Jumpstart Your Business

Never listen to your customer. Just tell him/her what you’re going to tell him/her. Tell it to him/her. Then shut up and watch him/her squirm.

Don’t try to figure out what makes him/her think. Who cares. Just get the money.

Always cover every feature of your product and the associated benefits. He/she has to understand all the things they’re getting for the price.

If he/she doesn’t say anything you’re home free. They are just getting ready to sign the order.

Sales Quota in $ or units sold
# of returns or chargebacks
# of units booked
# of units shipped
# of units for which $ is collected
# of sales people making quota
# of customer complaints

And more….
It all depends on your comapny and the products or services you sell.

Some products just go out of style. Sometimes technological advances, new governmental regulations, or health related discoveries can cause products to become unpopular . You should look very carefully at unloading products like these. Forget keeping certain items to please a good customer unless the customer is willing to pay you for the losses you’re incurring.

In response to my post A Different Look At Selling, Alan Zell sent me an article of his from which I excerpted the following gem:

Sales people spend someone else’s time, space, effort, and/or money and how well they do this determines their relationship with that person - the customer. They are in business to ensure that the customers’ time, effort, and/or money is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Thus, selling is a partnership. If customers believe their partners are misspending their time, space, effort or money, they soon break off the partnership.

The seller should not consider him/herself as representing his/her firm, but rather as the customer’s liaison to the firm . . . the job therefore is to represent the customer by finding which of the firm’s services or products will fill the customer’s needs. It means that the first obligation of any business is to put the most proficient person or people in front of customers. To do less is being penny wise and pound foolish.

Salespeople should be taught several basic questions to ask of themselves:

• Who has a need for what I am selling?
• Does it help solve customers’ problem(s)?
• How will it help them be better?
• Am I the right person and am I using the right method(s) to make my presentations?
• Does my offering solve my/our problems rather than the customer™s problem(s)?
• By solving my customers™ problem(s) will I be solving mine or will solving my problem(s) also solve my customers™?It can be summed up in a formula for successful selling:.c y C a / cya = ?

  This is a division problem with a solution = C ¦ Customer

  In words it says if you always cover your customer™__s then for sure you always cover your __s

If you are interested in the entire article please send us an email at ynot@ychange.com

First level selling, or getting the customer to buy your product, used to be the process of showing the customer the features and benefits of your product or service and then asking the customer to buy. There were many techniques developed to handle the customer’s objections and the process was termed closing the sale and it typically left the customer feeling used, bruised and abused.

Second level selling, or getting the customer to buy your solution to his/her problem, which we currently practice is a process where we focus on the customer’s need/pain and show how our product or service would satisfy the need or alleviate the pain. This is more to the benefit of the customer but still does not solve the one very troubling problem that always remains for the customer - how to prove to him/herself or to others that the investment that was just made was a worthwhile one.

This brings us to third level selling, or teaching the customer how to sell. A colleague of mine Alan Zell, defines selling as a four step process: that involves Buying, Marketing, Presenting and Selling. In order to get the customer to buy we actually need to show the customer how to sell him/herself or others that the investment that was just made during the buying process was a sound one.