Like any other science, selling is easy – all you’ve got to do is be good with people and know how to read personalities. Are they a driver, expressive, analytic or amiable? Are they Type A, Type B or type-casted? It doesn’t matter... just nail their learning style – auditory, visual or kinaesthetic – adapt how you communicate.
The latest thinking in NLP and Challenger domination enables you to inject insight through ideation to completely change the game. All you need to do is ensure that you don’t offend them with any cultural gaffs; which means always keep your eyes up, never mention anything to do with The Middle East, the age of the Earth or L. Ron Hubbard.
Once you’ve established rapport, all you have to do is understand their business; engineer value, navigate the political power-base, discover their evaluation, selection and procurement process... while also creating a bias for your solution. It’s just like shelling peas – simple!
But never mention the competition… except the “do nothing” competitor, the one of apathy or the status quo... that competitor needs to be hammered relentlessly with your outrageous ROI claims.
Now, you might need a few tools to help you execute, but they’re all straightforward too. CRM integrates with ERP to deliver SFA. Do a few courses to ensure you understand SPIN, Efox selling, Tareget Account Selling (TAS), blue sheets, gold sheets, green sheets, RSVPselling, BATTLEPLAN, and The New Solution Selling. Mash them all up into your own epiphany of sales process enlightenment, then use data analytics to provide gazillion reports to while away the day – it will help you avoid rejection on the phone.
The big winner among all of this is "qualify deals properly", and do it so that you know all of the acronyms.
Then book-end qualification with the hammer-time of closing techniques, like the alternative choice close, the assumptive close, the stutterer’s close, the Arnie close... "I'll be back... if you don't sign."But the best one is the “I’ve got pictures of you with a goat!” close. Be creative, as creative as you like!
Mash them all up – your boss will have no idea what’s going on, and he’ll be throwing resources at you for deal pursuit like you’re about to get acquired! But always sell the future in mind by using design thinking to create optimal customer experience.
Embrace question-based selling, it’s just like numbers-based accounting
Support the entire customer life cycle through territory analysis, segmentation, targeting, micro-marketing, lead nurturing, events, research, account and opportunity planning, qualification – just like we talked about – discovery, core planning, collaboration, bid management, close plans, negotiation techniques, customer on-boarding, service and renewals, bring them all together with complaints, get reference – everything! Are you seeing how easy selling really is? On top of the basics, which we’ve just covered, you simply need to manage up – always look busy and stressed all the time! Tell your boss you’re dominating the white space! By the way, that’s the part of the market that will never buy anything from you, but don’t tell him that.
Learn how to say, “It’s strategic,” and say it with gravitas every time you’re challenged about wanting resources for something that is a long-shot.
Lastly, embrace the paradigm of social selling; the new ABC of selling is always be connecting. LinkedIn is the new publishing, introduction, referral platform, Google+ is the new Google Juice, Twitter is the megaphone of amplification. Facebook? Well, it’s for old people. Monitor all the social platforms that matter and be where your customers are, but make sure that you jump in with relevance and context! Get upstream through social listening 56.8789643% of the way through the buyer’s process!
Well, that’s it really, plain and simple. You can do it – I believe in you!
Ooops! I forgot to mention how important it is to be masterful with 100-slide PowerPoint to bedazzle your audience, using your melodic NLP droning to tune their alpha brain waves into the subconscious need to purchase something from you. Great tips here from Don McMillan. Pay special attention to where the term 'bullet point' came from.
If you're a sales manager, then the last thing to know is that it's super important to innovate in the way you train the team. This is a cutting edge mash-up of Wizard of Oz meets Jeff Slutsky Sales Magic... strap yourself in to be entertained and educated all at the same time. Imagine the impact of immersing your team in this assault on their senses on day three of your sales kick-off. The awards night was the night before and they'll be even more receptive in their hung-over state.
Hope you laughed and as Zig Ziglar used to say, “See you at the top!”
The truth is that selling is far from easy. If you valued this article, please hit the ‘like' and ‘share’ buttons below. This article was originally published in LinkedIn here where you can comment. Also follow the award winning LinkedIn blog here or visit Tony’s leadership blog at his keynote speaker website: www.TonyHughes.com.au.