Here’s what her husband posted on his Facebook Page.
Don’t you think that’s funny? I’m quite sure the wife spent hours researching for the best camera lens probably by asking around and reading online reviews, then putting the effort to buy it, wrap it with the best wrapping paper, and then anxiously wait to see her husband’s excitement when he opens the gift. But imagine the horror as soon as she finds out that she had bought a camera lens for a totally different camera model.
Because of wrong information and having the wrong assumption, she spent her time, money, and effort on something that her husband just can’t make use of.
Businesses can really relate to this. Sometimes a salesperson might assume that he knows the customer’s needs and proudly gives his solution to the customer but ends up being rejected on the spot. That would be totally embarrassing, humiliating and it affects the company’s image as well.
How Can Businesses Prevent From Giving The Wrong ‘Camera Lens’?
Get Your Sales Person To Probe – Correctly
Don’t assume to know what the prospect needs. Simply going through the customer’s website or playing the guessing game, you will not get much information. The only way to get accurate information is to probe. Get your salesperson to pick up the phone, call the customer and ask. When you ask, don’t ask random questions. Calling a prospect and asking whether he has lunch is not considered probing. Ask with the intent of getting specific information from the customer. To achieve that, a proven technique is to prepare a script before you make that call.
Here are some questions we use in Sales Ninja to get specific information:
- How big is your sales team?
- When was the last training?
- and hundreds more
There was an incident where our Sales Ninja Marketing Shinobi, Kevan was having a fever for a week. The doctor prescribed him antibiotics but after finishing the medication, he didn’t get any better. So he went back to the doctor the second time and the doctor said
“Ok let me give you stronger antibiotics, this should work”
It didn’t work. After 3 weeks of suffering, he got admitted into a hospital. A specialist took a few blood tests and found out that it was a lung infection where those previous antibiotics wouldn’t have worked.
The doctor should have been able to detect the lung infection at its initial stage. If he did the necessary tests instead of assuming that it was a normal fever he would have instantly found out about the lung infection and could have prescribed the right medication.
Seduce Them With Words
It’s not about going sexy and exposing parts of your body. I’m talking about getting prospects to like you. People and simple, if they like you, they are more willing to give you their time and potentially buy from you. As a result, you know what they really want and the problems they are facing in their businesses.
Some seductive words are like “That’s nice!”, “That’s smart!”, and many others.
In sales, in order to sell, you need to build rapport with prospects. Get them to feel comfortable with you and they’ll be willing to have longer conversations with you. Just like you, you’ll prefer to buy something from a salesperson that you feel comfortable with instead of an egoistic salesperson who looks down on you.
Customers Don’t Know What They Need
There was a case when a company contacted us and 3 other training companies to conduct for them a three-day training. The 3 training companies responded by pitching their three-day program. But, when we talked and analyzed their situation more, we realized that what they actually need is a one-year sales solution program instead of a three days training.
We won a six-figure deal.
What customer wants is not always what they need. As consultants, our job is to provide what they need. What they need is sometimes more than what they want.
When a customer requests a certain product, don’t instantly jump in and try to close the sale (although it’s really tempting too). It’s advisable to probe and analyze your customer’s situation first and provide them with the best solution. Customers sometimes don’t know what they need.
Give Prospects An Ear Not Your Mouth
Salespeople unconsciously make this mistake of talking and talking non-stop. They can promote the benefits and features of their products the whole day. The problem is, salespeople think that selling benefits after benefits will somehow convince the prospect to buy. The sad truth is, prospects get bored and eventually tune out. That’s how sales are lost sometimes.
In order to listen to their needs:
- Pay attention
- Don’t jump to conclusions
- Clarify if needed
Don’t Be Stingy On Sales Training
Some businesses have this mindset, they worry that after sending their salespeople for training, the salesperson will leave and join another company thus wasting their investment. Looking at it from another point of view, if you do not send them for training, you are actually keeping incompetent salespeople in your team and incompetent salespeople won’t let you achieve your sales target.
Sales Training can be really effective to expose and train your salespeople to know what techniques to use when certain situations arise like objections, negotiations, closing and etc. Like a ninja, a highly trained ninja will be able to assassinate his target more efficiently than a security guard with minimal training. Likewise, if you want to kill your competitors, train your sales team well.
Be Fast Or Be Left Behind
A Sabah truck dealer contacted a few training companies including Sales Ninja for training. We responded within 24 hours and won the deal. We found out that we were selected because we were fast and the other training companies responded 2-3 days after and some didn’t even respond!
Things are changing at light speed. Your customer may need Product A from you today but if you are slow, he may not need Product A anymore next week. With the rapidly evolving market and social media, yesterday’s news is ‘expired’ news. If you are slow even for a split second in this fast-paced industry, you will lose sales and be left behind while your competitor eats away your profits.
Summary
Get things right the first time. The first impression to a prospect is very important. Giving a prospect a totally wrong solution will reflect your company as inefficiently and sloppy. In order to give the right solution, you need information, skills, and adaptability. Competitors are out there to kill your business, if you are not prepared, you will rot like the rest. So take action and be the best!
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