Have you ever stopped to consider what you should or should not be doing during a negotiation to ensure its success? In this checklist, Mark Hunter focuses on the positive aspects of what to include in every negotiation to win each sale. You can also download an audio podcast to listen to his insights.
“Opportunities are seen by many, understood by few, and capitalized upon by even fewer.” - Mark Hunter
It’s amazing how intellectual capacity drives opportunities. Far too many insights are never capitalized on because we fail to use our own intellectual capacity or access the insights of others to determine how to leverage an opportunity. I recently read where Bill Gates and Warren Buffett recently took a trip to Alberta, Canada, to better understand how the people there are extracting oil using new technologies. They made this trip because they were curious and were driven by the fact that they knew it would expand their intellectual capacity. Sales is all about using your intellectual capacity to help people see opportunities. The salespeople who are at the top of their game year in and year out are the ones who know how to leverage their intellectual skills. Take the time to develop your intellect by digging into books, articles, newspapers, and engaging in conversations with others that will stimulate your mind and cause you to grow intellectually. In the long-term, your success is not driven by what you sell, who you work for, and certainly not by the price you sell it for. Long-term success is driven by your intellectual capacity and your ability to leverage it to see opportunities.
In this podcast, Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter”, explains how to combat the problem of being given a time crunch for giving a sales presentation. Instead of rescheduling or cramming all of the information in, Mark offers techniques to use to get to the heart of the customer’s needs and go on from there. He explains his philosophy that “the best presentation made is the presentation never given.”
To listen to this free podcast through iTunes, click on the link below.
Selling value rather than price is a simple concept that often gets overlooked. It is not uncommon to see a salesperson get flustered when asked about their price so they are not confident when they say it. This, in turn, causes the customer to not see much value in the product or service. This is the number one reason why I say sell value, not price to the customer.
It’s important to remember that the value the customer sees is not necessarily going to be the same as that of the salesperson. In fact, it is many times far greater. The value they place on the product or service is in direct proportion to the level of questions the salesperson has asked. The more questions asked, the more opportunities for the customer to see for themselves what the value proposition really is.
Drop me an email or give me some feedback as to what you think about this. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be building on this concept with a number of clients and in several articles.
Did you know that The Sales Hunter has many informative podcasts available to download for free on iTunes? One of them is entitled, “Second Questions.”
In this podcast, Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter”, explains the importance of using second questions. These open questions are best used to follow-up the initial response from the customer because they engage them to share more information with you. Mark shares how using the second question technique allows you to draw out of the customer the information you really need.
To listen to it, click on the link below.
A reader recently wrote: “The truth is sales are down….. and other creative efforts have produced little results.”
The Sales Hunter’s Response: “The industry you’re in is certainly being hit by the economy. I keep telling all of my clients the economy will turn around. It always does. If you cut sales or advertising in a soft market, you won’t be able to fully leverage the market when it comes back. In addition, you really can’t identify the turn in the market until after it’s already occured, and by then it’s too late to capture all of that early business which also tends to be at a higher margin. Therefore, I tell clients that in a soft market you need to target your advertising and marketing efforts to ensure that you are creating enough continuity with clients and prospects that they have the confidence they need to call you.
Sales is Leadership and Leadership is Sales ….
I’ve just heard about another fabulous website called “The Customer Collective.” It’s an online community for Sales and Marketing Executives and is filled with valuable information. It will be well worth your time to visit the site. Follow the link below:
Success does not come from answers you know. It comes from the questions you ask.
Over the years, I’ve found that people who are insecure in their role are the first ones to spout off about everything they know. They do this as a way of trying to show everyone how smart they are. On the other hand, people who are secure in their role are very comfortable not being the one who has to dominate every discussion. They are very comfortable asking questions. They see their role as working to try and find an even better solution than they would have initially thought was possible.
This is so important to us in sales. Our ability to ask questions to uncover new needs, new applications, and to, ultimately, develop better solutions for the client and us is what moves a salesperson to a higher level of success. In my role as a consultant on the subject of sales, I find myself in this position frequently. I see my number one job is to ask questions. The more questions I ask, the more I’m able to help the client see what their potential opportunity really is.
After a lousy sales call, your motivation level can fall quickly. The best way to pump it back up is to immediately pick up the phone and call a favorite customer. They are sure to motivate you and this will help prevent you from getting into a funk and wasting the rest of the day or even week. On many occasions, I’ve seen this work for both outside sales people and ones who spend all day on the phone.
There is never a day that goes by that we are not given the privilege to impact others.
Take a step back for a moment and think of all the people you have the privilege (yes, privilege) to talk to and thus impact. Regardless of your sales role or, for that matter, whatever job you have, you influence others. Every day, I make it my goal to positively impact those I come in contact with. I want the people I interact with to think that the time we spent together in coversation was one of the better parts of their day. I don’t want it to be the best part because that should be reserved for their spouse, significant other, children, and/or parents. But, if we take this approach, we’ll soon find ourselves not only impacting others but also ourselves in an incredibly positive manner.
Posts
