The power of Sales (real stories)

These are two interesting stories that are very similar to the things I have written about in the previous article.

$5 Million in Cold Calls – Fortune Small Business magazine

This guy built his business to $5 million in annual sales by perfecting his sales technique. Very nice! Do you still think cold calling is not working?

Putting the show in business – The Seattle Times (source: Seth’s Blog)

This dealer is selling avearge 25 cars a day! While so many people hate the entire car-buying experience, how can he do that? He is the No. 1-ranked dealership in the country for used cars sold by a single franchise and he is only 30 years old. Great job!

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In the last three months, I have a chance to attend a series of 4 sales workshops at UCLA Anderson School of Management, hosted by experts at Sales in different industries (Kate O’Phelan, Barry Sacks, Sanjit Singh & Bob Waldorf). Although I have only gone to 3 of the 4 workshops, I will try my best to write down what I have learned from these excellent workshops.

What’s Sales?

“Sales bring in revenue”. This message sounds very simple but not every company really understands the importance of Sales. Many people think that Sales is so simple that everyone should know how to do it. That’s also why many business schools don’t provide courses related to this area. Although ‘selling’ has long suffered from a negative image, we should not underestimate this integral part of a business. Bob Waldorf, former president and CEO of Idea Man, emphasizes that Sales is a revenue enhancement of a company; every good company cannot live without it.

He believes that “Businesses are made of profit”; therefore, poor sales are equal to poor profit. A company cannot conceal its sales performance because everything shows in the balance sheet and income statement.

From Bob’s point of view, every job can be related to Sales. For example, finance people with sales mentality can better understand what the clients really need so they can handle the relationship very well. In other words, salesperson has the power to win a client or lose a client.

Why People Buy?

People buy because they can have benefits from your services or products. All the speakers agree that:

If you have an idea that can benefit your customers,
If you understood the customer’s needs better than anyone else,
If you have a better solution for the customers,
If you have sold yourself as someone with integrity,

Then price will not be the main issue because the customers will buy your ideas. “Ideas sell for profit” (Bob).

Even though it sounds very simple, many people are poor at sales. Why? Because in order to be successful in sales, one has to do a lot of hard works, preparations, “homework”, researches and most importantly, you have to be persistent and CREATIVE!

The Sales Process

Preparation > Approach > Discovery > Solutions > Close

The first step of the process is preparation. You have to look and speak professionally as your image will greatly affect the final decision of your customers. Then you have to identify your best customers and see where you can find them. There are a lot of places that you can find your prospects, such as trade journals, conventions, competitors’ websites, existing clients, alumni…etc.

After you find their contacts, the next step will be the scariest part for many people – “Cold calling”. This is a very frustrated and difficult process because you are always hung-up on and rejected by those receiving the calls. Kate O’Phelan, who has strong experience in the advertising and home furnishings industries, shows us the importance of a compelling key statement in the first call. This statement is what people called “Elevator pitch”, which means we have to sell our products or services in 30 to 60 seconds.

Kate tells us that we usually don’t have any results in the first call but we still have to be patient. Try to ask as many questions as possible and listen carefully about their answers and remember to jot notes! In their answers, you may find out that they had bad experience with their current providers (it’s a good sign!); you can also have a chance to understand more about the personality of your prospect whether he/she is price sensitive or risk sensitive. At the end, you can say something like “you have provided lots of information for me today, and our company may be able to provide some of the solution to you. Can I get a second appointment with you next week and show you our proposal?”

However, when the prospect is answering our questions, we should listen very carefully but don’t interrupt. All the speakers point out that many people think they are good at listening but actually they don’t. When the prospect is speaking out his concern, people will just think about different things in their mind. Instead, we should take notes and ask for clarification when necessary. This can show to your prospect that you are really listening.

Try to call the prospect at the beginning of the week because most people are in the office on Monday. It’s the same when you schedule an appointment with your prospect. Try to make it on Monday or Tuesday because if your prospect wants to reschedule the appointment, you still can change it to Thursday or Friday. But if the meeting is on Friday, you have to take a risk that the following week may be a holiday.

Closing

Kate suggests us to use the ERHQ (Empathy, Real, Handle it, Question) approach. We have to turn rejection into acceptance. In order to do so, we should pay attention to the prospect’s needs. You should show your empathy by saying something like “I totally understand it’s a huge investment…” or “I know many people also have this concern…” Then you have to figure out the real reason of the objection. You can say “is the money your only concern?”, “if money is not a factor, do you think our product make sense to you?”, “if we can make the products more affordable, would you be interested?” or “we have some financing services available, would you be interested?” From the answers of these questions, you can truly know why the prospect says “No” so you can plan your next step.

If after all, the prospect still think you product is not suitable for him, you still have to build up a good relationship. You can say “It seems that my service doesn’t fit you company at this moment, may be I can mail you my business card & information, and it may fit in the future.” or “I know my business doesn’t make sense to you now but I really think that your company has such and such problems & I know that someone may be able to provide solution to you on those areas” If you can really help him to solve the problem by introducing him to another person, this prospect will be impressed by your effort a lot!

to be continued…

Be Creative, Sales Management, Hiring, Sales Training, Networking, Tough customers, Deal with rejection…etc