The Art of Selling 101; Closing the Sale - Bob Sherman - MediaBizBloggers

For you regulars to this blog I want to remind you that this is quot101quot and if you absorb and practice the advice offered it won39t be long before you are good sales executives which generally speaking will place you among the vast majority of average sellers If that doesn39t sound like much of a big deal you have to start somewhere The title of the blog site quotgreatsellersgotoheavencomquot implies bigger aspirations for you I have and will continue to share with you my observations garnered over a lifetime of running companies about the characteristics habits and values that are commonly shared by uncommon or extraordinary sales executives To become extraordinary takes some field work as well as classroom time and so quot101quot is intended to help you stay in the game long enough to get the field work inIn our two previous quotArt of Sellingquot posts we talked about getting and conducting the first quotTell Mequot meeting step one in the Consultative Sales approach In a nut shell that selling strategy has you as the interviewer seeking out what the buyer can tell you all about his business market competitors resources etc as well as the most profound obstacles to the growth of his business Once you have agreement on that you and the buyer quotcontractquot that you will ponder your notes and try to find solutions to his hurdles Once accomplished the two of you will visit again for you to present your findings Read that for you to sell him the solutionIn the next visit you 1 restate the prior agreement quotMr Jones in our last meeting we agreed that the most significant hurdle to growing your business is blah blah blahquot 2 present your research findings on his quotproblemquot 3 offer your proposal to grasp the opportunity as well as the case histories to support your proposition and then take him through the investment and the return you believe it will provide ROI And then youSHUT UPIf you do one of two things will happen First he may swipe the contract out of your hand sign it grab you by the shoulders and pull you in for a big hug and with tears of gratitude in his eyes plant a kiss on your cheek Or two he may tell you one to seventeen hundred reasons why that sale will never happen I39d short number oneWhat you need to do next when number quot2quot arrives will not be a natural reaction The natural reactions would be to beg or attack The begging will ultimately humiliate you and the attack will make you feel better for only a very short while but will subsequently take up a lot of your time at the unemployment officeWhat you do next is EMPATHIZELet39s posit that his negative response objection is the cost of the program You respond after locking your sympathetic eyes on him quotMr Jones I certainly understand how concerned you are about increasing what you see as operating costs especially now when revenues have slowedquotquotI understandquot quotI know how you feelquot quotI wish I had a dollar for every smart businessman I39ve met who expressed the same concernquot quotI would feel exactly as you do in the same circumstancesquot and on and on These are all expressions of empathyAnd EMPATHY must be the first communication in response to the objection And by the way the fact that you are on automatic pilot in your response does not imply that his concern objection is not worthy of your true empathy After all this guy is worried about meeting payroll and you are suggesting he spend more moneyAfter empathy comes COMFORT and it starts with the word quotBUTquot quotI understand how you feel Mr Jones Many of my customers have faced the same situation Business is slow how can I risk investing Use that word amp8211 it moves from quotcostquot a purely negative thought to a word with some reason for optimism quotBut Mr Jones what others have found and what I believe we must acknowledge is that the greater risk is paralysis in a down market That too often brings out the quotFor Salequot sign The proposal I have crafted for you carefully targets your opportunity and drills home to your potential customers that you are the solution to their problem Your risk in investment is far outweighed by the potential for success AgreedSHUT UP AND WAIT FOR THE NEXT OBJECTIONLet39s posit that the next objection is along this line quotWell Bob your thoughts certainly make some sense but I just can39t bring myself to come up with that large a commitmentquot And you sayquotI understand how daunting that kind of a commitment can be Mr Jones EMPATHY I39m hearing you say that the investment amount rather that the approach itself is worrying So let39s do this BUT Let39s commit to a week on week off program I39ll compress the schedule so that we39ll message intensely a few days of the week which will magnify the effect of each message and carefully choose alternating days of the week to insure maximum reach The effect will be 1 that you still get to tell your story to a great number of people 2 you39ve lowered your investment risk by 50 and we will be able to build on the program after you see that it returns along the lines I39ve suggested OKquotSHUT UPYou haven39t asked so I39ll tell you After a trial close quotOKquot is a trial close the adage is quotfirst one who speaks losesquot Really what you are looking for is the buyer to fully express all of his objections so that you can deal with them If you do all the blabbing you get to hear the wonderful sound of your voice but you don39t get the businessNow I have an offer you can39t refuse We could go on and on about the basic art of selling techniques that will get you in the game But I39d rather we take a shot at making you great There are hundreds of quotHow Toquot sell books at your favorite FOX BOOKS outlet And these are all good for the average seller So I39m going to do my best to get back to the basic raison d39etre of this blog and get you into heaven But if you email me questions about quot101quot and please do so without any embarrassment I39ll be happy to try to answer as quickly as I can via a personal emailBecause that39s whyGreat SellingBob Sherman has 40 years experience managing relationships between media companies and advertisers in old and new media from radio cable and TV to the Internet and from sales executive to chief executive and from the biggest media corporations to his own entrepreneurial companies He is currently in partnership with Pilot Group LLC Bob can be reached at rshermanpilotgroupbizRead all Bob39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Great Sellers Go To Heaven MediaBizBloggersFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

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The Art of Selling 101; Closing the Sale - Bob Sherman - MediaBizBloggers

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