Dynamics Of The Sales Process

Don’t believe that everyone who knows something about customers and products is automatically a professional salesperson. Anyone can take down and process orders but a true professional salesperson, while always remaining tactful and pleasant, must be dynamic enough to sweep away resistance and turn prospects into customers. It’s within the rich variations of the sales presentation itself that a true professional needs to be on peak performance. Normally you are only with a customer face-to-face for a relatively short period of time and yet, a change of just a few words in a single sentence of a sales negotiation can often a make or break a sale. As a professional you must learn to be at your best when it counts.

Running your own successful business is one of the few ‘vocations’ where you can literally decide your own annual salary but one real paradox that I come up against time and time again is that while selling can be the one of highest paid, most rewarding professions across almost every industry at the same time it can be one the lowest paid, most depressing of jobs… But the exciting thing is the choice is yours, all yours.

You need to have a through understanding of ‘sales’ in your new business because you will be faced with selling situations every day with all sorts of people you come into contact with – it’s not only potential customers but…suppliers, the bank, new staff, service providers etc, etc. Remember when two or more people meet, discuss a matter and an outcome is agreed – a ‘sale’ was made. Think about it… when your partner wishes to take you to the pictures and you would rather go out for a meal, both often end up trying to ‘sell’ their preferred choice. When we talk about ‘selling’ think of it in terms of ‘persuasion’, because that is essentially what it is. Previously I shared with you the basics of creative, professional selling (see article “Why People Buy”) but now, given its critical importance, we want to dig a little deeper under the surface.

In almost every sales negotiation there are a four easily identifiable psychological phases and these are broadly defined as ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE, ACTION. In most cases these correspond to several tactical steps. It’s this process that we focus on in this article. But first of all, we must consider some fundamentals about the sales process as a whole as these affect how we structure our sales presentations.

• Firstly: your attitude to and throughout the sales presentation will likely influence the final outcome more than any other single factor.
• Secondly: dynamic selling has little or nothing to do with aggressive or high-pressure selling. The dynamic salesperson must secure the business without using methods that will make the prospect regret the interview.
• Thirdly: people buy our ideas. Our product or service is merely a vehicle used to satisfy their needs.
• Fourthly: for our proposition to be acceptable it must correspond to basic human needs. We cannot create these needs, but our success will depend on our ability to arouse and develop them.

And finally, a structured approach will help us to win sales. In this type of presentation we have a track to run on but at the same time we have the flexibility to change gear as and when we need to. The objective is to make it more likely the person will say yes to our proposition. We are not there simply to give free information. Telling isn’t selling. We are sales people, not teachers.

As part of the sales process it is quite likely that you or someone else from your office will make contact with your customer probably by telephone. Looking after customers is a team effort and we recommend that everyone within your organisation who at any stage comes in contact with a potential or existing customer should understand the sales process and know how to communicate effectively. Communicating by telephone requires specific skills… Just consider who in YOUR office could lose sales for your new business?

Goodwill from an existing customer or a pending sale could easily be lost because a simple query wasn’t followed up or handled competently by someone back at the office, so all staff need to be adequately trained. Now, let’s consider the various phases of the sales presentation.

• Attention. That’s the warm-up, the initial approach where we build rapport and create a positive selling environment.
• Interest. By highlighting specific problems and needs, we cultivate the prospect’s interest.
• Desire. Initially our prospects may not be that enthusiastic about what we have to offer. It’s our job during a presentation to build that desire. We do this by matching the benefits of our products or services to their needs.
• Action. At the close we want the prospect to accept our offer and take positive action.

Understanding Customer Needs And Wants

For many years it was believed that a high value product could be sold in exactly the same way as a low value product. Selling a fleet of trucks to a national transport company was just the same as selling a car to Mr and Mrs Jones. However, this is simply not the case.

As we get involved in professional selling, capital goods selling, high value/big ticket selling, the skills we require are much more complex and much deeper.

What we are going to do now is to look at the analysis of features, advantages and benefits.

A FEATURE is basically a description of our product in terms of what it is.

An ADVANTAGE, on the other hand, is what our product actually does.

However, a BENEFIT is what it does for them.

Now, this is where many sales people get confused. They assume that an advantage and a benefit are one and the same thing – because we actually use the same terms to make statements about benefits and advantages of products. But the subtle and significant difference is that an advantage is what we see in the product or service, whereas a benefit is how a customer sees it.

Understanding things from the customer’s point of view is what professional selling is all about. When people buy, they buy the benefits – they buy the results, not the features. We buy a quarter inch hole, not the quarter inch drill. When you buy a quarter inch drill, what you’re looking for is the end result. If there was a more effective way of getting a quarter inch hole in the wall you’d be just as interested. Women buy beauty, not face cream. We sell the sizzle, not the steak. Focusing on end users’ needs gives us the opportunity to show how relevant our product is in meeting these needs – then features can be explained in that context.

What is of interest to us are the two principles that motivate people. It might seem quite a strange concept, but almost everything you do in life is determined by two things – either for the pain or the pleasure. We do things to avoid pain or we do it in the pursuit of pleasure. By understanding customer needs we can match the needs of our prospects with the benefit of our product. As we do that, the matching of needs to benefits builds desire. It builds desire either by the customer seeing that they can avoid pain or they can pursue pleasure by accepting our product or service.

By identifying customer’s pain (frustration, costs etc.) we can match product benefits to help them avoid the pain.

So, let’s consider then, how can we turn features into benefits? It’s so easy to get into the trap of just stating feature after feature – what our product can and can’t do. What we have to do is to learn how to convert them.

We must develop the habit of giving things the ‘So what?’ test. Whenever you make a feature statement about your product, ask yourself, ‘So what? Who cares? Of what benefit is that to the customer?’ Then apply a simple statement: ‘Which means that…?’

You know, it’s almost impossible to make a statement about a feature of our product followed by the expression, ‘Which means that…’ without automatically bringing out the advantage and, hopefully, the benefit of that feature of your solution.

You see, the more people are able to understand how they can benefit from your solution, the more they’ll be motivated to accept your solution.

Now, motivation is a key element in a successful sales presentation – we have to motivate people to buy. But motivation has a stable-mate – and that is manipulation, and a lot of people get these two confused.

Just consider, though, your reaction to manipulation. Do you like to be manipulated? Not at all! You see, manipulation is getting people to do what you want them to do. We don’t like to be told what to do. On the other hand, motivation is getting people to do what they want to do.

So, be sensitive to your own response towards pressure. We resist – we back off. What we need to do is to analyse their needs more effectively and really find their ‘hot button’ – what makes them tick – what their real pain/pleasure motivation is.

You see, the same product can mean totally different things to different people. The technical person will want to know the technical information, while your language should be jargon-free to others, focusing on their particular interests and needs. The financial controller will want to know about capital and running cost, the end user how easy it is to use. You need to give the appropriate message to each person.

In its purest form, selling is about two things. First of all, we find out what people want – what are their needs? And, secondly, we show them how to get it – the benefits to them. That really is the essence of professional selling. And, again, the more we are able to match the needs of the prospect against the specific benefits of our product, the more we’ll be able to motivate, the more we’ll build desire. We need to do this in all our business negotiations, whether it’s suppliers, the bank or offering a job to a new employee.

However, if you really want to find out what people want, what do you do? How do you find out? Well, that’s simple, we just ask questions. But, more importantly, we need to ask the right questions. It’s important that we understand the effective use of both open and closed questions.

Open questions are exploratory – seeking information, so that we can match the needs we uncover with the benefits and solutions that our products can offer the customer. On the other hand closed questions seek confirmation and agreement and are powerful in closing sales.

OPEN QUESTIONS: obtain information

CLOSED QUESTIONS: focus attention and close the sale

Closed questions are used for focusing attention on a specific course of action. So, logically, we would use closed questions towards the end of our presentation – actually in the close – when we want to focus on a course of action we want to motivate them to take.

However, open questions are used for obtaining information – information about their present circumstances or any specific problems that need solutions applied to them. We really want to find out how they feel, and as we use open questions, we can cover all sorts of implied needs that might not have been so obvious at our initial meeting.

So, open questions are used at the beginning of the sales process; as we focus down, then we use closed questions as we attempt to move them towards a specific course of action.

Uncovering Implied Needs

In our attempt to really uncover customer needs we have to understand the difference between explicit needs and implied needs.

This involves looking below the surface through questioning, pointing out less obvious or less conscious needs which lead the customer to new possibilities and benefits that can be obtained from our product. During conversation, many implied needs are uncovered by open questions and, by probing more deeply, they can be agreed – and if agreed, they will add weight to our argument and balance the scales in our favour.

An explicit need is a clear, unambiguous statement by the customer about wants, desires and intentions. On the other hand, an implied need is any statement by the customer about any difficulties or dissatisfactions with the present situation.

Now, more than ever, successful selling is inseparably bound up in our ability to quickly and effectively uncover these needs – to build trusting relationships: and this is based largely on our ability to draw out, really draw out and understand, the customer’s needs, both explicit and implied. All Enigin partners, distributors and sales consultants receive comprehensive, practical training in the dynamics of the sales process both during residential training supported further by DVD audiovisual training programmes.