“Find the prospect’s hot buttons!” “Push their hot buttons!” We’ve heard these thoughts before; but what do they mean? Is it to say that as a sales person you should try to discover your prospect’s primary areas of interest? How do you push those so-called buttons anyway? How do these hot buttons help you close sales? Exactly what is a Hot Button?

The Hot Button
For most sales people, the term Hot Button refers to some topic, product or service-point for which the prospect has very strong interest or desire. With this avenue of thinking, many sales people look to the benefits their product or service offers. They think, ‘find a benefit the prospect likes and push it to make the sale.’ Unfortunately, this is a mistake.

A Definition
Merriam-Webster defines the adjective, “hot button” as, “An emotional and usually controversial issue or concern that triggers immediate intense reaction.”

The key words to remember are emotion and intense. A benefit does not usually create an emotional reaction that leads to a buying decision. Also, understand that the fear of loss is a far more intense emotion than the desire for gain.

Find Hot Buttons
To find the prospect’s emotional triggers, you need to find their problems. Unearth the prospect’s problems and pain and you will discover their hot buttons. Then present how your product or service will solve those problems, and you will be pushing those hot buttons.

Don’t Confuse Interest and Desire with Hot Buttons
Often when a prospect mentions some area of interest, the sales person assumes such is a hot button, and relentlessly pursues the idea. However, such initial areas of interest usually just scratch the surface of the prospect’s situation.

Also, keep in mind that today’s modern buyers are smart, and are not too quick to reveal their emotions and concerns, as they know doing so will weaken their negotiating strength. In addition, the prospect’s true hot buttons, those areas of serious problems and pain, may not be immediately evident, even to the prospect.

Solutions to Problems = Hot Buttons
You need to have a systematic method of asking questions to uncover the prospect’s problems. Find areas the prospect is losing, hurting or suffering in some way due to the lack of your product or service. Exemplify those areas of problems and pain, and then present your solution and you will hit the hot buttons on the head.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

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You know the age-old Golden Rule—“Do not reveal the price until the end.” Even if you are new to sales, management has told you that you have to wait until the closing stages before you tell the prospect the price.

However, does such a rule or concept still have merit, especially in dealing with today’s modern and educated buyer? Since today’s prospect has instant access to a ton of information about what you sell before you even show up, and they are so short on time; does it still make sense to hold out on the price, even if the prospect is demanding to know?

In a word…YES!! Below are three critical reasons why you should still never reveal the price until you have built significant value.

#1. Price is Irrelevant Until You Have Established the Value
For your product or service to have any value to the prospect, the prospect must have a NEED for that product or service. Before you can establish a need, there must be a solution. Before there can be a solution, you must unearth a problem. The significance of the problem for which the product is a solution, determines its value. Until there is such a value, the price is meaningless. The following analogy, though absurdly fictitious, will help demonstrate the point.

If I came to sell you a gigantic inflatable chair and I told you that the price for this huge, pink blow-up chair is £600, would you buy it? Would you consider it for a discounted price of only £350? You would have to think that such a child’s toy is not worth more than £10.

However, what if I informed you that the local reservoir dam just collapsed, the equivalent of a small tsunami is on the way, and in a few minutes, the entire town is going to be 20 feet under water. Now if I asked £10,000 for that same chair, you would consider it a bargain.

The price is irrelevant until you have established value.

#2. The Prospect’s Ability to Listen Disappears After They Hear the Price
The moment you reveal the price, the prospect makes a buying decision. On hearing the price, the prospect feels they have all of the information they need, and makes a mental decision (usually negative), and that’s it. The prospect now has a closed-mind, and deems any additional information unnecessary. It becomes near impossible to build value after you have revealed the price.

#3. Price Before Value Creates a False “Price vs. Value” Perception
The sale takes place when, to the prospect, the value exceeds the price. This is not about money. It is about perception and expectations in the prospect’s mind that determine how they feel about the offer. It is about emotion. When you quote a price before establishing value, it creates the perception of a price that far outweighs the value. No matter how you try to build value after revealing the price, you cannot change that feeling, because you cannot, (significantly or justifiably), change the price.

Conversely, if you build the value before price, in the prospect’s mind that price will be greater than the value. If you have done a reasonable job building value, then when you finally reveal the price, it should be but a fraction of the established value. Therefore, the prospect perceives the price to be far less than excepted and thus a proper price vs. value perception results.

And how exactly should you respond to the prospect who asks you for the price upfront?

Here’s how:

“James, there are a lot of options and variables that we need to take into consideration before I can give you an accurate figure. Is it ok if I ask you a couple of questions to get some further information so I know which one of our products/service would be the right one for you?”

A lot has changed when it comes to dealing with today’s modern buyer. However, holding on to that price until after you have built the value, is one concept that must stay the same.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Bestselling Author, Sales Authority & Speaker On Modern Day Selling Methods 

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…

32 years ago Brit band “Buggles” released their smash hit “Video Killed The Radio Star”, which paid homage to the way that technological advantages in television had crushed the success of the radio with its modern capabilities.

In today’s modern world, could we now be seeing the start of a new revolution? Has the internet and social media killed off the more traditional ways of selling? The outdated methods of cold calling, face-to-face networking and door to door sales are failing fast in the face in the ever-blossoming rise of the internet.

In order to understand how has this come about we need to look at the way selling has evolved over the last 30 years.

The Evolution of Selling 

The way that we sell has gone through massive changes over the last few decades. Let me explain the evolution of the sales process to you:

Essentially we have moved from an era whereby sales professionals would just turn up and roll off their sales pitch to the buyer – which was nothing more than a one-way monologue in which the sales person would simply push their product or service on the client – to the realisation that in order to sell a product or service to a client, sales professionals need to pull out the problems the buyer is having during a two-way discussion and THEN show why their product or service would be a solution to these problems.

This process took an even greater leap forward with the invention of the internet, as buyers now had a world of information at their fingertips, meaning that they could “google” all about the product or service, the company and even the sales professionals themselves before they decided to enter into the sales process.

Today, the buyer is now even more informed and knowledgable about you, your company and your products and services than ever before, as they not only come prepared with vast amounts of information about the product or service, but they also engage in a dramatically high level of social media discussion – in which they can gain peer recommendations about who they should be buying from and potentially be discussing your company with past customers and even your main competitors.

The Modern Day Buyer

So the big question then: who is the modern day buyer and how do they now decide to make a purchase?

Today’s buyers are much more sales savvy than their predecessors – they conduct research online about your products and services, your company, your competitors and they can even find out information about you on a personal level as well.

They want more choice, they want more for less, they want to bash your prices down and play you off against your competitors until you are practically giving it away! Buyers today are much more ruthless than many sales professionals realise – and this is because they are far more prepared and well informed than ever, before you even get the chance to speak to them.

There are some big questions you should be asking yourself when it comes to engaging with the modern day buyer. What online tools are they using to find out about you, your company or your products and services? What discussions are they having with other potential customers, current customers or even your competitors about your products or services?

Your buyers are an upgraded version of those you have encountered before; they have changed the way that they buy…but have you changed the way that you sell?

Cold Calling R.I.P?

Cold calling as we know it is dying. Sales professionals hate making cold calls and people hate receiving them. Just look at these statistics and you will see why cold calling is fast becoming a dying art form:

• 73% of decision makers won’t accept an inbound cold call – Market Transformations
• 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations – Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey
• 2 out of 3 decision makers place more trust in their own research than in sales people – Market Transformations
• 90% of buying decisions are based on internet research – Gartner research

People want to buy; they don’t want to be sold to – so going in for that hard sale just a few lines into a cold call that your buyer didn’t even want to receive is not likely to get the desired response.

What you should be doing is “smart calling” – you need to make a connection with your prospective client first, by starting a discussion on Facebook or LinkedIn, or tweeting them an interesting link on Twitter which might help them solve a problem they are having. Once you’ve built this initial relationship with your client in the online environment they are most comfortable in, then  – and only then – do you make the call.

The Social Media Revolution

The Social Media Revolution is well and truly upon us and here are some interesting facts you that should know:

• More than 30 billion pieces of content are shared each month on Facebook – Facebook Press Office
• Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day – The Chirp Conference
• A new member joins LinkedIn every second – LinkedIn Press Centre

There has never been a more vital time to be out there on the internet, where you can be found, interacting with potential buyers and making a proactive effort to be involved with the discussion and sharing happening in the world of social media.

You need to contribute to groups, forums and discussions. You need to position yourself online as a trusted advisor and industry expert, who can be relied upon to give good, solid and honest advice to support your buyers with whatever queries they may have.

Everyone likes to feel like they are getting something for nothing, and if your prospective clients feel like you are giving them your time and expertise without immediately demanding something in return you will be amazed at how quickly you can become the go-to-guy when they buyer decides they’re finally ready to make a purchase.

Your buyers are now in control; they know what they want, they know when they want it and they do their research.  They don’t want to be interrupted with your call and they want to buy from someone they feel like they can trust.

By using the right social media and internet-based resources, you can start to network online, build up a reputation as an industry expert, build up your personal brand and find the people who are already interested in your products and services.  Once you have established this first point of contact with them you’ll find it so much easier to make that sales call.

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…

You want the customer to view you as more than a sales person. You want them to view you as more than a consultant. You need them to view you as a trusted advisor.

Only then do your views, your comments, your suggestions, your advice actually hit home to the client and make them pay attention to the ideas you bring to the table. So how do you bring this value, this creativity, to the attention of the prospect you have in front of you? Here are the four dimensions of being a trusted advisor:

1) The value you bring to the client’s company; this is the essence of what makes you who you are. The concept of people buying from people they trust has never been truer, and how you sell your own personal value will determine which way the sale goes.

2) The value your company’s resources bring to the client; these will be judged in the future by the prospect, but can create a firm foundation for growth now. What back-up, guarantees, warranties and such-like you can offer are important, but what you as a company can offer in backing up the validity of your support means even more to the prospect and their future business.

3) The value your solution brings to the client’s company; how they will benefit and prosper from what services you can provide for them will boost your chances of becoming the partnering company with them.

4) What you and your company add to the value your client brings to its own customers; this area is sometimes missed by salespeople, because they are considering their own products and services more than the customer’s customers. By providing market opportunities for your client to exploit turns you into a valued team member for their business, and creates a position of trust.

By ascertaining what value you bring to the client in these four dimensions, you build your reputation and trustworthiness at all levels within their business. And that’s the way you build toward being a trusted advisor.

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…

The days are long gone since you could pitch up at a client’s office, tell him about your products and services, do a little negotiating and close the deal. Today, the emphasis is on building relationships, long-term and mutual.

To do this, the salesperson needs to earn the right to continue the discussions, build integrity, establish reliability and offer the confidence to understand and recommend solutions.

How can you do this in today’s environment? Well, clients are looking for these things:

* Up-to-date knowledge of their industry and their business. There is simply no excuse these days for turning up ignorant of the prospect’s business. Asking the question “So, tell me what you do”, is the biggest warning signal to the prospect, because it means you haven’t done your homework and it shows that the prospect would have to do all the background work for you if he did start working with you. The message you are sending is you are more interested in your product than their company, and the prospect will wonder what else they will have to do to help you out.

* A readiness to exchange ideas between your company and theirs. Clients are looking for support mechanisms between you, so they can ascertain how the support they can get from you will mean greater market opportunities for them. The more you can identify the correlation between their company and yours, the greater the chance they will consider working with you.

* A long-term alliance between you and them. This alliance will achieve a great amount for the client, and that’s where your emphasis in the relationship should be made. If you just rely on transactions, your products and services will be commoditised by the client, and you’ll end up talking price and discounts. Forge an alliance with all parts of their business, and you open up relationships that will survive price issues in the long run.

* Suggestions on how they can improve their business and discover new markets. If you can become their ally and help them see how your products can open up new markets or build on existing ones, they will see you as a preferred partner and approach you for advice, guidance and recommendations when the going gets tough. You’ve definitely build up a good reputation when that happens!

Build your strategic plans with your prospects and they will soon become loyal clients.

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…

Many salespeople have heard the reasoning behind why they should be concentrating on consultative selling, and may have even tried to achieve that end goal.

But many more have wondered how they actually start on the road to consultative selling, so here are some ideas to get the ball rolling and the confidence flowing:

Firstly, don’t talk about price or cost to your prospect; talk about investment. Price is a cost and has a negative value in the mind of the buyer. Customers want to pay as little as possible and still get great value. On the other hand, investment signifies a return on that investment and customers will gladly pay out to receive a larger return in exchange. Get the prospect thinking about how they can invest in your services, and the whole conversation changes.

Secondly, talk about your product/service as monitory value applied to the customer’s business. You can assign values to benefits such as reduced lead times or down time so that the customer knows exactly what value they will get from securing a deal. You can also add the positive side of the equation, too, so the prospect will see how achieving their goals could be measured in monitory terms.

Then, change your focus from standalone sales to a relationship of recurring sales. A customers profit-improvement proposal should not be a one-time event. Instead, you should aim for multiple streams of new business that can be predicted. Once you can prove that your products and services improve profit reliably, over and over again, then you becomea real partner to the customer.

If you follow these steps effectively, there should be a solid movement towards you offering a consultative approach and mind-set to your customer base.

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…

Our buyers have changed over the past few years. Those who were around in the early part of this century have either been replaced, moved on or changed the way they buy.

Selling in the same way as we always have means we miss out on opportunities, because the buyer who bought from us with that style doesn’t exist any more.

Today’s buyers are more sales savvy, have different needs and offer more challenges than ever before. What can we do to meet these new challenges?

I believe there are three key skills you can develop that will increase your chances of gaining more business:

Become more collaborative and consultative in your role

Become more proactive with your best customers

Widen the difference between you and your competition

Let’s take these in order:

Becoming more collaborative and consultative means identifying how you can build and maintain a relationship with your buyers, partnering with their organisations. Collaboration means working with people inside and outside your company to create close working relationships with people who can help their businesses thrive in the current economic climate.

By collaborating you will not only learn about the products your customers sell, but also be able to use that expertise to better serve your customer as a true subject matter expert, not just a knowledgeable sales person.

You need to understand and demonstrate the real impact you and your product will have on the customer and their objectives.

By becoming a collaborative resource your customer will not only see more value in your meetings, but begin to rely on you as a source of valuable knowledge about the industry and the processes they need to deal with day to day. This allows you to move the discussion from the product or service and onto areas that will make a real difference to the way your customer markets their services to their customers.

Get into your buyer’s world, and understand their market through their eyes. This gets you more engaged with the customer, offering more than just the products and services in your portfolio

Secondly, you need to become more proactive. We have often talked about why buyers buy…to relieve the pain of the current situation or grow towards an opportunity in the future. Without that movement, most buyers will stick with what they currently have, without realising the opportunities they are missing, or are willing to tolerate what they know is inefficient. Some prospects have stopped looking because they believe there is no alternative, or no affordable alternative.

As a proactive seller you need to understand and focus on the fact there is a viable cost effective alternative with a real return on the investment they have to make. You need to focus on the cause, not the symptom.

This helps you develop a solution that the prospect maybe had not considered before, offering a direction and a way out that will assist their business to move in a direction that they hadn’t seen or though of before. This is where the true partnership starts to develop and the prospect becomes a customer or client that comes to rely on you as a solution to their problems.

Next we look at widening the difference between you and your competition. In my ‘Sales Person’s Crisis’ Book (you can download your free copy below), I talk about how much more knowledgable customers have become these days, and how important it is that you take your products away from being classed as a commodity. Many buyers we talk to find it difficult to differentiate all the services and products that are available to them.

So what can you do?

You can start by building value in the customer’s eyes before you start to sell. This may well involve taking the product out of the equation and differentiating by what you as the sales consultant can offer that the customer would miss without you. This means your approach and process become the differentiators. What value does the customer get by dealing purely with you?

How much do you know about the customer’s business? Their industry? Their products? Their customers? Their competitors?

How much more can you help them with than their current suppliers can, so they come to see you as a business partner rather than just a salesperson, like all the others?

If you can consider yourself as being collaborative, consultative and proactive, there will be every reason for your client to see you as a business partner of real value to them, now and in the future.

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…

There are many levels of service that you can achieve with your customers, and many salespeople are quite happy to achieve the status of supplier to their businesses. At this level, you continue to offer products and services as and when the customer needs them, and the relationship rarely goes beyond making sure the goods are delivered on time.

Some salespeople, however, build up closer relationships with their customers to the point where they become a trusted advisor to them, offering much deeper information and much better assistance for their future needs.

So how do you become one of these trusted advisors, creating a partnership that will be of mutual benefit to both sides?

Here are some examples of what you need to do to prove you can be of major benefit to their business:

1) You must understand your customer’s short and long-term goals, objectives and priorities, as specifically as possible. Ask where they see their market share being in the near future and what their plans are to achieve that. Get close to them on financials, as the more you know in these factual areas, the more you can assist in their buying processes to help keep them on track.

2) You must understand the company culture and its values. By doing so, you can link in with the way they operate and offer advice on how your services can add to that value base.

3) You must understand the customer’s decision-making process. What I mean by this is you must be sure you know the people involved in making choices, not just in respects to your products, but also in other areas of decision-making.

4) You must understand the needs of your customer’s customers. This will allow you to advise on the best way of marketing your products to the end user. You know you products and services better than your customer does, so help them achieve their goals by advising them on how to sell them.

5) You must understand how your customer’s competitors work. Do some research on what their competitors are doing at the moment and present it to your customer. You will get lots of thanks and loyalty because very few of your competitors will think of doing this.

6) You must understand the opportunities that exist for your customer in their market place. How competitive are they? What major USPs do they offer to the market? By knowing this information, you can offer trusted advice when it comes to new campaigns and products.

By becoming a trusted advisor to your customer in these areas, you make yourself an invaluable resource to them and create reasons for loyalty in the future. It will take away the attention from price because you offer something more valuable than money. And that’s something your customer will always thank you for.

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…

What’s happening in sales in 2010 has been predicted for a long time now. By whom? By your customers.

You have been warned! The way we sold in the nineties and even the early part of this century is now dead. Or it should be. Why?

Because the type of customer who bought in those days isn’t around anymore. Even if they are still the same person, the change in the global economy has changed the way they buy.

Research has shown that today’s buyer wants to be treated differently. So how can you be a successful salesperson in 2011? This is what they want you to be:

1. An Engager – The modern buyer wants to work with a sales person who is engaging and will go out of his or her way to “help” the customer. This sales associate has a visible and obvious sincere interest in the needs and desires of the customer.

2. An Educator – The study found that customers want a sales person who is an expert in everything there is to know about the product, service and the company. The buyer also wants the sales person who can educate them and to teach them.

3. An Expeditor – This is the sales person who is sensitive to the customer’s time and gets things done quickly and correctly the first time.

4. Authentic –  Customers want a sales person who is “for real;” genuine and sincere.

When looking at the above four traits, you can see that they all fall under one general category—education. The modern buyer of today wants to deal with sales people who are more educated than they are; they want an expert.

None of the other qualities are possible if the sales person is not a bona fide expert.

Sales people are going through a bigger crisis today than they have for a long time. But all is not lost. Some sales people are doing very well out of the downturn and cutbacks. If you want to know what to do, download my free report that gives you details on how to get real in this changed world of selling. Putting the ideas into practice will create many more selling opportunities for you.

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…

‘If you build it, he will come’. Remember that line from the film Field of Dreams?

Well, you would be wise to follow Kevin Costner’s advice and build it yourself.

Build what? And who will come?

If you don’t build it, you won’t be around in 2011. Or at least you won’t be as successful as you could be.

What should you build? I’m talking about your ability to read how your clients’ businesses are going. In other words, you need to build your business acumen. It’s a Latin word meaning sharpness, keen insight or shrewdness.

Naturally it’s important to have all the sales skills that will differentiate you from your competitors. But you will need more. Much more. Let’s look at what average salespeople do today:

• Average salespeople struggle to understand how their own company competes and wins business, and they look for situations that don’t fit their company’s target market. They try to sell on price when their company isn’t that competitive.
• Average salespeople struggle to speak business language with their prospects. They lack the understanding to be able to discuss the issues, challenges, and opportunities their clients are facing a way that means something to their prospects.
• Average salespeople don’t comprehend the financial metrics that affect their prospect’s business, so they can’t provide any solutions to the challenges those metrics throw up.
• Average salespeople cannot explain how their solutions create a better future for their prospects or how their value over the competition is of great benefit to them.

On the other hand, great salespeople create value to their prospects by building their business acumen:

• Great salespeople understand their own company’s marketing strategies, their own company’s unique value proposition and how they compete against others in the marketplace.

• Great salespeople sell symbiotically, knowing how their clients compete in their markets, knowing their client’s unique value propositions.

• Great salespeople are able to discuss financial and business figures easily and comfortably, helping clients see the value of the product or service to their business.

• Great salespeople use their business acumen to pinpoint specific areas where value can be created with their products and services, to communicate how that product will create a competitive advantage to the client, and develop a solution for future business that will take the client into new markets.

Up to now, sales acumen may have seen you through the tough times, but for the future, it may not be enough. Build your business acumen, your knowledge of how businesses work, particularly your current customers’ businesses, and you’ll find your customers will come.  You’ll be able to offer much more quality to your clients and prospects, and avoid being seen as ‘just another salesperson’. And that can only be good for business!

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…