The amount of information available to buyers –particularly those who require a consultative process —continues to get deeper, more detailed and of greater quality than ever before.

Now, a buyer can search your company on the web, find out about your MD, determine your value structure, check your competitors’ offers and place their order online, all while you are trying to get an appointment on the phone! And note this: nothing that the prospect did in that scenario requires your involvement as a sales person!

This means that much of the old, traditional sales processes that you have learned before (prospecting door to door, cold-calling, sending brochures through to be placed in the recycle bin) are deemed obsolete by the fact that the buyer’s processes have changed and left you behind.

It means you are unable to guide the sales process. You can’t determine who the main decision-makers are, or analyse the motivations of the buyer.

So, before you start thinking about who you should be contacting; before you identify what lists you need; before you start putting anything down on paper; think what the buyer will be doing to source their awareness of products and services like yours.

How will your new buyers learn about your products?

How will they discover solutions? How will they find out about your competition?

Change your sales job role. NOW!

Think about where they will be looking for your services. Develop a buyer’s mind-set. Make sure your website uses key phrases and words that will be on the buyer’s mind when he checks out the major search engines. Instead of thinking of yourself as a sales person, think ‘buyer’s business partner’.

Those salespeople who still stay with the old-fashioned ‘quantity is everything’ mind-set will quickly disappear, replaced by the proactive educator who defines exactly where the customer is in the buying process, building awareness, helping them discover solutions and confirming their buying processes.

Remember; the buyer who existed in the nineties isn’t around anymore! Change NOW!

Happy Selling!

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

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

At MTD, we are always looking for ways to innovate and see things differently. Charles Thompson wrote one of our favourite books called “What a Great Idea!” and in it he discussed an interesting concept called “problem reversal”. Edward de Bono also developed this idea. How can it be applied in selling?

First of all identify anything that could really benefit from being improved. It could be your customer service skills or objection handling, or the like. You would most likely start off with a question like “How can I improve my skills in this area?” And, if you’re like most people, you either draw a blank or come up with a few ‘positive thinking’ ideas.

How about seeing it from a different angle by asking a different question. Something like: “How could I destroy the relationship with my client?” I’m sure you could come up with many more answers, like “Never phone them, take their business for granted, tell their competition about their bad points, deliberately put the wrong order in, place poor internet postings about them” and many others.

If we just did this, we would leave ourselves in a pretty negative state. So we apply ‘problem reversal’ thinking to these ideas. Go back to you original answers and tell yourself what the complete opposite would be. And make it so that it would never ever happen. So, if the answer you are reversing is ‘take their business for granted’, then decide to ‘contact all my existing clients with ideas on how their current business could be improved with a series of newsletters that add astounding value’. Add more ideas, like ‘drop in on a regular basis just to see how I can help, not just when I want to sell them something’.

The reversal of ‘place poor internet postings about them’ would be ‘use their testimonials to inspire other companies to look at your services’ and ‘tell as many of your prospects as possible about their successes’.

By doing this with all the original answers, you get your creative juices flowing. You take on a totally different way of thinking, and allow ideas to flood in that you hadn’t thought of before. What a great idea!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

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

It’s good Friday so I thought I’d send you something different!

Many of you may even be picking this up after the Easter Break and if you are then you’ll like this…

Is book publishing doomed or is it just beginning?

Watch this fascinating video and watch what happens half way through the video – you’ll be amazed and it’s very clever.

Happy Selling!

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

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

Go on..be negative…you know it makes sense!

Jumping on the positive-thinking bandwagon again last week, it struck me that many of our clients don’t have many reasons to be positive at the moment. They have so many pressures and adverse trading conditions that they feel overwhelmed and snowed-under by the economic situation they face. Then you come along, all positive, and try to sell them something while they only see the negative side.

We’ve discussed before how some people are motivated away from problems and pain, and how others are motivated toward opportunities and rewards. These days, many people are only able to see the negative side of things. So why not link in with that style of thinking and think negatively too!

What? Have I gone and lost my mind? Surely that will just take us down the road to destruction and starvation!

Bear with me on this for a minute. Think about it…your products and services are just what the prospect needs, right? They will benefit so much from what you have to offer, yes? And they will miss a great opportunity by not buying from you, correct? OK then, start highlighting exactly what will happen if the prospect DOESN’T buy from you!

What would be the negative consequences if they decided to buy from the competition? Or do nothing at all?

By getting them to think negatively about NOT buying from you, they experience the pain of regret and frustration by not enjoying the benefits of your services.

Here’s an example:

“So, Mr Prospect, we’ve discussed how our widgets will actually save you money in the long-run by reducing your inventory. If you decide not to go ahead, you will be still incurring the existing stocking costs, and the higher delivery charges from ABC. You’ll be losing over £xx pounds per week, even though the initial costs of our widgets will be higher. The sooner you take up this offer, the sooner you will stop losing money”

Or what about this?

“So, Mr Prospect, you’re saying you don’t want to change suppliers at the moment, right? OK, if we look at what you’re buying now, you agreed that you are spending 8% more than you would with us. That means your costs would be an extra £xxx this financial year if you stay with ABC. How long would you want that situation to last? What would be the consequences in the long run if that stayed the same?”

By appealing to the ‘away-from’ motivation of the prospect, you are looking at the negative consequences of NOT going ahead with you! It makes sense for the prospect to think of your services because of the negative consequences of not doing so.

So, thinking negatively sometimes will help you highlight what the customer will lose. And then you can spin it round to highlight what they will gain. Check out your prospect’s motivation direction, and you’ll get negativity working for you. Now, where’s my positive mind-set gone? Ah, there it is!

Happy Selling

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

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