sales process Archives | Page 2 of 2

“When the economy is booming, almost any product is easy to sell; when the economy tightens you need to double down on your sales system to turn leads into sales.”
~ Chandell Labbozzetta

The Reason Your Sales System Isn't Working Is NOT the Economy

Over the past few months, there has been a dramatic shift in the perception of prospects I’ve been talking to – especially when you compare them with my clients’ perception of the market. A few months ago, many business owners and sales managers were confident in their ability to make ‘enough sales to meet income targets and quotas’. Now they’re struggling because their prospects are nervous about the future and their communication skills and sales systems aren’t robust enough to cope.

One of my clients made the following comment,

“When the GFC was looming in 2008 (it hit Australia later and less dramatically than other parts of the world) we saw exactly the same thing – making sales of your product or service went from being like offering candy to a toddler, to being more like offering meat to a vegan. It took a genuine ability to understand where the prospect stood and what they cared about, to communicate that understanding, and to offer your product in ways that made it easy for them to say ‘Yes’. Suddenly, sales skills and systems shifted from ‘nice to have’ to ‘critical for survival. The same thing is starting to happen now and it’s slowly spreading from one industry to another. It’s time to brush up on your sales systems and skills… Or pay the price.”

We went on to discuss the fact that it’s not the economy per se that is the problem, it’s how you present your offer in the new climate.

If you keep on doing what you’ve always done in your sales process you will no longer get what you’ve always got… You’ll keep getting fewer sales and less revenue.

The Sales System You Need in a Boom Will No Longer Serve You!

Sally (name changed to protect her privacy) has been in one of my NLP Sales Mastery groups for several years. She’s one of the sales managers at a mid-sized company and she’s chosen to invest in her communication skills so she can also pass them onto her team. Until just a couple of months ago, there was very little difference in the performance of her team and others, but as the economy started to tighten, she discovered that she was closing significantly more sales than her team, and that her team was performing better than all the others. Her colleagues were coming to her and asking what she was doing and whether she could help them develop the same skills and systems.

That’s great for me, because I was contracted to train and develop all the sales teams at her company, but it also demonstrates how the economy is changing and the importance of being prepared for a downturn.

A Successful Sales System is No Longer About Slick Sales Skills… If It Ever Was!

The key reason that my sales trainings are so popular is that they are effective. I really can turn the sales-allergic into sales-enthusiastic because I focus on communication skills. Most people who have an ‘icky feeling’ about sales have that feeling because they think of sales as one person pushing the other into an agreement they don’t really need. I teach people to walk away from sales where your product won’t benefit the prospective buyer and won’t deliver far more value than the money they are paying. You’d think that would lead to fewer sales and appointments, but it actually leads to more sales.

Effective salesmanship was never about shoving a contract in front of someone and forcing them to sign, it was always about discovering what problem the prospect wants to solve and determining whether your solution fits their needs and budget. When the economy is good and interest rates are low, businesses spend freely so you don’t really need to develop rapport and communicate with sincerity, but when interest rates rise those things make all the difference. It doesn’t matter how good your sales scripts are, or how well designed your follow up is if your salespeople can’t establish a genuine connection.

By the same token, it doesn’t matter how good their communication skills are if your salespeople aren’t supported by robust sales systems that enhance their results. I’m a big believer in continued professional development that focuses on expanding personal skills, not merely providing ‘hacks and techniques’ and communication is one of those areas of personal growth that many sales teams don’t focus on… or not until they absolutely must!

The Truth About Sales Systems

“A sales system is only as good as the people who use it… But without good systems, skilled people can underperform.”

That truth is just as applicable to sales as it is to exercise, nutrition, health interventions, and education.

If you don’t have a system for taking care of your health, you’ll quickly lose track of essential medications, dietary needs, exercise, and other important factors. If there’s no system for education (ie curriculum), kids won’t learn to read, write, count, and think.

At the same time, if you don’t have skilled doctors and inspiring teachers, the ‘system’ will only take you so far.

Your sales system is just as essential as those other things, yet too many companies are asking their sales team to fly by the seat of their pants and at best have just a few parts of a system in place. Many of them are then surprised to find that even their star salespeople struggle with morale and performance when the economy tightens.

A sales system is vital if you want to keep your revenues growing and your sales team motivated.

Are You Giving Your Sales Team the Support and Systems they Need?

Many sales systems focus on techniques that are outdated or offer a structured approach that is transient and non-transferable. I’ve attended some sales training where you can’t even use the material you learned in a different department of the same organisation. My sales training focuses on human performance skills and the systemic elements that drive that performance. When I train inside an organisation, obviously we develop systems that are specific to that organisation or department and focus on the specific value-building and context of the product, but I also teach the principles that can be applied in any sales team.

I also periodically teach a sales system design workshop that walks participants through the elements of a sales system and shows how to build one and the crucial principles and skills that your sales team need to develop.

If you’d like to learn more then why not register for our next sales system workshop?

#TuesdayTips

I was about 14 when I started selling Nutrimetics to my friends at school. They were polite and sort of interested but I didn’t get many sales during lunch hour. A couple of them thought their Mums might be interested and held parties at home – and that was when my business really took off. I won sales awards, medals, and you name, it … but I also learned an important lesson – it’s much easier to sell to people who are thirsting for a solution, than to people who are just showing polite interest.

I took that lesson to heart and it helped me in all my later sales experiences – whether I was actually selling products or services, or sharing ideas. Polite interest just wastes your time, and the other person’s time as well. If you’re in a social situation then you can move on to other topics of interest. If you are in a business situation then polite interest just wastes your time, and robs you of other opportunities.

Don’t Be Afraid of ‘No’! - It Might Even Be Your Best Friend

It is far better to spend your time talking to people who have the problem your service solves and the money to spend on your solution, rather than with people who are just being polite – because after all, business is about sales, not just interest. That’s why it is always good to elicit a ’no’ response sooner rather than later if the person you are talking to is really not a good candidate for your product.

So, I don’t want to make people’s decisions for them, and I really want to give them the information they need – but how do I open the door so they are willing to listen.

5-Steps Sales Process That Works.

Establish Rapport. The easiest way to do this is to match and mirror their behaviour, or identify their preferred internal representation system and use that to communicate with your prospect. Without rapport, it’s harder to elicit the information you need to determine whether you and the prospect are actually a good fit, and if you don’t seem to be getting anywhere in establishing try to work out why.
Ask Questions. You can use questions to continue to build rapport but you are really listening carefully so that you learn about your prospect’s problems and concerns. You’ll be asking questions throughout the interview so that you can discover what they value, and what their decision-making process is, and trying to uncover their objections so that you’ve answered them effectively before you come to the point of closing the deal. These questions will help your prospect feel that they were heard, and they will help you know whether the person is actually a real candidate for your product.
Establish Value and Need. Your questions will have shown you whether this person actually need your product or service. At this point you are making some decisions on their behalf. If you realise that you can’t add enough value to this particular business for it to be worthwhile that’s okay – you can tell the other person how you feel and end the conversation. You never want to go into a deal so hungry that you need to get it at any cost. If you can’t add enough value to make it worthwhile for the prospect then you’re better off walking away. If you do make a deal under those circumstances neither of you will be happy with the outcome.
Propose Solution. Hopefully you’ve taken all the time you need to ask questions and listen to their answers, because by the time you get to this fourth step in the sales process you should be ready to propose your tailored solution succinctly and clearly. Your prospect should be nodding agreement at this point and demonstrating that they can see the value you are offering to them specifically. As you outline your solution the prospect should feel confident that it will solve their specific problem, not just be the package you happen to have in your cart ready to unload on them.
Seal the Deal. This is the final step in the process – whether it involves signing a contract or a verbal agreement. If you’ve done your job well, the outcome won’t be a surprise to either party because your will be offering your prospect a custom solution that will truly fit their needs.

I’ve taught this 5-step Sales Process to hundreds of people in corporate sales trainings and through my Confident Closing Workshops [LINK HERE] and I usually receive this kind of feedback: “By the time I actually proposed a solution I had all the information I needed to offer a tailored solution using my prospect’s terminology. Their ‘yes’ was almost instant and price became a non-issue.”

This 5-Step Sales Process is one of the easiest ways to move your closing rate from average (or below average), so astronomical – and it also takes the sting out of rejection. Most of the time, you’ve already determined that this person is not a good fit before they get as far as saying ’no’.

Meta Description: How to move your sale closing rate from average to astronomical with a simple 5-step process that doesn’t rely on scripts or programming

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