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January 2009 |
REACH! – How Do You Increase Your Sales Effectiveness? |
Improving your sales effectiveness has rarely been more important. Your ability to make sales and deliver outstanding customer service is what will sustain your business. Competition is hot and customers are becoming more demanding as budgets are squeezed. So, when you are faced with a sales opportunity how do you increase your chances of gaining the commitment of your customer?
The first issue of REACH! in 2009 is dedicated to giving you a few simple tips on how to improve your sales effectiveness. Review our tips and evaluate yourself against them. What are you going to do in 2009 to increase your chances of sales success and grow your business?
Trese
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- Have clear sales objectives
If you haven't defined exactly what you want to achieve in a customer interaction, whether on the phone or face-to-face, your chances of success decrease considerably. Research shows that knowing what the desired outcome of a situation is increases the likelihood of it occurring. So, don't miss sales opportunities just because of a lack of proper planning.
You should aim to understand your customers' current situation, their goals and objectives, their problems and challenges and, ultimately their needs and opportunities. Start with open questions to gather general information and then follow up with probing questions to gather specifics.
An opportunity is the potential for gain. It's the difference between where a customer is now (actual performance) and where he/she wants to be (potential performance). As a salesperson, your role is to find out what your customer's opportunities are and to quantify them where possible, in terms that will appeal to your customer, e.g., revenue, profit, time.
So, you're great at explaining what you or your products do. You can even describe the benefits and not just the features of what you're selling (Remember the phrase, ‘which means that…'). But, make sure that the benefits you're describing match the needs and opportunities of your customer. Don't mention what's irrelevant and of no interest, no matter how great you think it is! Remember, So What?
Keep your customer engaged. Ask commitment questions to solicit your customer's agreement throughout the sales interaction. Questions like, ‘Are you happy with that?', ‘Is this something you'd be keen to do?' will also help you to understand your customer's point of view and ‘flush' out his/her concerns. The more ‘yes' responses you get, the more likely you are to make the sale.
This is just more of the above really. If you are genuinely interested in helping your customers, why be so reluctant to close the sale? If you follow all of our tips and leave this one out, then your chances of success plummet. If you don't always ask, you don't always get…
- Keep your records up to date
So, you've been asking great questions and you've identified some customer opportunities, but what do you do with the information? This last point is so obvious but so easily overlooked. The information you gather could provide valuable clues that will help you shape your customer interactions and proposals.
So, these are our 7 tips for increasing your sales effectiveness. Get the year off to a great start by taking this opportunity to reflect on your sales performance. Are you as successful as you could be? Where could you make adjustments to your sales process or techniques that will improve your results? Good luck (this helps too!) |
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Reaching Further
We can help you and your team improve your sales results, either through our Sales Development Programme or our one-day Sales Essentials training workshop.
Through our simple and practical Sales Development Programme, we will work with you and/or your teams, on a monthly basis, to help you increase your sales effectiveness. Please contact us for more information.
If you need to improve your sales results, join us at our one-day Sales Essentials training workshop at the Oxford Thames Four Pillars Hotel on 12 February. The training starts at 9am, with coffee from 8.30am and ends at 5.30pm, at the latest. Materials, lunch and refreshments are included in the special price of £100 plus VAT, per person. To book a place contact us at info@amplia.co.uk or 01491 871 203.
Here's some information on the Sales Essentials workshop:
In addition to acquiring new skills, you will have the opportunity to gain insights from practising and sharing experiences with others as well as identifying performance improvement actions to implement following the training.
As a result of participating in the workshop you will:
- Recognise the power of consultative selling
- Understand how to prepare thoroughly for productive sales calls
- Know how to identify customer needs
- Understand how to help customers recognise opportunities to solve their problems and grow their business
- Know how to handle customer concerns
- Have learned to use a simple and powerful consultative selling process
Workshop content includes:
- Identifying your personal training needs
- Introduction to consultative selling
- Preparing and rehearsing for sales calls
- What are your customers buying?
- Helping customers recognise opportunities
- Matching opportunities with solutions
- Asking for the business
- Handling customer concerns
We can help you, your people and your business get the results you need. To bring your strategy to life and to help make your objectives a reality, contact us at info@amplia.co.uk.
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