Selling For Dummies
Overview
Your guide to the most up-to-date selling strategies and techniques
No matter your skill level, this new edition of Selling For Dummies helps you lay the foundation for sales success with the latest information on how to research your prospects, break down the steps of the sales process, follow up with customers, and so much more.
Selling, when done right, is more than a job—it's an art. With the help of Selling For Dummies, you'll discover how to stand head-and-shoulders above the crowd by knowing your clients, and approaching selling with passion and a positive attitude. The book covers making killer sales pitches and presentations, using the latest technologies to your advantage, establishing goals and planning your time efficiently, partnering with others, addressing clients' concerns, and closing more sales.
- Includes expert tips for harnessing the power of the Internet to increase sales
- Covers the latest selling strategies and techniques in the Digital Age
- Explains how mastering selling skills can benefit all areas of your life
- Explores the newest prospecting and qualification strategies
If you're brand new to the sales scene or a seasoned salesperson looking to win more clients and close more sales, Selling For Dummies sets you up for success.
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About The Author
Tom Hopkins is the epitome of sales success. A millionaire by the time he reached the age of 27, he is now chairman of Tom Hopkins International Inc., one of the most prestigious sales-training organizations in the world.
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CHEAT SHEET
With the right selling skills in your arsenal, you’ll have more happiness and satisfaction in all areas of your life, not just in your selling career (although your selling will certainly benefit, too).To start down the road to sales success, you need to know how to make a good first impression, ensure that your prospective clients need what you have, give fantastic presentations, address client concerns, and close sales.
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After you master some basic closing strategies and are ready to move ahead, try these 10 closes that have proven successful for many in sales.
The Wish‐Ida close
When you know what you’re offering is truly good for your prospective client, and your prospect has agreed but just doesn’t seem to want to make a decision, the Wish‐Ida close is perfect.
When you attain a certain level of professionalism, you’ll be selling more. This increase in sales is a culmination of a lot of things: You’re figuring out how to find the best people to sell to, you’re qualifying those people quickly and smoothly, you’re recognizing buying signs, and, most importantly, you’re enjoying it all.
Here, you have eleven choice bits of selling wisdom to return to as your career progresses. Use this list as your road map to mastering the art of selling, as your eleven easy steps to becoming a champion in all your future selling endeavors.
Develop your curiosity
Before you enter into any new sales experience, make sure you bring with you an attitude of positive anticipation and enthusiasm.
The average human being has the ability to achieve almost anything. As a salesperson, your goal is to discover what you want to achieve and find the will to sacrifice, change, and grow to satisfy that want. Any goal you set will benefit from applying the following principles to it.
If it’s not in writing, it’s not a goal.
You’ve done your job as salesperson: You’ve provided great information and a wonderful solution to meet a potential client’s challenge. Yet, the buyer refuses to own what you’re offering. Her problem isn’t solved yet, so, you need to work your way back to a point of attempting another close — perhaps with different options.
To become and remain a professional in the selling business, you need to develop and maintain five essential skills. If you aren't sure of what skills to work on first, certainly someone in your life will gladly assist you — your manager, your spouse, your children, or a trusted friend.
One of the most important life lessons is that no one else is going to look out for you as well as you look out for yourself.
Sales
The fifth step in the selling cycle is to address your potential client's concerns. By this point, you've wowed them with your presentation. How do you handle any negative comments or concerns your buyer raises during or after your presentation? Answer in simple, unemotional terms, and have recommendations in mind.
Time is as precious as money, so it pays to explore ways to get more sales productivity out of the time you have to invest in your sales career. Everyone knows you can make twice the income by working twice the number of hours and putting forth twice the amount of effort. The secret to true success lies in making the time you currently invest in your business twice as productive.
When you’re setting sales goals, always begin with long‐term goals and work backward to medium‐range and short‐term goals. Your long‐term goals can be the hardest to set, so if you set those first, you accomplish the tough stuff right up front. Besides, you develop your medium‐range and short‐term goals from your long‐term ones.
Sales
Closing should follow naturally and smoothly after you address your buyers’ concerns. But if your buyer doesn’t automatically pick up a pen to approve your paperwork or write a check, don’t panic. You don’t have to turn into Jo Typical Salesperson and apply pressure to get what you want.
Getting your prospect’s business can be as simple as saying, “How soon do we start?
Did you know that there’s not a whole lot of difference between the activities of an average salesperson and a great one? They both work to find potential clients. They each qualify clients, present information and products, handle concerns, and close sales. The main difference is the point where they give up when the going gets tough.
Sales
Your clients feel comfortable around you when you know how to establish rapport with them, which is what selling situations are all about — establishing common ground. People like to be around people who are similar to them. Bringing out the similarities you share with your prospects proves that at least one salesperson is not an alien being from another solar system.
To be successful at selling, you must be constantly on the prowl for information. What type of information? Everything and anything about your product, your company, your competition, and (most importantly) your prospect. And with the Internet just a mouse click away, you really have no excuse for not being well informed.
Sales
The seventh and final step in the selling cycle is to get referrals. After you close the sale, take a moment to ask for referrals. This can be as simple as asking, “Because you’re so happy with this decision today, think about your extended family and business associates who may also be interested in learning about this product.
An important step in the selling cycle is listening to and responding to your prospect’s concerns and objections. Here are the steps to take when a person objects to something about the product or service you’re selling:
Hear the prospect out.
Don’t be too quick to address every phrase your prospect utters. Give him time; encourage him to tell you the whole story behind his concern.
The human body has two ears and one mouth. To be good at persuading or selling, you must find out how to use those natural devices in proportion: Listen twice as much as you talk, and you’ll succeed in persuading others nearly every time. When you do most of the talking:
You aren’t finding out about either your customer or your customer’s needs.
Sales
Your prospective sales clients make many decisions about you in the first ten seconds when they meet you for the very first time. That’s right. Within ten seconds, you can be either chopped liver or Prince or Princess Charming.
Take a stopwatch or check the second hand on your watch right now and find out what ten seconds feels like.
In all its forms, fear is the greatest enemy you will ever encounter in persuading your clients and making the sell. The toughest part of your job is helping other people admit to and overcome their fears so you can earn the opportunity to do business with them. Fear is what builds those walls of resistance that salespeople so often run into.
When you work with companies, a key concern is discovering who the true decision‐maker really is. It may be the office manager, a purchasing agent, or a department head.
You can usually find out simply by asking the receptionist who is responsible for the area of business to which your products or services apply.
Sales
If you’re in a career sales position, you probably have to sell other items in the product line that may not be your favorites. As in any area of life, in the world of selling, if you have the wrong attitude, you can end up being your own worst enemy.
Many people in selling situations have a challenge with their own likes and dislikes — they tend to sell only what they like and mostly to the people they like.
Sales
The second step in the selling cycle is making that first contact. You’ve found the right people as potential buyers. Now you actually get to meet them. To persuade another person to give you her valuable time, you need to offer something of value in return.
For instance: To gain entrance to someone’s home, you may need to offer a free estimate or gift in exchange for her opinion on the demonstration of your product.
People don’t buy logically. They buy emotionally and then defend their decisions with logic. Your sales presentation must not only capture and hold the attention of potential clients but should also involve as many of their senses as possible. The following tips can help you make an effective sales presentation:
Never give your prospect something to read until it’s time to read it.
When you meet prospective clients during the selling cycle — or anyone, for that matter — for the first time, your goal is for them to like and trust you. You can accomplish that goal and be on your way to making a sale by completing the following steps, in this order:
Smile, deep and wide.
Make eye contact.
Many businesspeople subscribe to the three‐foot rule when it comes to sales prospecting: Anyone who comes within three feet of them is worth talking to about their product, service, or business.
When you get comfortable with what you’re selling and with talking to people about it, apply this strategy. All you need to do is say, “Hello, it’s nice to meet you.
Sales
Prospecting can also be called finding new business. It involves strategies for finding the right potential buyers for what you’re selling. When considering your product or service, ask yourself, “Who would benefit most from this?” For example:
If the end user is a corporation, you need to make contacts within corporations.
Sales
You can contact your sales prospects in four major ways: by phone, mail, email, or face to face — either in person or via the web.
Most professional salespeople integrate all four methods into an effective prospecting strategy. For some, one method works better than others. Different situations call for different strategies, so be well versed in how to handle each.
Sales
When you first meet with prospective clients, you need to qualify them — in other words, you need to see whether the product or service you sell meets their needs. To help you remember what to ask during this stage of the selling cycle, use this creatively spelled acronym — NEADS:
N: What does your prospect have now?
When you finally sit down with your potential client, you need to find out whether she’s qualified to be your client. In selling, qualifying your prospects means finding out not just who they are but also what they do, what they have, and what they need.
You don’t have to take on every client who qualifies for your product or service.
Most sales are lost because salespeople didn’t clearly ask for the business or asked at the wrong time. If your product or service has proven to be truly a good decision for your client, it’s your obligation to ask them to own it! Develop your closing instinct with the help of the following guidelines:
When you feel the client warming up to the sale by asking more questions, leaning forward, or touching the actual product, take his temperature by saying something like this: “Mr.
Sales
The person who isn’t selling isn’t living. Think about that: At some point nearly every day, you’re involved in a selling situation of some sort. You may call it by a different name or not even recognize it as an act of selling, but, all the same, selling it is. Here’s just a short list of the people who sell things and whose “products” you buy:
Actors and actresses: If you’ve ever watched a television show, movie, or play and been caught up in the story, you’ve been a part of a selling situation.
Selling is both an art and a science. Knowing the numbers you plan to achieve and how they break down is critical to the science side of selling. This is where you develop your own personal measurements to help you know if you’re on track to your chosen achievements. Sales newbies may need a little extra help in setting goals for their selling lives.
With the right selling skills in your arsenal, you’ll have more happiness and satisfaction in all areas of your life, not just in your selling career (although your selling will certainly benefit, too).To start down the road to sales success, you need to know how to make a good first impression, ensure that your prospective clients need what you have, give fantastic presentations, address client concerns, and close sales.
When you first considered a career in sales, you probably had some vague notions of success in mind — mostly related to your income. Now it’s time to turn those notions into specific, vivid pictures of your soon‐to‐be reality.
The pictures will inspire you when you feel like packing it all in and running away to a deserted isle somewhere in the South Pacific to lie on the beach watching your toenails grow.
Following are the ten most common mistakes made in sales. You can learn from these mistakes so your journey to success in sales can be shorter and much more enjoyable.
Misunderstanding selling
In some cases, the primary contact a business has with the outside world is through its sales and service people — and the only reason those companies have salespeople is for them to sell the product or service.
Many words common to sales and selling situations can generate fearful or negative images in your clients’ minds. The experience of millions of sales professionals confirms that replacing such words with more positive, pacifying words and phrases is crucial.
Words and Phrases to Eliminate from Your Sales Vocabulary
Instead of .
When mastering the fundamentals of selling, think of a triangle with equal sides that illustrate the three main elements of selling: on one side is product knowledge; on the other side are selling tactics and strategies — the people skills; and on the base of the triangle are the words attitude, enthusiasm, and goals.
Sales
If you plan to have a successful career in sales, you need to become somewhat computer savvy. Even if you’re still selling something as simple as buggy whips, you need to track your client contacts in the most efficient manner possible to maximize your sales. You also need to have access to the phenomenal volume and quality of information available on the Internet.
Today more than ever, your selling vocabulary matters because of the phenomenon of trade talk, or jargon. Jargon is defined as words and phrases particular to a given field of work.
If you sell medical supplies to doctors, you need to know the jargon medical professionals use and use it yourself, liberally. But if you sell medical supplies to the general public, limit your use of technical terms to the bare minimum until you can determine your client’s level of knowledge about the product.
Selling skills can do for you what a way with words did for William Shakespeare. They can do for you what powerful communication skills did for Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Selling skills can make or break you in whatever endeavor you choose.
They can mean the difference between getting the promotion or job, landing the girl or guy of your dreams, or having to settle for less in life than you deserve.
Sales
You need to know what you're selling to sell it well. What must you absolutely, positively, truly know about your product in order to sell it? Always begin with the obvious:
What the product is called. Know the specific product name and models, as well as the product/part number. Clients may refer to frequently ordered products by number.
Why do you need to research your prospective clients and their businesses? So that when you’re getting ready to close the sale, your lack of knowledge won’t trip you up. You do all your research simply to build to that final moment when your buyer gives you the okay to deliver your product and to start building a long‐term relationship with her or her company.
Sales
Your presentation of your product, service, or idea requires the most preparation. In your preparation, practice your answers to common questions with a family member or fellow salesperson. Make a list of the benefits you think are your strongest persuaders in placing your product. Then figure out a way to work those points into responses to the common questions asked by potential clients.
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