with the facts"

• "Selling is about meeting people's expectations"

• "Never guess, ask"

• "Why be complicated when you can be obvious"

• "Procedures and processes complicate business"

• "The listener is always in control"

• "People do not buy from companies they buy from me"

• "Keep it simple - sell the Dream not the Product"      

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