QUICK NOTE – I was bombarded with emails asking where my comments were on the blog this week. My apologies but I was in Amsterdam giving a keynotes talk to a team of sales people at their yearly conference so I had to watch the episode on internet tv just now!

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Ok, onto this weeks observations:

Boring boring Danny!

Sorry mate – only joking. You’re by far the best salesperson on the show and yet again you won the spoils.

Here are my comments from the latest episode of Natural Born Sellers where the sales people were asked to sell environmentally friendly cleaning products.

Giving Demonstrations

If you ever have to give demonstrations get the audience involved.

When I say involved I mean ask them lots of questions, get them participating and get them to actually demonstrate the products themselves. They need to see how good the products are and see themselves using the products.

Dan – when you did the demo you asked a couple of great questions to start:

"How much time do you spend cleaning each year?" and "How much do you spend on cleaning on products each year?"

This unearthed wants and desires.

Someone said they spent £800. Dan knew that his products would cost £300 and that’s over 3 years so he could use this info to his advantage.

You see, you need to ask questions to find the best angle on which to sell the products. It didn’t come as any suprise that he did a couple of grand in that demo.

So – ask questions, build rapport and get them involved.

When Thea and Dan attended a demo at the start they hardly did any of this mainly due to lack of a gameplan and teamwork.

Lack Of Belief

What came across in spades was a total lack of belief in the product. Sure, the manager Sara had it but she had a vested interest in it all but the sales people just didn’t have it.

Lesson – if you are selling anything that doesn’t make you passionate about it, then get out.

Sales Manager

Sara the sales manager was interesting. She told Gavin off for acting the goat when wearing the glove costume "It devalues the brand" she said

Oh come on!

If the purpose of the costume is to be worn do you expect someone to wear it who is deadly serious?  It looked awful period. If you don’t want to devalue the brand with the costume here’s my advice….

Bin the thing.

Also, how can any brand be built of you are selling it in a shopping mall where your sales people are begging for orders on commission? mmmmmm let me think about that one.

Anna-Marie

Still my outsider for the competition – you have been since the start. You’ll have to come up on the inside rails to beat Dan though.

Girl – you got beat up on the show this time. Take it as a bad day at the office. You got through, we all have bad days and you live to fight another day.

Thea

If you could channel the way that you sell I think you would be bloomin good. You are a go-getter and want to get out there but some of your techniques suck.

Gavin

You keep saying to Johnny C that you can’t sell and you know what? You’re right. Still, you’re a damn good laugh and good for team spirit. No offence, it’s just that some people are suited to selling and others are not.

So, it’s onto the final!

Onwards and upwards!

Sean

Sean McPheat

The UK’s #1 Authority On Sales Success

http://www.mtdsalestraining.com

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Sean

Sean McPheat 

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How to Close the Sale: Asking for the Order

Ok, so you’ve done a great sales presentation, hooked up the perfect proposal and now you’ve got to ask for the order. 

Now depending on what you sell and your sales model, your methodology for asking for the order will be very different.

And in many cases, using an “assumptive” close, such as an “alternate of choice,” is the ticket.  Most sales models use some sort of an  assumptive close, especially in telephone sales and some retail sales interactions. 

However, in other scenarios, an assumptive close is the worst thing you can do.  In certain sales models, assuming the prospect is “with you” and has agreed to the offer, will not only lose the sale but probably insult the prospect and get you thrown out!

So, in those situations, just what do you say to ask, “Do we have a deal?” 

And of course you don’t what to ask, “Do we have a deal?”  Here are a couple of closing questions, not to be used verbatim, but to help you see the thinking process behind them. 

First, it is usually best to quickly summarize the offer just before the closing question.   State the overall costs to the customer and then the value and return to the customer; first in immediate benefits and then the long term.

“So, Mrs. Prospect, the whole proposal comes to £87,000, and that’s it.  Once again we will pick up the shipping on this.  And that is for the full enterprise-wide version of the temperature control software along with all 62 new thermostats to cover your entire warehouse. This will give you even and consistent heating and cooling right now and a huge savings over the long term”

This does not and should not be a long drawn out ordeal as you would have already gone over all of the details before this point.  Just summarize the  transaction. 

Then use something like one of these:

“Does that make sense?”  I like this closing question, as it does not make too much of an assumption.  However, as long as you have done anything close to a good sales interaction and proposal, it should be almost impossible for the prospect to answer anything but, ‘yes’ to this question. 

"This will give you even and consistent heating and cooling right now and a huge savings over the long term.  Does that make sense, Susan?” 

Of course, at this point the prospect will not tell you if they are ready to do business or not, but it is a good start to the close. 

“Does this fit?”  “Does this look like a good fit for your organisation, Steve?”  This question also does not assume too much, but gets the ball rolling in the right direction. 

“So what do you say?”  Depending on what you sell and your relationship with the prospective customer, it is often best to just come right out and ask something like, “What do you say?”   or “How do you feel?”   However, try to avoid, “What do you THINK?”  Remember, buying decisions are made more on emotion than logic.  

"How do you feel?" is more appropriate than what do you think.  

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

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The Natural Born Sellers Update – Selling Hot Tubs at the Southampton Boat Show

So Danny wins his third top dog position in 4 weeks! Awesome. He is definately a natural born seller.

….and Gavin scraped in again!

And it’s Gavin’s selling I want to look at within this update.

YOU CAN ACTUALLY BE TOO FRIENDLY

Gavin got a rollickin from his Sales Manager after being told he was too friendly and too jokey. I brought this up in the last post. Gavin’s style is jokey and friendly but in my opinion is too friendly and way too jokey to the point that his prospects will not take him seriously.

There is a fine line between friendliness and "doing the business". Get it wrong and you just look like a stand up comic who should be doing the Social Club rounds. Get it right and the world can be your oyster.

The thing with Gavin is that he does not look like a salesman. He looks like an ordinary, boy next door kinda chap. This is a HUGE advantage for him if only he would lose all of the ridiculous one lines. He’s a naturally likeable chap so he doesn’t need to act the goat all of the time.

The problem with the JOKER is that you are too wrapped up in what you are saying and the one liners that you fail to listen to opportunities and what really matters. Be friendly and leave it at that.

GAVIN HAD A DOSE OF MONEY MOUTH

Gavin also had the killer disease called MONEY MOUTH on the last day. That’s when your desire and need for the money shines through in your posture, body language, your eyes and tonality. He was trying too hard and this comes across to your prospects.

MONEY MOUTH is one of the main reasons why Sales People lose scores fo sales each year. Make sure you never have a dose of it!

Happy Selling!

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

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"Hi Sean, thanks for coming in to see me. Now, I’ve been recommended to use you from our 2 biggest suppliers who pay us £2 million a year each so if nothing else I thought I’d call you in to keep them happy and to see whether you can actually improve our sales at the same time. Now, in my opinion one off sales training doesn’t work unless you can tell me otherwise and I’m very anti-risk and don’t like spending money. I’m the down to earth Director of the company whereas the MD and FD don’t mind taking risks – so we’re a good team. So, what do you do and how can you help us?"

Phew!

No rapport, no small talk – straight into it.

So what are the lessons from this?

Now, I’m not going to tell you what I said but let me go through what my thinking was so you can start to develop this mode of approach:

"Hi Sean, thanks for coming in to see me. Now, I’ve been recommended to use you from our 2 biggest suppliers who pay us £2 million a year each so if nothing else I thought I’d call you in to keep them happy and to see whether you can actually improve our sales at the same time"

WHAT DID I TAKE FROM THAT STATEMENT?

1. These suppliers must pull some weight with them – find out who they and the person who contacted them

2. Possibilities of showing what we did for those companies and the results we achieved – social proof of our claims

3. This guy is a straight talker. So no fluff. Be straight to the point, business like and results orientated

"Now, in my opinion one off sales training doesn’t work unless you can tell me otherwise and I’m very anti-risk and don’t like spending money"

WHAT DID I TAKE FROM THAT STATEMENT?

1. Have they had their fingers burnt in the past with training that did not work?

2. He mentioned "one off" training does not work. Find out what he means. Does he have experience of "on-going" programmes and whether these work or not

3. He doesn’t like taking risks. Whatever we do needs to be justified to results, The risk needs to be on MTD Sales Training and not on his company to do business with us. He will msot likely want to see tangible evidence that the money was worth the spend. He doesn’t like spending money so let’s prove out worth with a low risk, low cost pilot and them measure the programme and then roll out

"I’m the down to earth Director of the company whereas the MD and FD don’t mind taking risks – so we’re a good team. So, what do you do and how can you help us?"

WHAT DID I TAKE FROM THAT STATEMENT?

1. He’s most likely the "It does exactly what it says on the tin" kind of person! Be straight with him and focus on the practical, real world elements of our training

2. Who has the decision making authority – him or the other Directors. Is he a key influencer or the DM

LESSONS

Now, I’m sure I had other thoughts at the time but I’ve just gone over my notes from the meeting and the areas above are the ones I could remember!

So the guy spoke for about 1-3 minutes yet I was able to process all of the above points of consideration. Our meeting took just 34 minutes in total!

So read between the lines with what your prospects say to you and then be flexible in your approach in coming back with questions.

Happy Selling!

Sean

PS
We are starting a sales improvement programme for the company in January 2009. 2 days per month for 12 months!

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

The competition took a cut throat approach tonight as the “silent assassin” Anna-Marie voted out one of the strongest contestants in Scott English.

Gavin was yet again in the bottom three and is by far the worst sales person in the group and has been from day one. Although very likeable, he talks a good talk but doesn’t delivery the goods.

Scott on the other hand, I have taken to. He’s shown a “softer side” since episode one and his enthusiasm and work ethic is awesome. A real go-getter. Take this as a complement Scott – Anna-Marie did the right thing in voting you off, I’d take it as a huge compliment. With you out of the way, Anna-Marie has a far better chance of winning the whole thing.

Okay, let’s get on to some good, bad and the ugly of tonights show.

THE BAD

Come on ITV WTF are you doing moving the show to 10:40. Get a life! The ratings are only 1.7 million but what did you do about it? Nothing. There was not advertising, no promotion. I think ITV have come out as the worse sellers of the lot! You could have positioned it in the right way, not as the BBC’s Apprentice but something completely different. With no pre-sell it was always going to be demoted to a later slot.

By the way ITV – Sales people like me and all of the other sales people around the country work long bloody hours so staying up to 11:40 on a school night is not on.

Ok, rant over.

Scott – you should have kept tabs on that mum and son when handing them over to finance. They are not sales people, never have been, so I feel they lost you a sale.
Scott – one thing that annoys me with you is when you always use “Trust me” it’s complete tosh! You don’t need to use that all of the time. The trust will come with what you say, you don’t need to say it – let your prospects feel it and it will help you close more sales.

The Good

Dan – great closing line. That guy was umming and arrrring and you took over with “Shall we start doing the paperwork?” A nice lead in to the next steps – well done.
Dan – the look of your face when having lunch Thea made my night!

Anna-Marie – thanks for your call to my office today. I enjoyed our chat. Well done on winning tonight. Well done on overcoming the discount request too – you built the value and kept your cool.

Scott – your work ethic is awesome. Lively, enthusiastic – spot on. Well done for using your initiative to cold call the limo firms. You “made things happen”. The show will be worse off without you.

The Ugly

Just about everything Thea did.

Overall Thoughts

ITV was the natural born loser tonight by moving the slot. My dark horse as mentioned on my very first blog Anna-Marie is still in the running although she is keeping very tight lipped on whether she won or not.

Selling Limos at a trade show is tough especially at £50k+. It takes technique and the right approach and when having a stand the art is having a number of luke warm to hot leads before you open the doors who know where you are etc

Onto next week!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

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The Sales Improvement CD Programme that will change the face of selling as we know it…

Well, after 9 months in the making, I’m finally going into the recording studios at 10:30am today to record what will be, in my humble opinion, the sales programme to change all sales programmes.

I’m not recording just one CD but instead a whole programme consisting of 10 x 60 minute CD’s.

I can’t tell you what the programme and concept is just yet for legal reasons but it’s going to provide you with the very latest cutting edge tools and approach that I have tested during the past 9 months.

It’s going to change the face of selling as we know it and it will blast yours sales into orbit.

I’m due in the studios for 5 or 6 days with an anticipated launch date of mid November so make sure you’re on one of my lists to be notified.

I’ll catch you later, probably with a sore throat!

Happy Selling

Your’s very excited…

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

The Natural Born Sellers roadshow moved to Wakefield this week with West Yorkshire Windows.

Click here for my comments on Natural Born Sellers Episode III

Here are my observations, comments and thoughts…

A School Boy Error
Danny’s first attempt at a sale was a right cock up. Two straight talking OAP’s came into the showroom, he duly set the appointment, went out to their house, measured up and then gave them a quote that was 50% higher than their budget.

He should have qualified the amount they had to play with and worked around this. Instead, he wasted a lot of time and effort and then came back to work with a right mard on.

Dan The Man, After Dan The Sad Man
Danny won for the second week on the run. However, he had a very slow start bemoaning the fact that he had “nothing to offer them” to make a sale. No discounts, no offers – nothing.
Does that mean that Dan has to have discounts to make his sales? Does it mean that he can’t be “proud” of the prices and sell the value?

Maybe.

This was evident when he deliberately went in 2k over the price with one prospect to be knocked down by the 2k to get the deal. Sure, he said the customer was happy and most likely they were but I’d have thought he was taking the p1ss out of me if he could reduce the amount by 2k at the drop of the hat.

Did he use this tactic to win? Is it in keeping with the West Yorkshire Windows philosophy of “no push, no hard sell?” Andrew, WYW – What do you say? Reply to the blog below.

Make It Happen
Scott gets some stick but he lead the way for the cold calling campaign. He looked at the sales situation in the showroom and then made something happen. He made 250 calls in one day and started to close down some of the leads. Then, all of the other sales people jumped on the bandwagon and made the calls too.

There is GOLD just sitting there in your leads database. Sometimes getting a “NO” actually means “NO, NOT YET” so you should work all of the names and numbers on your list of those people who have made enquiries.

I think the company will start to use this process from now on – or they should anyhow.

The Joker
Gavin’s too friendly and nice. There comes a time when being a friend needs to turn into being a supplier.

I don’t like the hard sell approach but their is a soft sell and then there is the Gavin “Let’s make a joke out of everything” soft sell.

That’s not for me, it would annoy the hell out of me.

Positioning Is Important
Anna Marie is not a “typical looking” salesperson and she uses this to her advantage. In an industry that is viewed with a little mistrust she can excel with this viewpoint by positioning herself as “not a typical salesperson”.

It’s a great selling point. Just imagine that a prospect has seen 3 pushy sales people and then Anna Marie walks in and says “I bet you’ve seen some really hard sell salespeople so far, well I’m not like that….” now if the prospect feels this way they are in Anna Marie’s web!

Now, I’m not saying that she uses this approach but she can sure slip under the radar.

Prospects like real people and Anna Marie falls into this category.

Happy Selling!

Sean
PS Well done West Yorkshire Windows – I think you came out of the show looking good as a firm full of integrity.

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

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The 3 Biggest Cold Calling Mistakes

I could talk for hours about advanced cold calling techniques; how to increase cold calling effectiveness and setting appointments and closing sales on the telephone. ‘What am I saying’, I have gone on and on about it hundreds of times in MTD Sales Training Material.

However, I reminded of what my mum always used to say: “Sean, as complex as things may look, they can become really simple if you look at them from a different angle.” So, I did, and realised that although there is a thousand new and extremely advanced techniques I could teach you, looking at the problem from a different angle, I saw there were only a few things that you should NOT do.

Just a few simple things that if you avoid, you’ll increase the results of your cold calling immediately. So, here they are. Avoid these simple cold-call killers and you’ll set a few more appointments and close a lot more sales.

Get rid of the smile and enthusiasm at the beginning of the call. I know all your life you’ve been told to wear a big smile and be enthusiastic, critical mistake. It is the old-school Smile and Dial mentality that has consumers sick and tired of Sales People and Marketers.

Don’t be perfect. You heard, off cause you should learn your “pitch” flawlessly. But remember, stutters, fumbles and broken chains of thought occur naturally in real conversations. No one talks perfectly. The more perfect you sound, the more the prospect knows he’s one of a hundred you’ve called today. Let’s face it who wants to be Mr. 89. That’s why they tell you to “take me of your list”.

Slow it all down! Have some confidence in yourself. Don’t be afraid to let people talk. Welcome a response instead of trying to avoid it. Don’t be afraid to allow the prospect time to think and respond.

Avoiding these three common mistakes won’t solve all your cold calling or telephone marketing problems but they will certainly help make it easier.

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report yet? “The Sales Person’s Crisis” has been downloaded by over 10,000 sales pros and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this unique report that lifts the lid on modern day selling!

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…