Selling to Consumers | Sales Training Blog by Skip Anderson

When Selling, do You Make Ear Contact?

Everyone knows how important it is to make eye contact when selling face-to-face. Eyes, being the windows to the soul and all, are a powerful vehicle to connect with another human being. Since prospects are human beings, this works out to everybody's advantage.

But equally important as eye contact is ear contact. If eyes are the windows to the soul, than ears are the heartbeat of the soul.

Do you sell using your ears as much as your eyes? Are your ears a finely tuned instrument? Does listening play as important a role in your interactions with your prospects and customers as your eyesight? And your voice?

The next time you are interacting with a prospect in a face-to-face selling situation, pay attention to how well you use your hearing, listening for nuance in communication, listening for meanings rather than just words, and listening for unique speech patterns and your prospect's choices of words. All of the data your ears pick up can be used to better understand your prospect and his needs and buying requirements. And the next time you're speaking with your prospect on the phone, shut your eyes to shut of visual stimulation (or distraction) so you can zero in on the clues being presented to you aurally.

Eyes aren't overrated. But ears are underated in selling. What better way is there to engage your customers than by actually listening to them?

 

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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Handling the Unreasonable Offer: 3 Strategies

This is for salespeople who have authority to discount their price to their customer:

Do you ever get an unreasonable offer from your prospect? Here are three ways to deal with this situation:

1. Congratulate the prospect on his aggressive posture. Then  say, "As much as I admire your negotiating ability by asking for such a large discount, your offer is simply not possible. Are you willing to be more reasonable?"

What you want is for the customer to respond affirmatively so that price negotiations can continue. If he says "yes," then you can make a reasonable offer and ask for his business. If your prospect says "no," then you must determine if he's committed to his offer and if so, either accept it (and win the sale) or reject it (and probably lose the sale).

2. Say, "I can get you that price, but we'll have to take some of the product away" (or lower the quantity on the order). Which is more important to you? Paying exactly the price you offered and losing some of the product, or getting what you really want and paying a fair price for it?"

3. Say, "Your offer is a great down payment. How about if we finance the remainder?"

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips Newsletter.

 

Negotiation: When Is The End Near?

I heard an interview with a Minnesota state legislator last week on the radio. She said one of her biggest keys to her successful negotiations with other legislators has been her ability to notice when the person she's negotiating with has reached their fill. She said it's very important to (accurately) know when the other party is almost ready to pull the plug on negotiations.

The same thing is true of sales negotiating. Through our perceptiveness, wisdom, and skepticalness, we need to understand the other party's reality if we're going to be successful at negotiating with them. The bottom line in any negotiating situation is that the other party can back out of negotations at any time. This gives the other party a lot of control. Successful negotiating isn't about power, it's about nuance.

Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips Newsletter.

The Best Sales Question in the World

Here is the best sales question in the world:

"What else should I be asking you?"

Prospects will often tell you what you should be asking them if you just ask them.

Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting firm. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips Newsletter.

One More Question

One of our cars needed new tires, so I made a list of five tire retailers to call to get prices. As a sales trainer, I always enjoy seeing how various salespeople will handle these situations.

I made my first call and was given a price of $124 per tire. I made my second call and was given a price of $135 per tire (these tires had a longer warranty than the tires from the first dealership). As I'm sure many shoppers do, I thanked the salesperson and told him that I would continue checking around.

Then my salesperson did something that most salespeople would not do. He asked me a question. I know, that sounds simple, doesn't it? It was just a question. But most salespeople would have said something like, "My name is Rick, if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to call me" instead of asking a question.

Here's the question my salesperson asked me: "Do you have pricing from other dealers?"

"Yes, I have a price of $124 per tire," I responded.

Then my salesperson said, "How about if I save you time from having to continue calling to get pricing, and I just offer to beat the other price you have? I will sell you your tires for $120 per tire - do you want to do that?"

I agreed to his offer. And with that, a sale was consummated. I then scheduled an appointment for the following morning to have the new tires installed on our vehicle.

Now it may be true that not every tire salesperson has the authority to discount their prices, what I think was fantastic in this scenario is that the salesperson didn't just end the call, he hung in there and asked one more question. It was that one question that led to the completion of the sale.

In our B2C Sales Training, we train salespeople to ask more questions.

Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting firm. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips newsletter at www.SellingToConsumers.com