Sales Tips
KoruTips™ - Every week we will provide you with a new sales tip, a new idea, a reminder, some best practice or a quote that will help you sell more, sell faster and sell better. You can get them here or to get them even more quickly sign up for the SalesPulse™ as we will publish them to all our readers. The tips are now available, so watch this space, or set up a Google Alert. In fact apart from setting up an alert for KoruTips™, you should set up an alert for your customers. In this way you will always be up to date with what is happening to your customer's business and will as a result find some new leads. KoruTips™ are organised into three sections so click on Sell More , Sell Faster , or Sell Better depending upon your requirement.
Top Sales Articles Click here to read some interesting articles from the leading sales gurus in the United States.
Sell More
Tip #1: Before you close a deal always do an internal check with your team, and ask is there anything else we can sell that will enhance the value of our solution for our customer?
Tip #2: Open up your website. You spend a lot of time and money developing your website, publishing material and optimising your key words. This investment gets people to your website, to the very page you want them and then………..nothing. Why? Here's a possible explanation.
We have carried out some research via accesses to our website and have found that people are significantly less likely to download material if they have to give their email address. This has been corroborated by independent US based research. If your material is good the reader will contact you. If it's not, having their email address is of little value.
Tip #3: When did you last ask your suppliers for a referral? They have customers who may need what you sell. It is sometimes worth more than another half percent off the price.
Tip #4: Do you confirm business by email? If so why not place an advertisement for associated products and services on your order confirmation. This is a proven way of gaining more business. (Source: Marketing Sherpa 2008)
Tip #5: Customers are not interested in your business they are interested in their business. Your propositions must always help improve your customers' business results.
Tip #6: When did you last send a concept paper to your customers? A concept applies your solutions to a customer's problems and is a good way of generating leads.
Tip #7: When did your Finance Director last give you a sales lead? FDs have huge amounts of strategic information about your customers that is not on your CRM system. Ask who the bad payers are, as they will have a problem either with you or with their cash flow. These circumstances present sales opportunities.
Tip #8: Never rush the customer or the sale. The hard sell puts at risk the lifetime value that a customer can bring to your company.
Tip #9: When times are tough existing relationships become even more important – focus on your customers.
Sell Faster
Tip #1: Qualification is to ensure that you maximise the use of your investment by only pursuing business you have a realistic, 60% or better chance of winning. There is only one wrong time to qualify out of a deal and that's when you've lost it! Throughout the sales process check your qualification criteria. If the “winability” is not increasing take a really good look before increasing your investment. Remember “Poor qualification is the thief of sales time ”
Tip #2: Get your value out early : By putting the value you bring to your customers on the table early you set the benchmark: you have established some barriers to entry thus reducing the competition and reducing the sales cycle. Value is simply:
- “What it is you can do for your customers”
- “Where you have done it”, and
- “What benefits the customer realized ”
This last point is key – articulation of real benefits and/or the return on investment are what matters to buyers.
Tip #3: Set stretching objectives for your sales calls . How often have you heard a sales person say “I wished I'd have asked for………” when they have just come out of a sales meeting. The failure may not be in the meeting it is in the planning for the meeting. The overarching objective of a sales call is to move the sales process and your position in it forward. Every sales call where the maximum progress is not made, means another call is necessary, and the sales cycle extended. To maximise the return from a sales meeting you have to determine your objective, and then create a stretching objective. For example If your first aim is to get your customer to agree to a reference visit, a stretching objective could be to get them to agree to put forward a board recommendation if the visit is a success, and prepare for the call appropriately.
Tip #4: Set an engagement timetable . Provided you're not in a prescribed tender process, another way of accelerating the sales process is to set a timetable. This could be:
- We will confirm your needs by…………
- We will put forward our proposal by……..
- We will demonstrate the benefits by…..
- etc
The great benefit of this approach is that it is a good test of the prospect's commitment – the sooner a decision is taken, the sooner the benefits can be realized – and if you can persuade them to adopt your plan then you know what you have to do to get to a reasonably quick decision.
Tip #5: Senior business people always have a wide contact network. If you have done a good job for a customer ask for a referral ; it will be one of the best leads you'll ever get .
Tip #6: To close deals, prospects must commit their time for your company, be it a presentation, a reference visit or a face to face meeting. If you have a prospect who will not commit their time, then they are not ready to buy.
Tip #7: To get your prospect's attention your opening statement should always articulate your value to them.
Tip #8: Our tip this time around is a quotation. It is a good one for you and your people to have on their partitions or office walls and it is about maximising the return from a sales call. You should always plan calls, be they visits or on the phone. "If you have accomplished all that you have planned for yourself, you have not planned enough ."
Sell Better
Tip #1: On your first customer sales call you should spend 90% of your time listening to the client , the other 10% should be spent asking questions and summarizing and agreeing your next actions. Remember this quote. “You can tell how clever a man is by his answers; you can tell how wise he is by his questions.”
Tip #2: The best sales people never stop learning. As John McEnroe says you learn more from losing than from winning. Always learn the real reasons why you, and your colleagues lose deals, and resolve to learn and practise from these experiences.
Tip #:3 Very few of us like cold calling but if you focus on quality and plan your cold calls as any other sales call your success rate will be higher.
Tip #4: A letter of complaint is a sales opportunity, not a problem. Fixing an issue promptly often causes greater customer satisfaction, than had there not been a problem at all.