How to win sales
This How to win sales Info Guide will help to increase your understanding of the sales process and sales journey from beginning to end. It also explains where best to concentrate your sales efforts.
A sale is not a one moment wonder. Just like a football team scoring a goal, a sale is the result of teamwork and all the preparation that goes with it. The sale is the ‘goal’ but goals don’t happen without training, teamwork and working to a plan. Yes, you may score the occasional goal with a little luck. However, if you want to top your league table you need to work at it.
There are three key parts to a sale:
1. Before
2. During
3. After
1. Before
This means knowing your product, your customer, your market and what makes you different. It means research, continuous learning and homework. In a nutshell, before you try to sell, always prepare.
2. During
This is everything you do once the engagement has happened. It means presenting, meeting, handling difficult questions, adding value, being creatively helpful, closing down the prospect and finally, asking for the sale.
3. After
Great sales people stay in touch, ask, check, measure and seek out criticism, feedback and ideas to make the next sale better. Make sure your business does too.
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There is no one approach that will always work. Different people will respond to different influences. For example, some people prefer salmon to beef. Neither is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ - it is simply ‘difference’ and difference will lead to a unique personal choice. Poor salesmanship assumes everyone ‘ought’ to like beef or salmon but that is a strategy doomed to failure. Great sales people ask, 'Which would you prefer?'.
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One of the best skills great sales people possess is the ability to assess a customer’s mood. Customer mood determines customer needs which in turn determines how the salesperson should react to the customer. Great sales match need to mood.
Customer mood example
On a Monday night a customer may want to read their newspaper over a quiet drink. The pub which they choose will give them this space. On a Friday night, this customer may want to meet their friends in a more lively setting. The same customer has different moods, different needs and a different decision making process.
If your business can match customer moods to customer needs, you will win every time. On the other hand, if you simply cater for one ‘need’ or 'mood', then the customer will only buy your product or service when it fits one particular 'mood' or 'need'.
The starting point is not to sell; the starting point is to ask yourself, 'What will my customer get out of this particular offer?', If you can answer this with an argument that persuades you, press on.
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People rarely make decisions that do not, in some way, benefit them. For example, the kind person who gives the homeless person €20 is doing something for the good of others but they also benefit from their donation as their charitable act makes them feel good.
It is the role of the salesperson to discover buyer motives. There are several factors which influence buyer decisions:
People may buy the same product but the motivation behind the purchase may be different. Motivations are difficult to interpret but if you can accurately interpret customer motivations, you will sell more often.
Buyer motivation example
Three people book into the same hotel. One booked because the hotel is in a quiet setting. The second booked because they love the hotel restaurant. The third booked because the hotel provided an ideal romantic getaway.
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In any business, and particularly in the tourism industry, empathy is key – listening to the customer, putting yourself in their shoes, asking the right questions to find out what is important to them in order to respond effectively to their needs.
Remember!
If you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.
Daniel Goleman
Psychologist and Author
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Once you recruit new customers, the goal is to retain them. It costs a lot more to recruit a new customer than it does to keep an existing customer.
Consider some or all of the following methods of retaining customers:
- Stay in touch
- Loyalty scheme
- Preferential rates for returning customers
- Unique ‘extras’ available only to existing customers, eg newsletters with preferential offers to existing customers
- Regular updates with added value information, eg including a recipe in a restaurant newsletter
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The following methods can be used to recruit new customers:
- Train your staff to understand sales
- Expert handling of enquiries
- Sales appointments
- Trade shows and consumer shows
- Print and online advertising, and promotions with effective calls to action
- Newsletters
- Online networking
- Joining industry groups or local business groups
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