Confident Closing Archives | Page 7 of 8

“Most of the time, the solution to sluggish sales isn’t more time, it’s more productive time so you start with analysis and move onto strategy and action.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

What’s Working in Your Sales and Marketing?

As a sales trainer and coach I spend a lot of time working with individuals, teams, and groups and the same questions come up quite regularly even from high performing business owners, sales professionals, and others.

As you know if you’ve been following me for any period of time, I’m not a fan of pushy sales techniques or forcing people to buy things they don’t need just so that you can meet your sales targets. My strategy is to help you get in front of people who do need what you are offering and showing them why it’s a good decision to buy… Or not to buy after all, if that’s what you see.

The problem is that if you can’t answer the question, “What’s working in your sales and marketing?” then you don’t know where to start.

How Do You Know That?

If you didn’t answer the question above with some cold, hard numbers about your sales then you don’t have the information you need to make strategic sales and marketing decisions.

Let’s take an example from one of my clients for last year:

23 appointments, 17 clients and $294,600 from referrals
31 appointments, 8 clients and $187,000 from networking
11 appointments, 5 clients and $201,000 from public speaking
28 appointments, 3 clients and $93,000 from book and course sales
40 appointments, 7 clients and $59,000 from articles, social media, and podcasts
… etc.

Most of the time, when you run the numbers, you’ll discover that you’re getting about 80% of your sales from 20% of your activity… But often it’s not the 20% you were expecting.

The client I referenced above had assumed that articles, social media, and podcasts were a great investment of time because they created a lot of activity, but when we ran these numbers he realised that it wasn’t delivering the results he had expected.

What Are You Focusing On?

The reality is that we’re all busy people, faced with competing demands on our time and energy. Since I don’t know anyone who has managed to add more than 24 hours to their day, we need to look at how to use what we have more effectively because there’s only so many hours of sleep and recreation you can cut back on.

The fastest and easiest way to get more done in less time is to focus on two things:

Determine which activities deliver the greatest return on time and energy invested and do more of those; and
Decide what you can do to streamline qualification processes so you can get more sales from less time and energy intense processes.

What Will You Change Now?

My client from the example identified several ways to leverage his time and energy including:

Identifying low-profit buyers and funneling them into a more automated qualifying process;
Refining his elevator pitch so that he elicited greater interest from qualified buyers;
Improving his sales conversation skills and rapport-building so that his appointment close rate for qualified prospects was over 86%;
Developing his prospect qualification process so that he rarely met with prospects who couldn’t or wouldn’t buy;
Refining his “New Client Welcome Kit” so that he spent less time answering generic questions.

Some of these initiatives are still in the making, but overall his profits increased dramatically and he was able to spend more time with his family and training his staff.

“The foundation of everything you go after (and you should have ridiculously large goals at all times) is simply… being a good animal.”

~ John Carlton

What’s Working in Your Sales and Marketing?

The problem is that if you can’t answer the question, “What’s working in your sales and marketing?” then you don’t know where to start.

Using Everything You Have to Achieve Your Goals and Meet Targets

You want to reach your goals, don’t you?

Of course you do, or else you wouldn’t be reading this page. There’s a lot of advice out there about setting goals (I’ve shared some of my favourite goal-setting and goal-getting techniques in other posts on this sites). But many goal-setters skip a key element even if it’s included in the technique and that’s like trying to cook a meal with one hand tied behind your back.

Here’s what you may be missing in both your goal setting and sales…

Your senses… all five of them!

Sight
Hearing
Touch
Smell
Taste

As anyone who has impaired (or abnormally heightened) function in any of these senses knows, the malfunction of our sensory inputs can make life very difficult and increase our stress and anxiety levels… And putting all of them to use can dramatically improve our communication and goals setting outcomes.

Are You Ignoring Obvious Cues?

Lets look at two important business applications of this reality:

Motivation: If motivation is a problem ask yourself how well you’re engaging all 5 of your senses in both your goal-setting and your daily action plan. With some quick sensory engagement you can transform your results and reduce the quantity of will-power and energy required to keep the wheels turning.
Conversations & Sales: Sensory awareness is crucial for the successful communication that is at the heart of long-term sales relationships. When you also engage with others on a multi-sense level you can seriously increase your close rate and decrease the anxiety prospects and new clients may otherwise experience.

There’s a reason why successful sales professionals like to visit prospects’ premises: they pick up a lot of sensory clues. And there’s a reason why many of them also like to bring prospects into their own professional environment if they’re on the fence about their investment (and why coffee shops and serviced offices are not the best choice for this interaction) that has everything to do with professionalism, reinforcement, and plain sensory control.

You see, at the end of the day, no matter how objective we pride ourselves on being, as humans we’re also animals who are susceptible to sensory inputs.

A Simple Practice

Here’s a simple goal setting and motivation practice for you to test (And don’t worry you can do it at your desk or when you take a bathroom break without anyone noticing.)

Here’s what to do:

Shut your eyes and take three deep breaths (In-2-3-4-Out-2-3-4);
Keeping your eyes shut listen carefully and notice any sounds that are around you starting very close and gradually letting your awareness extend to a greater distance;
With your eyes shut notice any sensations within your body – then notice the feeling of your body as it touches your chair and your feet on the floor etc;
Still with your eyes shut breath in deeply through your nose and notice any smells that are around you. You don’t need to identify them, just become aware of their existence;
Now, with your eyes shut open your mouth and taste the air as you breathe in and simply focus on your sense of taste (something we rarely do unless we are consciously eating or tasting wine);
If you’re setting a goal or seeking motivation for a task… Create a multi-sensory experience of the achievement you’ll feel when it’s finally completed (or when the next part of it is done);
Finally, just before you open your eyes notice the quality of light falling on your eyelids and then open your eyes and notice afresh the visual details of your surroundings. Really look at them with attention.

Now start your next task or continue what you were doing and notice how your approach has shifted. If you add some movement and a few quick stretches this quick reset will be nearly as effective as a nap or a workout and see you ready to leap into action.

Human Beings Have Sensory Triggers…

There’s a reason why real estate agents encourage owners to bake bread or cookies before an Open House inspection. There’s also a reason why truly successful professional practices choreograph their offices carefully and select decor, fragrance, reading material, and even snacks for waiting prospects. It’s not just because they have highly developed aesthetic preferences, it’s purely and simply to reinforce their message and help qualified prospects buy.

You can use sensory triggers to improve your own productivity and you can also use your sensory triggers to engage more effectively with your ideal prospects and clients by watching and listening to them carefully and by creating a multi-sensory sales process.

Sense, Cents, and Sales

Ready to Confidently Close more sales without discounting or eroding your margins? Yes, it does involve increasing sensory awareness.

The PBA Live Sales Masterclass is included in the 13-week Profitable Business Accelerator enrolment, but there are also a limited number of ‘Live Day Only’ seats available for individuals or teams who want to take their selling skills to the next level.

Book Now

Interested in the 13-week Profitable Business Accelerator program?

Learn More About the 13-week PBA Program

“What you focus on changes your behaviour – for better or worse.”

~Chandell Labbozzetta

The Angle Changes the Meaning

I love drawing and sketching. It’s fun looking at ‘ordinary items’ from different perspectives because the angle you are viewing from affects how you see them and changing your perspective can complete change their meaning.

It’s the same in our lives. When you take a different angle on a familiar situation or behaviour you often discover something completely new. This is particularly powerful when it’s a question of addressing situations or people which cause you frustration because an apparently minor shift can create totally new possibilities.

Shift Behaviour by Changing Your View

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) there is a simple technique that helps you shift your focus. Traditionally, it is used to help resolve inter-personal conflicts but it is also helpful in problem solving because it helps you look at your problem through new eyes which then opens up the possibility of new solutions.

Recently, I was at a personal development course and we were exploring our attitudes and reactions through a series of games that challenged us to shift our focus. The exercise forced me to look at my behaviour from different angles, and that simple shift caused it to change… in an empowering way.

What fascinated me most is that the change was brought about not by focusing on changing the behaviour itself, but simply by shifting my point of view.

A New Perspective Creates Unimagined Possibilities

Think about what this could mean for you (and for the world).

It’s a common aphorism that the thinking used to create a problem cannot also be used to solve it, therefore…

If you would like to find innovative solutions that may not require as much compromise, you need to step away from your current approaches and look for something new.

So, here’s a question for you: are there situations or behaviours you would like to change (or need to change), or so that in twelve months’ time you can look back and say, “Wow! I can’t believe how far I have come!”?

If so…

What Would It Take to Create a Completely Different Solution?

Here at LifePuzzle we believe that when a problem is created, a solution that is within your control is also created. Over the years we’ve worked with companies, teams, and individuals and helped them transform their outcomes… Even when change seemed impossible.

One of the characteristics of human beings is our ability to adapt and grow. When you realise that the reality you experience today isn’t something that has to be true tomorrow you are ready to take personal responsibility for change.

In our Corporate and Team programs we don’t just work with the group as a whole, we also work with individuals because each person has the potential to be the difference that makes the difference.

It all starts with a HOWTO Session that brings clarity and helps you focus on what you really want so that you can make the decisions you need to make. Book your session soon!

Book Your H.O.W.T.O. Session

When people ask me in sales trainings how they can turn their no’s into yes’s, I get a creeped-out feeling because the underlying assumption is often: How can I manipulate everyone into saying ‘yes’ to my sales pitch? And those are the kind of sales techniques that make sales people feel scummy.

The truth is that you want people to say no if your product or service isn’t right for them and you always want people to know that they can say, ‘no’ if the product doesn’t fit their needs or their budget. However, if you’re hearing a lot of no’s from prospects who really are qualified candidates then there are two underlying problems you need to consider.

The Two Main Reasons that People say ‘No’ are…

Certainty: I’m not confident that your product or service is really the solution I need; and
Trust: I’m convinced about the solution, but I’m not sure you are the right person to deliver it.

Either of these can be deal breakers… or at the least deal delayers, so it’s important to look at where those objections are coming from.

In the 13-week Profitable Business Accelerator course and with many of my private coaching clients we work on exactly HOW you can increase the levels of both trust and certainty in prospects to make it easier for them to say ‘yes’ with confidence.

Increasing Certainty

This affects your prospect’s confidence in your value proposition and reduces rejection on the basis of doubt and fear about your solution.

Indications that you need to work on building more certainty into your presentation are:

Questions about price;
Technical questions about specific features and benefits;
The prospect is looking at different solutions to the problem (rather than different solution-providers)

You can increase certainty in the value of your solution through your elevator pitch and your presentation. You know that you’ve done a good job (or that your solution doesn’t fit) when your prospect’s focus changes from “What will I do?” To “Who will I get to provide this solution?”

Increasing Trust

This relates to your prospect’s confidence in your ability to actually provide the solution. It may be based on their perception of your capacity and expertise, the degree of relationship and rapport they have with you, and their existing relationships with other providers of the same solution.

Indications that you need to work on developing more trust through your presentation are:

Questions about capacity and timing;
Questions about process;
Indications that they are talking to (or plan to talk to) other providers of the same solution.

You should work on increasing the level of trust you engender by ensuring that your appointment-setting script and follow up process builds your prestige and fosters relationship; that you presentation materials highlight your expertise, and by changing your proposal and post-appointment follow up process.

Learning how to build relationships that foster both certainty and trust is vital for your career as an influencer and high performer so if you’re hearing a lot of no’s during your week (sales, relationships, career etc), identify where they are coming from and take the necessary steps to engender more certainty and trust in those around you.

Once you do this, you’ll find it’s much easier to get to ‘yes’ and your sales closing rate will skyrocket.

… but you can change that.

“The only person over whom you can and should have total control is yourself. Don’t give that autonomy away… especially to people you don’t like.”

Have you ever said things like,

“I will clean the bathroom when my husband stops leaving his toothpaste on the bench?”
“I will wash the dishes when my kids stop leaving dirty dishes in the sink.”
“I will forgive my mum when she apologises for making my life hell.”
“I will talk to my brother when he stops telling lies about me.”
“I will raise my prices when the economy improves.”

Ok, so your version may be slightly different to the examples above and could well involve serious physical and emotional harm, but I hope they’ve got you thinking about the ways that you are making your transformation dependent on someone who doesn’t care about your happiness or doesn’t realise that you are dependent on them for happiness.

If you often say things like this, then you are dangerously vulnerable because you have made your happiness dependent on someone over whom you have no control. Even worse, that ‘someone’ is often either impersonal (“the economy”), uninterested in whether you write a bestseller or not (“your kids”), or potentially malicious (the perpetrator).

Don’t Make Your Happiness Dependent on Someone Else!

The truth is, the only person’s behaviour and attitude you can change or control is your own. Unless you have the force of the law behind you, you can’t make anybody apologise, repay, or otherwise recompense you for any damages that you have suffered… and outcomes-at-law are often disappointing as families of murder victims often discover.

If that’s the case, then doesn’t it make sense to ask how you can control and change your own outcomes, without waiting for someone else to take the initiative? And, doesn’t the thought that you could control your own destiny and well-being excite you?

Tough Situations Can Be Overcome

Before I tell this story, I want to make it 100% clear that I’m not justifying abuse, violence, war, or other horrors. Sadly, they happen… and our best efforts don’t seem to do much to stop them. The past is past, we can only change the present and (indirectly) the future. I’d be betraying my own integrity if I didn’t share what I know about setting people free from PTSD, trauma, and other emotional chains.

One of my clients had been abused by a relative when she was 8 years old. She was 48 when we started working together and the scars of that abuse were affecting her work, her marriage, and her kids, as well as her health. During our initial H.O.W.T.O. Session I asked her if she really wanted to release the hurt and anger she had been carrying for so long. She said, “Yes,” so we went straight into a Time Line Therapy® process.

Thirty minutes later, she walked out of my office looking 10 years younger. Over the next few months as we continued to work on the habits and thought patterns she had developed every area of her life started to change for the better. Her health improved, her relationships with her husband and children were transformed, and opportunities opened up at work where previously she had been frustrated.

As she said, “Chandell, I realised during the H.O.W.T.O. Session that I’d been letting this evil man control my life for forty years! As if his original actions hadn’t been damaging enough! I love what’s happening in my life now, but mostly I love the fact that using Time Line Therapy® I didn’t have to dredge through the memory in order to release it. Before that process I don’t think there was a waking hour when he didn’t come to mind, since then, I’ve got bigger and better things to focus on.”

To the best of my knowledge she’s never met her abuser again, so she never got the satisfaction she’d clung to all those years, but she’s free of his power anyway and she’s gone on to do amazing things!

No-one Will Ever Know… or Will they?

“I’m great at covering up my feelings, so my boss will never know I can’t stand him.”

“My husband will never know how angry I feel…”

“My sister-in-law won’t know how much I despise her…”

In NLP we talk a lot about the role of physiology in communication. Your physiology includes your deportment, your facial expression, and your tone of voice. If you are angry, resentful, anxious or in any way secretly unresourceful others will detect it. They may not know what they are picking up, but they will know that something is incongruent and they will respond appropriately.

Therefore, quite apart from the fact that you’ll feel much better about

yourself,
your life,
and the situations you are facing,

It’s important to deal with your negative emotions and limiting beliefs for the sake of your communication and relationships with others.

This is Not Just a Personal Issue… it Affects Your Sales

In my book, “Confident Closing: sales secrets that grew a business by 400% in six month and how they can work for you” I talk about the fact that we’re all in sales. Everyday you need to sell your ideas, opinions, skills, and knowledge to friends, family, and colleagues even if you aren’t officially in a ‘sales’ position. Your happiness does depend on your ability to this successfully.

Unacknowledged limiting beliefs are often the reason why you fail to sell yourself and your ideas. Your listener or prospect picks up on your secret thoughts of inadequacy and you end up sabotaging your outcomes without realising it.

Visualise your greatest dream or highest goal:

On a scale of 1-100, how convinced are you that you will achieve it?
If you didn’t score 100%, what or who might stop you from achieving it?
When did you decide that?
Now ask yourself, what is there about this situation that I can control and what do I need to let go of to make that happen?

Most people will make excuses for themselves and provide reasons why they can’t move forward. If that describes you, then you have some issues you need to deal with so that you can achieve your goals faster and with less friction. If you’d like some help or want to learn more visit the Personal Breakthrough Session page on this site or email Ken: support@lifepuzzle.com.au and ask him to send you information about booking a Time Line Therapy® session with Chandell. This powerful technique can help you quickly and easily disperse the negative emotions and limiting beliefs that are standing between you and your goals.

You Are Much More Than You Think You Are…

but maybe you’re choosing to live as though you were even less!

Our words shape our beliefs, and our beliefs affect our behaviours. If you believe that you are:

‘Just a mum’
‘Not good with money’
‘Bad at communicating your desires’
‘No good at selling’
‘Unable to sustain a successful relationship’
‘Just another…’ [accountant, photographer, business coach, web developer, surgeon…]

… then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of how you see yourself, and how you project yourself to others. The words you use to describe yourself reinforce that projection every time you speak them.

It’s a chicken and egg relationship. Your beliefs affect your outcomes and your outcomes influence your beliefs and you can either let yourself get trapped in that cycle or you can choose to step out of the cycle and evolve into your best self.

Defining Who and What You Aspire to be

You are in the process of becoming what you aspire to be and that raises two questions:

Are your aspirations challenging you to be, do, and have more than you currently are? and
Is there more that you could aspire to?

This is not about creating discontent and dissatisfaction with your life per se. It’s about challenging yourself to lift your vision and live into your potential rather than being trapped by your current circumstances and beliefs. It’s about the reality that whatever you think you are in this moment, you are more than that.

You’ve heard the stories about the amazing feats of endurance, strength, and heroism people perform in moments of urgency. These are all feats that they would never have imagined themselves capable of, but which emerged under pressure. Equally inspiring are the parents and carers who watch the suffering of a child and tirelessly minister to their needs beyond the point of physical or emotional endurance. If asked in advance, most of them would say, “I could never do that.” Yet they do because in the moment they expand their image of themselves.

You don’t have to wait for a crisis to initiate this process of growth, you simply have to make the decision that you are ready to change. My mum demonstrated this possibility thinking once she realised how her language and beliefs were keeping her trapped in her reality.

She used to frame her defeat in words like, “I worked so hard, and look at what I’ve ended up with! I’m just no good with [whatever the specific area of defeat might be].”

Once she realised what she was doing to herself she changed both her words and her thinking to reflect the possibilities in her life.

You Are Much More Than You Think You Are!

Mum had shut off the idea that she could be good at numbers and make enough money to do more than pay the bills in primary school and, of course, money has to do with numbers. Every time she talked to herself she cemented the belief that she “just wasn’t good with numbers.” That belief system was cemented into her behaviour and overflowed into her business and finances.

Maybe for you it isn’t numbers and money, but I’d be willing to bet that you have some beliefs about yourself that are stopping you from taking the actions needed to be the person you want to be and do the things you want to do. In my NLP Master Practitioner trainings we do an exercise based on the principle of “re-identification”. It’s a transformative exercise that helps students think about the:

Words they use to describe themselves and their abilities,
Way those words and phrases affect their actions and decisions,
New words and phrases that describe the person they want to be.

All the students who fully engage in this process notice changes almost immediately in their choices and behaviours which positively affect their results.

If you’ve decided that you’re not good at something or that you have limitations that keep you from achieving your goals, then that decision becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the same time, when you change those beliefs you open up new opportunities and outcomes.

By opening yourself up to the possibility that you could do or be something and change the language you use around that possibility you can make choices that will turn that possibility into living truth. The biggest difference between the prosperous business owner (successful parent, author, speaker, athlete, …) and the wannabe is not talent or luck. It’s the choices they made along the way about how they behaved and who they were.

Act as if...

Take a moment to think about WHO you want to be, WHAT you want to have, and HOW you want to behave then CHOOSE the words you use to describe this, words that focus on your aspirations, so that you are open to new possibilities.

My Mum worked hard to change the language she used from the constraint-focus of: “I’ll never be…” to the possibility-focused “I’m in the process of becoming…” or “I’m stepping into…” Using this principle, she would ‘act as if’ she were already the person she wanted to become.

The words you use when you speak to yourself matter as much as, or even more than, the words you use when you speak to other people because you spend much more time speaking to yourself than you do to others. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) acknowledges the reality of the connection between the wiring of our brain and the language that shapes that wiring.

No matter who you think you are, you are far more than you think… so let the words you use to describe the person you are reflect the truth that you are constantly becoming more and opening up new horizons of being and doing.

... Because it is Hurting Your Business

Harry Potter found his invisibility cloak extremely useful… but you don’t want to wear yours.

An invisible business is in big trouble. So is a forgettable business.

So, how do you make yourself and your business memorable?

The answer:

You reach out and tweak the emotional response of your target audience… just about any emotional response will do: anger, fear, insecurity, laughter, happiness, irritation, nostalgia…

Memorability Beats Sophistication

Do you remember any of the marketing jingles you heard years ago?

Every time I clean the bathroom I think of the Spray ’n Wipe ad that starts, “The cleaning it was easy, even though things were real greasy…” I can still hear my Mum singing it… frequently with a few variations that had my brother and I rolling on the floor squealing with laughter… and the laughter still wells up in me, too.

Maybe you remember, “We’re happy little Vegemites…” or “You’ll live much more, with a roller door…” or one of the others. Unsophisticated… maybe. Annoying… perhaps. Effective… definitely.

I’m confident that if I played a few bars of the jingle, I could get you to sing along. Even if you skipped a few words the product would be clear in your mind. I won’t even bet on the outcome, because that would be stealing. I’ve tried it at events and it works every time.

Does Your Pitch Evoke That Response?

It should. And to create that response, you need to strike an emotional chord, and you need to repeat your message regularly… long after you are sick of hearing it.

A response… any response is better than blank stares.

Look, successful politicians have their haters as well as their fans because they stand for something recognisable.

You will know that you’re really onto something that stands out when you start getting hate-mail as well as fan mail.

So the question is… when you share your sales message do you get polite responses or do you get enthusiastic interest and questions?

It’s often not until you start to think about how you want to make your ideal clients feel and what you can do to evoke that feeling that you come up with a marketing message that is truly memorable… because it evokes emotion.

Lead Generation

If you want to close more sales, then your best tool is to have a USP and Elevator Pitch that creates an emotional response in your prospect. Hey, if they throw up when you point out their problem it means you’ve struck a nerve… and they probably won’t forget you in a hurry.

When you focus on the primary emotion your ideal prospects need to feel just before they buy and craft a pitch that evokes that, you’ll get more opportunities to have meaningful sales conversations and that means you’ll end up with more sales.

Maybe you want prospects to feel:-

a sense of trust
warm, secure, and comfortable
challenged
angry or frustrated
confident
or….

Does your current USP evoke this kind of reaction? If not test new variations on every prospect and customer until you find a USP that does. Existing customers like to feel an emotional response too. If you meet this need, you’ll keep them longer. They’re also more likely to refer you to others if they feel enthusiastic (or even angry about their problem) than if they just feel a dogged neutrality.

“We buy on emotion…. Then we use logic to justify our decisions (especially to our spouse or business associates.”

Ask yourself:

If I heard my USP would I get excited about my offer?
Would it evoke curiosity & enthusiasm?

If not, it’s time to revisit your USP this weekend and add some emotional zing. Keep working on it until even your family members are fascinated when you tell them what you do.

It’s one of the first things that we work on in the 13-week Profitable Business Accelerator because it can quickly transform your sales closing rate from 20% or less into 80% or higher and immediately affect your profits.

You can learn more and find out when the next program is starting here:

https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

Transforming the Way You Think About What You Do

Have you ever made a comment in passing, only to have the other person jump on it with great enthusiasm as though the ordinary (to you) item you mentioned was a ground-breaking insight?

I was talking to a client the other day and she was telling me her internal struggles with the idea of raising prices and how she’d fought against my advice to do so because she felt inadequate even though she often had people say how marvellous her work was and how it changed their life.

In her words:

“It wasn’t until I actually followed the strategy you laid out for me that I realised how much more impact I created when I charged higher prices in the context of everything else you helped me set up.

Suddenly my clients paid more attention and followed instructions better… so guess what? Their results multiplied and my business grew even faster!”

The trigger was my simple statement:

“For you, it’s second nature. For others, this is life-changing.”

Here’s the deal, when you don’t put yourself out there and share your expertise because you assume that people already know the information you have, you’re not merely depriving yourself of sales and opportunities, you’re preventing other people from moving ahead and solving their problems too… and that’s a serious problem!

You probably remember the old saying: “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

It’s a dramatic way of stating that we’re all different and therefore, you should never underestimate the unique value you deliver to your clients.

At the same time, never underestimate the value that others can deliver to you and don’t just measure things in $ terms.

When you give yourself real credit for the value you deliver to clients there’s an almost magical transformation that takes place in yourself and your business. I’ve noticed that the week we work on this in my Profitable Business Accelerator is often the week that everybody reports a shift in their profits and other measures of success.

So ask yourself the question today:

“What is something that is second nature to me, that would deliver huge value to others who don’t know what I know?”

… if you can’t think of anything immediately, I can guarantee that you are shortchanging yourself and undermining your own confidence.

We Don't Give Ourselves Enough Credit

Often, the things that come easily to you are highly valued by your colleagues and clients. If you reflect on what specific things these are, you will feel motivated and appreciated and you will find that others will accept your ideas and proposals more easily.

Accelerate Your Sales Challenge

This week commit to spending at least 10 minutes before you start each workday making a list of all the things you can think of that add value to your clients. Review your list and keep adding to it each day.

… Tip: stick with it for a full 10 minutes (set a timer) even if you are sure there is nothing to add. The review will cement what you already know you are good at that adds value in your mind, and once your unconscious mind know that you are going to persist anyway it will offer more positive contributions.

#TuesdayTips

This is the final part of a detailed look at the 5-Step Sales Process. So far we have looked at the importance of :-

Building Rapport; [Link to #20]
Asking Questions; [Link to #21]
Establishing Need & Value-Add; [Link to #22]
Proposing a Solution; [Link to #23]

– and now we will look at Closing the Sale – the part that puts the money in your pocket and commits you to doing the work.

Closing the sale doesn’t happen in a vacuum. In fact, by the time you have completed step #4 you should know quite clearly whether or not you are going to make the sale. If you find yourself losing sales at this point then you need to look closely at what you are doing in the previous steps. Maybe you are not listening hard enough in the early part of the discussion, or maybe you are rushing ahead to the close.

I always love it when we get to this part of the Confident Closing workshops and participants share about their experiences with closing. We had one that was extremely fascinating with two participants who had the same results (low sales closure rates) for completely opposite reasons. One man said that he was surprised when he walked away without closing a deal because prospects were always very, very interested in his product throughout the presentation, but when it came to the final decision they weren’t buying. We went through his sales presentation process as a role-pay exercise and then I asked the group, “Why doesn’t he close more sales?”

The answer came back immediately, “He never asked for the sale.”

The participant was amazed. “You wanted the product. You could see it’s value to your business. You told me that all the way through.”

“Yes, but you never told me how I could buy it or asked me to make a commitment. I almost felt like a dog that was being teased with a treat.”

It took a few minutes to convince him, but he finally realised what his problem was. “Wow! I’ve wasted so many opportunities just because I assumed that it was obvious that people should buy.”

I met with this man a few weeks later and he said, “Chandell, Confident Closing was amazing – totally worth the 2-days I invested in it; but it was those few minutes after I presented my sales pitch that have really transformed my business. I’ve changed my close rate from around 15% to over 80% just by adding 2 sentences to my pitch. ‘Do you think that would be of value to your business?’ and ‘Would you like to buy this?’ I can’t believe how much money I used to throw away.”

Anyway, we moved from this man’s sales process to one of the other men in the room. My first impression of this second man was, “Why has he come to Confident Closing? Surely he is already a fantastic sales person.”

It turned out that his closing rate was terrible, and I found that hard to believe, so when we came to the demonstration I asked him to come up and demonstrate his sales pitch. The woman he was selling to had a hard time answering any of his questions – because he kept answering them for her – and he arrived at the closing portion within about 4 minutes of starting his pitch after totally missing the boat on every single one of the preceding 4 steps.

By the time he asked for the sale (which he did brilliantly), he had told her 15 generic reasons why she needed his service for her business (most of which did not apply to her); he had not discovered anything particular about what she did and he’d offered about 4 solutions that were clearly generic. She had no reason to buy, and no interest in doing so, but he spent quite some time trying to persuade her.

He accepted the feedback, but clearly didn’t understand what people meant, so I offered to show him what it felt like. I used his exact tactics to sell him one of my programs (not a strategy I would EVER use in real life). After about 8 minutes he turned to us with a hunted look in his eyes. “I see what you mean. I feel as though I’ve been bludgeoned with a blunt axe and I don’t ever want to meet you again. There’s no way I would ever say ‘yes,’ to your offer, no matter how appealing it was.”

It was a very enlightening process for everyone in the room. This second man came back to a later training with me and he had completely revamped his sales process. The biggest lesson he learned was that if you spend enough time on the first 4 steps, you don’t need to bludgeon anyone into buying at step 5. When you ask for the sale, your ideal clients will simply agree to buy, and the others will go away with no regrets.

Do you have a favourite selling process? How is it working for you? Tell us about it in the comments.

Meta Description: Your sales conversation went really well, and you were sure that your prospect was going to buy, but you walk away without a firm deal. What happened? How can you make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Book your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session with Chandell.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

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At this point in your conversation you want to reflect all the issues your prospect has highlighted as being important back to them. You also want to discuss how your product or service addresses these issues and resolves the problems they are facing in detail. This is not the time for a quick 5 point summary, but is a serious presentation of value. Your specific solution is what the prospect will buy, so you need to remind them of the value that each part of the solution will bring to their business.

Price will enter the discussion, but if you have stacked the value up for them then they price will be seen in the context of the return on investment they can expect – and that return could be in many forms – financial, time, peace-of-mind. Most quality buyers won’t make their decision on price alone. Clearly price is a factor – sometimes a business just can’t afford your solution – but more often then not, if the value is stacked high enough and there is enough convincing proof that it works, then your prospect will find the money needed to purchase.

Pricing and payment plans are just one more way you can customise your solution to fit your prospect’s needs without diminishing your profitability. You’d be surprised at just what people can afford when the payments are split over a few months or some other installment option.

In our Confident Closing Workshops we go over the importance of stacking the value when presenting your solution and helping your prospect to really experience the benefits your product offers. After doing this exercise many of our students go away feeling that they are seriously under-charging their clients once they have stacked up the benefits. Some of them have doubled or tripled their prices and found that they actually get more people taking up their offers.

Have you tried stacking up the value and tailoring your solution for your clients? Did it change their responsiveness to price and their interest in your product or service?

Let us know in the comments.

Meta Description: A tailored solution that solves my problem is almost irresistible for most people. Generic solutions are harder to sell at all, and certainly don’t attract premium prices.

Presenting a Customised Solution

Now that you have built rapport, asked questions, and established your prospect’s need for your product or service it is time to propose a solution before asking for the sale. This is where many businesses fall down and lose their way – they offer every client the exact same options and solutions. This often comes from the excellent idea that you should ‘package’ your services so people understand exactly what they are getting.

The difficulty with this is that your prospect gets the feeling that you are more interested in off-loading whatever you happen to have in your wheelbarrow, than you are in solving their problem – and that makes them defensive and hard to convince.

The Goal of Your Solution

When you actually propose your solution to a prospect your goal is to for them to feel that you have just suggested the exact piece they need to complete their puzzle. You want them to feel that you are proposing something that is tailor made for them, rather than a generic one-size-fits-all solution. When you propose a solution that really ticks all their boxes and meets the needs they have pointed out to you, you signal that you have heard their problems.

It is still your pre-defined package, but you have matched it exactly to your prospects needs, and described it in their language. Now they don’t feel that you have just grabbed a box out of your wheelbarrow and are trying to get them to buy whatever it is that you have too much of – now they feel it is designed exactly for them. Perhaps you have swapped out some coaching sessions for a top-notch presentation they can use, or made another slight tweak that meets their need. Maybe you haven’t changed anything, but by listening and learning have simply described the package accurately in their own language.

Whatever you have done, they have heard you describe the perfect solution to their problem. Do you think people will pay more for a tailored solution that exactly meets their needs, or for a generic solution with more features and benefits in it? I can tell you that the tailored solution always appears more valuable in people’s eyes – just like people are ready to pay more for a meal at a restaurant than they are at McDonalds.

What’s Working in Your Sales and Marketing?

How Do You Know That?

What Are You Focusing On?

What Will You Change Now?

What’s Working in Your Sales and Marketing?

Using Everything You Have to Achieve Your Goals and Meet Targets

Are You Ignoring Obvious Cues?

A Simple Practice

Human Beings Have Sensory Triggers…

Sense, Cents, and Sales

The Angle Changes the Meaning

Shift Behaviour by Changing Your View

A New Perspective Creates Unimagined Possibilities

What Would It Take to Create a Completely Different Solution?

Increasing Certainty

Increasing Trust

… but you can change that.

Don’t Make Your Happiness Dependent on Someone Else!

Tough Situations Can Be Overcome

No-one Will Ever Know… or Will they?

This is Not Just a Personal Issue… it Affects Your Sales

You Are Much More Than You Think You Are…

Defining Who and What You Aspire to be

You Are Much More Than You Think You Are!

Act as if...

... Because it is Hurting Your Business

Memorability Beats Sophistication

Does Your Pitch Evoke That Response?

Lead Generation

Transforming the Way You Think About What You Do

We Don't Give Ourselves Enough Credit

Accelerate Your Sales Challenge

#TuesdayTips

#TuesdayTips

Presenting a Customised Solution

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