Selling to Consumers | Sales Training Blog by Skip Anderson

Go for the Big Sale. Or Maybe Not.

Conventional wisdom tells us that salespeople should go for the big sale, the record breaker, the home run. And conventional wisdom is usually correct.

But once in a while, going for the "big sale" isn't the best selling strategy. Sometimes the more moderate transaction is in the best interest of the salesperson (not to mention the customer). Will going for the big sale offend the customer so they don't even make a small purchase? Will going for the big sale interrupt an ongoing stream of revenue from the customer (a big short term gain chosen over an even bigger long term gain)? Will going for the big sale effect the relationship with your customer, or your market, or have some other negative consequenceIf the answer to any of these is "yes," then maybe going for the big sale is not the right activity at the present time.

Only wisdom can tell us if going for the big sale is the best action. And wisdom isn't always developed through experience. There are many experienced salespeople who have little wisdom, and many new salespeople who seem to have born with it.

Going after the big sale is a great idea- most of the time.

 

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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Why "3 for $99" is Worth Much More than $99 to a Seller

You sell products or services to consumers. Let's say you're offering a widget on sale this week for $33. And you sell some throughout the day or week this widget is on sale. That's good for business.

But what's even better for business is to offer those same widgets at 3 for $99. Of course, this makes sense because a lot of customers will buy three of them, thus increasing your revenue.

But here's the real reason to adopt a "3 for $99" mindset in appropriate nooks and crannies of your business-to-consumer sales operation. You are setting up an opportunity to say this to your prospect or shopper:

"You can do 3 for $99, OR, you can save even more money and get 6 for $198, do you want to do that?

I know this isn't feasible for all B2C segments, but for some, this concept will have an impact on a company's revenue. Assuming that my suggestion is feasible for your particular business, then depending upon the industry and the product or service you are selling, you will find that anywhere from one out of ten prospects to ten out of ten prospects will take you up on your proposal. Just imagine what this could do for your top line!

Here are some potential examples:

> Your a men's clothing retailer so you offer a certain collection of dress shirts at two for $75, but you offer to sell four for $150.

> You're a plumbing and heating contractor and you have a special on toilets sold in the home for (I have no idea what toilets sell for these days, especially when installed, so bear with me) $395 instead of $450, but then you say, "or you can do a second toilet and do both of them for only 790. Some consumers will reason that, as long as you're already there replacing a broken toilet, I might as well go ahead and get a new toilet in the guest bathroom as well."

> You sell dog treats in your pet supply store. A special section of premium treats are $1.49 each, but you post a sign saying "2 for $2.75." When your shopper picks up two and lays them on your counter to purchase them, you say "If you want, you can get 4 for $5.50 and save even more money, do you want to do that?" You're surprised but pleased when the prospect puts eight dog treats on the cash counter.

Of course, the magic isn't in the exact quantity or the exact price in these scenarios, it's the concept. If it makes sense with your product in your industry, you can utilize this selling strategy to easily upsell many of your clients / customers.

How have you used this strategy successfully in your business? Or how do you think it could be used? Please share your thoughts or pass along additional examples of the concept.

  

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and 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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Four Tips to be More Successful at One Call Close selling

In my previous post, I compared one call close selling to "selling to a bucking bronco" (prospects trying to "buck you" off of them). Today we turn our attention to taming said bucking bronco. Please allow me to suggest four tips for more successful One Call Close selling:

1. Have a plan.

Although plans can change or adapt when necessary, it's always better to have a plan to sell successfully in place when doing any kind of selling, but especially to the one-call-close prospect. This plan would be in the form of a well-designed sales script or a detailed and proven step-by-step sales process. One thing that definitely does not work well is what I call "random selling," which is a conversation with the strategy piece missing. Nor does blathering on and on about your product work. If you don't have a plan, get one immediately, and if you need to, enlist the help of someone you trust to create a plan with you.

2. Learn how to handle objections, stalls, and distractions.

If you don't know what to say after a prospect says "Maybe I'll just get your business card and think about it" after you've asked your prospect to buy from you, you can't yet handle prospect objections, stalls, or distractions. But the good news is that you can learn. Start with creating and memorizing the answer to just one common sales objection. Practice it repeatedly for an extended period of time, even after you think you have it down cold. When you're ready to add to your repertoire, digest another answer to a common sales objection. Eventually, you'll develop a lust for your prospects' objections, because they will no longer make you freeze, stammer, or stumble, they'll make you shine and make you sell more.

3. Be friendly, kind, charismatic, genuine, and very, very human.

People dislike plastic, fake people. People hate plastic, fake salespeople. How you sell is a reflection of your values and your beliefs about selling, yourself, and your prospects and customers. These beliefs shine through your eyes, your behaviors and in what you say to your prospects. Let the light of you shine. People love to buy from people they like and enjoy being with (even if their time with the salesperson is only ten or fifteen minutes). If you're a likable person, you've got a leg up on other salespeople, sometimes even though the competitor's salesperson may have more experience or product knowledge. If you're not likable, find a way to become likable in a hurry. Otherwise, I suspect a sales career may not be for you. Likability is important in any sales career.

4. Make sure your time with the prospect creates sales momentum.

A sales interaction with a prospect, no matter how long or short it is, must create sales momentum to maximize the opportunity. Completing one phase of the interaction (even if that one phase is one simple question) should help propel the salesperson/prospect interaction into the second phase, and the second should propel the interaction into the third phase, and so on. The more momentum, the easier it is to complete the sale. Think about cleaning out your garage or cleaning the kitchen. Once you've started the project, you get into it, and you start digging in. Once you're halfway done, you want to get finished. You've just experienced task momentum. Help your sales process experience sales momentum. Momentum allows the sale to happen with far less effort than with no sales momentum.

Now, go tame that bronc.

 

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and 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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The Bucking Bronco of Sales: The One Call Close Prospect

Some of us who sell for a living have merely a single prospect interaction (a meeting or visit to our store or a stop at their front door) to complete a sale with that prospect. The solution for this predicament has been termed the one call close.

I think the prospect in many one call close scenarios is the bucking bronco of the sales prospect world. Even if we've been invited into a prospect's realm (or they've invited themselves into our realm, such as during their visit to our showroom), prospect's love to keep us at a distance, to throw us off track, and to delay a buying decision.

First, let's make sure we're on the same page regarding "one call close" selling. Here are some examples of a sales interaction that could be considered one call close opportunities.

>  You're selling art on a cruise ship. Your prospect will only be in your vicinity for five days. After that, he or she goes away forever.

> You're selling a consumer product in a retail store (pick a product; let's say it's golf clubs). The vast majority of visitors to your store end up not buying, whether it's buying today or next week or next month. Therefore, if you want to maximize your sales opportunities, you need to make the most of the prospect's presence in your store right at the moment they are in front of you.

> You're selling your product door-to-door in the residential market (pick a product; how about a package of discount coupons to the new auto repair shop in your community).

> You're selling custom closets. The prospect's current closet fell down in the middle of the night (it was a cheap product and also installed with insufficient care) and they need it replaced (and improved) right away so they've invited you to their home for a price quote (that doesn't automatically mean they're going to select you to do it, however).

Most of these prospects will become -- in part or in whole -- bucking broncos:

> They may avoid answering some of your questions. They do this by changing the subject, or giving one word answers to questions that would typically require longer answers, or by acting as if they are indifferent. 

> They may answer questions untruthfully, either intentionally or unintentionally. When you inquire about, let's say, their budget for a project, they may either lowball it (in hopes of receiving a greatly discounted price from you) or highball it (in an effort to not look cheap or unable to afford something, even though that may be the real truth).

> They may avoid allowing you to question them at a deeper level. Even though it would probably allow us to help the prospect more, they may not be willing to share information about their driving habits even though we'd like to be able to recommend a vehicle that matches their driving habits. Perhaps they think they're protecting themselves from us (side note: shame on "us" -- sales professionals and sales organizations -- for putting prospective customers in a situation where they feel they need protection from us).

> They may say they're getting other "quotes" or "visiting other stores" even though they've already received those other quotes or already visited the other stores. They often want to shut us down or put us on hold, even though they may still end up purchasing our product.

All bucking broncos buck. But they can be trained and worked with in such a way that they won't buck anymore. And when that happens, it's good for the bronco and it's good for the rider of the bronco. It's also good for the prospect and the sales professional selling to them.

Tame your bucking bronco prospects, and you'll be a better seller.

 

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and 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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Selling: Think Speed Dating (8 Tips for Sales Success)

Your younger sister is single following her breakup with her boyfriend. She calls you one evening and says she's going speed dating. She's asking advice from her older brother or sister (you) for speed dating advice. What do you tell her?

This is not a speed dating blog. It's not even a dating blog. It's a sales blog. So what's up with that?

Speed dating is a simple process but it can have major consequences. It can have many twists and turns. So can selling. Some customers buy in a one-call close environment, wherein there's an element of time involved, just as in speed dating. Prospects are seeking potential solutions to their needs and desires, and so are speed daters.

Seeing that there are similarities between selling and speed dating, please see the seven sales tips below, which are disguised as speed dating tips for your little sister:

1. Be well groomed and appropriately dressed based upon the characteristics of the speed dating group (the prospect) and the venue. Few will be attracted to someone (connect with a salesperson) who is inappropriately dressed or groomed. Dress and groom as appropriate for the people you expect will attend the speed dating event (the sales interaction). I know this makes me sound like an old school dude, but if you're selling to a bunch of burly, tough Harley riders (not that all Harley riders are burly and tough in reality), then you'd better dress and groom yourself in a way that will resonate with those burly tough guys

2. Keep your eye on the clock. You only have so much time with each speed dater (with each prospect). Make sure you plan your conversation (presentation) appropriately for the time available.

3. Ask questions to draw out the other speed dater (the prospect). Asking questions isn't the goal; getting the other speed daters (the prospects) to engage in conversation with you and being comfortable with you is the goal. Nobody wants to spend time with another speed dater (buy from a salesperson) who hasn't engaged them.

4. Don't waste your valuable time by talking all about you (you, your product, or your company), but focus on the other speed dater (the prospect).

5. Use eye contact, facial expression, and body language to help connect with the speed dater (the prospect). If the other person is cautious, then you be cautious, too, but with an inviting subplot. Singles looking for partners (prospects investigating purchasing something) feel most comfortable with people who are similar to them. Be similar, but with an extra dose of charisma, humor, confidence, or something else that will set you apart from all the others in a positive way. Not that you should be disingenuous, but we all have multiple elements of our personalities which we can call upon for use in different situations.

6. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Position yourself in a way that the speed daters (the prospects) will have the best opportunity to be impressed with you, intrigued with you, or even like you. Use your strengths and find work-arounds for your weaknesses. You're not good at humor? Then don't try to be funny. You have the best smile this side of the North Pole? Smile away.

7. Help the speed dater (the prospect) feel important. Everybody on the face of the earth wants to feel important in some way. You don't have to pretend, just treat your speed dater (your prospect) as being truly important.

8. Know your limitations. Don't over-talk, be overly funny, or be overly anything. Be genuine, real, and nice while getting the job done.  Be genuinely interested, respectful and effective. That what speed dating (selling) is all about.

Full disclosure: I don't participate in speed dating and never have and really don't know much about it. The speed dating advice above is based solely upon my middle-aged imagination. Therefore, it should be ignored.

However, you can trust the sales advice.

 

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and 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. He's a happily married non-speed-dater.

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Emotional Baggage: It's There, You Just Need to Find It

  
Customers need things. Thank goodness for that, because if they didn't, commerce would grind to an abrupt halt, along with salespeople's careers.

Consumers need books, TVs, furniture, education, massage, barbecue grills, security systems, trees, orthodontics, replacement windows, hair replacement, bass boats, facelifts, vacations to Italy, jewelry, and thousands of other products which we, as sales professionals, are always happy to sell to them. But when we focus on only our products, we can lose sight of the emotional foundation of these customers' needs.

And when we do that, we're missing opportunities to understand, to steer prospects in the proper direction, and to sell more.

Consider the homeowner in his sixty-year-old home who calls a window replacement company to provide a price quote for new windows for his home. What does this homeowner need?

New windows.

But what are the emotional foundation needs behind those needed windows?

Well, since shoppers are different, we don't know exactly, but we can imagine several credible scenarios:

> Water is seeping in the home through the window in his son's bedroom, and it's been doing so for twenty years. The water damage, although not yet severe (at least from what is visible without ripping the plaster and siding apart to inspect it), is starting to rear it's increasingly present and ugly head. This prospect has an interest in securing his investment in his home and not letting constant drips of water gradually devalue it.

> A homeowner has invested considerable money in his home since he and his wife purchased it eighteen years ago. They've adding a sunroom, completed several major landscaping projects, added a third garage stall and a storage shed in the backyard, built a fence around the yard, finished the basement, and so on. The one substandard part of the owners' home as one looks it over from the street in front of the house is its outdated and time-worn windows. Although the windows work fine, they don't look fine, and the visual appeal of the home he has painstakingly engineered over the years has a blemish that is looking bigger and more obvious with every passing year.

> Energy use is a concern to another homeowner. As energy costs rise, the homeowner concedes that replacing windows with a more energy efficient product would result in enough savings over the decades that lie ahead to warrant such a project. Saving X number of dollars per year has strong emotional appeal to this homeowner, especially when he looks back on the energy costs he's incurred in the last fifteen years that could have been far less had the windows been replaced fifteen years ago.

And so on.

So how do you reach (I mean really reach) your prospects when you're talking with them about their product needs, whether those needs are related to windows or the product or service you sell?

Immerse yourself in the before, the after, the underneath, and the beyond of your prospect and your product:

> Examine

> Explore

> Ask

> Fish

> Investigate

> Seek to understand

> Look deeper

> Broaden

> Notice

> Focus

> Notice clues

> Dig

> Magnify

> Pick apart

> Analyze

> Clarify

> Listen

> Really listen

> Listen to more than just the words being spoken. 

My wife and I need a new barbecue grill, so we've been having fun shopping for one these last few weeks. But nobody wants a new barbecue grill just to have a barbecue grill. They want a quick way to prepare food, a centerpiece for entertaining, a monument to testosterone and manliness, a place to create the best damned grilled steak in the neighborhood (if not on the planet)!

How's that for emotional baggage?

Now, if salespeople would just quit talking to me about this feature and that feature and talk about ME instead...

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment.Skip Anderson is the Founder and 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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When TV Ads Work: The Korean Air Commercial

Perhaps you've seen the Korean Air TV advertisements that have been airing for some time in the U.S. Although I have not yet flown Korean Air, I'm ready to. The message in the advertisements have reached a tipping point with me, and their excellence in flight message has hit home in my psyche. Here's the ad:

So how did I, a consumer and frequent business traveler, reach the point where I am ready to try Korean Air's product? The right message at the right time. After dozens of mediocre experiences in flight, I want some excellence. I need some excellence.

From the first time I saw the Korean Air ads a couple years ago, I took notice. And with repeated viewing, their impact has Here's why:

1. Understated elegance.

In an industry that has become decidedly unelegant almost all the time, the understated elegance of the ad's production attracts attention. Wonderful chill music by Robert Matt, a simple message, and a relaxing vibe sucks the viewer in.

And I want one of those turquoise martini drinks.

The takeaway: In an era of marketing overstatement, be understated instead.

2. It's different.

We might be familiar with seeing ads like this for fragrances or spas, but not for airlines. Watch this Continental Airlines ad. See how it's style contrasts with Korean Air's commercial.

Hear the frantic music? See the high-energy video? While everyone likes to fly on new planes (the key message of the Continental ad), Korean Air makes a statement simply because it's different from typical business-as-usual airline advertisements. No splashy colors (merely predominant muted grays along with splashes of turquoise); no frantic panning and zooming of the image (gentle, dreamy visuals instead); no typical hyper-business voiceover (just a few words spoken in total, and with pleasing and calm speech)...these equal a "pay attention" vibe, and it works.

Can flying really be a sensual experience?

The takeaway: If you want to stand out, be different.

3.It has a simple message.

Airlines haven't been talking much about excellence lately. It's nice to see and hear, especially when a customer probably has visuals of recent airline crashes stored somewhere in their memory. "Excellence in flight" is digestible, it's meaningful, and it resonates with viewers. I don't know if it's true, but the goal of marketing is not accuracy, it's more revenue.

The takeaway: Messages with less are often more effective than messages with more.

Now, would a company in Seoul please hire me for a sales training project or speaking engagement so I can try out Korean Air? I need a little excellence in flight.

And I like kimchi.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment.Skip Anderson is the Founder and 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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What a Difference The Right Person Makes!

This post is about selling, customer service, managing, and relationships. and virtually all relationships.

I regularly visit two dry cleaners.

Dry cleaner #1: The front desk person always has a smile on her face, calls me by name, acts excited to see me, and we chat it up for a couple minutes every time I'm there.

Dry cleaner #2: The front desk person doesn't make eye contact with me, says thank you (but with no emotion behind the statement), and hurries to get me out of there.

Which customer experience is more satisfying?

Of course, dry cleaner #1 provides the experience I want as a consumer. Having the right people with the right behaviors in the front line of your company's work (receptionist, front desk, selling, installing, delivering, etc.) can make or break your customer service ratings.

Take this out of the retail setting. Isn't this the experience you want with supervisors and employees at work? With family members at home? With friends and colleagues and roommates and fellow committee members? Engaging others is a key to not only selling success, but all kinds of relationship success.

Selecting the Right People

> Have your job candidates role play during interviews.

> Ask experiential questions that ask for specific examples of how they handled this situation or that situation previously in their career.

> Ask what their proudest job achievement is. Use testing to hire the right personalities, the right strengths, and the right attitudes.

Getting the Right Behaviors

> Getting the right behaviors is easier when you hire the right people.

> Train your people , and when you're done train them again.

> But before you can train them, you must have complete clarity of your training objectives.

> Make sure managing and training are interlocked, each working toward the same goals.

* * * * * * *

Questions for discussion:

> What can you do differently to be the "right person" for your job?

> If you manage and hire, what do you need to do differently to hire the right people?

> And where are you falling short on training and managing those right people?

 

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

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The Quest for Customer Engagement: Are You Overlooking Opportunities?

Sadly, customer engagement is being ignored in so much of business-to-consumer selling that in many respects we have nowhere to go but up. In many sectors of B2C selling (not to mention marketing and customer retention), customer engagement is virtually nonexistent.

I define customer engagement as the prospect's/shopper's/customer's active involvement in the buying/selling process, as opposed to participating in a passive way, i.e., as an observer.

Customers long to be engaged. They have a desire to be raving fans, to be in relationships with providers of services and goods of all types, to have productive relationships...indeed, customer engagement is a win-win for both the seller and the buyer.

While almost every salesperson, sales manager, marketing executive, and business consultant agrees that customer engagement is a good thing, many sellers don't have their finger on the real pulse of their prospects or customers. This makes it difficult to engage them except in the most shallow way. If we could allow - and encourage - the tendrils of engagement to infiltrate every phase in our selling processes throughout each customer's life cycle from cradle to grave, we will sell more.

We would be served well if we would open ourselves to seek new and better strategies for customer engagement. Sometimes it doesn't even take much. To help get your C.E. creative juices flowing, here are some ideas:

Hotels: Engaging Your Customer

If you work at a front desk of a hotel and, upon a guest's arrival, ask him "From where are you arriving?" that's a good thing. But it's even a better thing if the hotel front desk representative builds upon the guest's answer to that question. What does the front desk associate say if the guest says he's from Portland or Charlotte or Kingston or Brussels or Minneapolis?

When I tell people I'm from Minneapolis, I often get silence in return. True, many who live on the coasts or the southern U.S. view Minnesota as flyover country, and have never been to Minneapolis-St.Paul. But if you want to engage me, you'll talk with me about the Minnesota Twins' new Target Field, or our two great full-time orchestras, or our healthy theater community, or the beautiful lakes in the City of Minneapolis, or hunting and fishing in the northland, or the massive and beautiful Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness bordering Canada. I'd even settle for a mention of the largest shopping mall in the United States, our Mall of America.

"What's one thing I should know about Minneapolis (or St. Paul) that I should know?" would be a great question for a hotel front desk associate to ask me as I'm checking in or out, even if they don't know anything at all about Minnesota. Knowing me, I would provide five or ten things about MSP that I think everyone should know. When the customer opts in the discussion, that's engagement.

After your visit to a Hyatt or Marriott or Hilton hotel in, say, Dallas, how about if your local Hyatt or Marriott or Hilton hotel contacted you in Minneapolis (or wherever you live) and provided you with a special weekend rate for a weekend getaway at a local hotel in your area? That would get you another opportunity to engage with the brand, and it would prevent you from visiting Priceline when you and your spouse do want a weekend getaway in the city. What's more, Priceline puts only one issue on the table (price) and consumers increasingly view Priceline hotels at each level as being mostly generic. Generic is bad for business.

> If you're a landscape contracting company working in the residential market, maybe you should provide training to do-it-yourselfers in the areas of design, paver installation, plantings of green material, etc. This is a non-traditional view of selling landscaping design services, but some people aren't going to spend $20,000 or $50,000 on a backyard redo, while they may spend $550 to have a designer visit the house and give a preliminary sketch and then go to several hours of classroom instruction on how the homeowner can begin to turn the plan into reality.

Engaging this group of customers might even lead to more traditional business as the do-it-yourselfer realizes he has bitten off more than he can chew, but getting them to interact with your designer or lead installer or manager in a classroom setting gets the prospect actively involved, which is worth it's weight in gold.

> Banking does not have the reputation for being a "fun" industry in the mind of the consumer. Money is serious business, but the consumer experience can still be (and I would argue it should be) fun. So how can banks make it fun for consumers?

As long as banking is only about money, it will likely be a staid and dour environment. But when banking sees its opportunity to be about people, the fun can enter the mix, and fun is engaging.

Banks hand out deposit receipts left and right. But why are these slips of paper so boring and non-engaging? Of course, the customer wants and needs all the vital information on their receipt. But couldn't they be colorful? Fun? Advertising or promoting something of civic importance on the back?

What about an invitation to play an online banking game that the bank has developed to engage gamers (a really fun, well-designed, cutting edge game where the player gets to make loan decisions maybe, or catch the counterfeiter)? Gamers aren't only young anymore. They're well into their thirties, if not beyond (a valuable market segment for banks I should think).

What about making your bank cool and brightly colored with stunning contemporary lighting and a huge tile or carpet dollar bill on the floor in the middle of the lobby so little Johnny can jump on George Washington's face or examine the details of the bill (or chase his little sister around it).

I'd play cool music in my bank. I'd serve chocolates to people waiting to speak to a loan officer or give kids a token to play a video game every time they make a deposit or accompany their parents who make a deposit.

But where is the fun in banking now? It's all but absent, but with some creativity and people-oriented employees driving the process, banks could be a community-oriented center that people want to visit.

> You manage a retail store that sells clothing to tweens and teens. What if every Monday night you picked a customer to play their specially-created iPod playlist over the music system for an hour? I know, there would be legal and rights issues, but there are lots of teenagers who would jump at the chance to put together a playlist just for the retail store, and would be enthralled to hear their playlist played at the cool clothing store at the mall. Then, offer ten friends of the iPod owner to come in and receive a discount if they purchase during the iPod hour.

Retail stores are more than POS systems and merchandise; they're opportunities for richer, deeper, broader engagement of their customer base.

What assets do you have that could be used to better engage your prospects and customers? What can you do to supercharge your customer engagement?  What can you start doing differently than the same old same old?

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

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Customers: Complex and Marvelous Creatures

We're blessed with two nice zoos here in the Twin Cities area. I love going to the zoos with my daughter when we walk and talk and observe and drink in all the wonders of wildlife.

And trips to the massive Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in far northern Minnesota (and Quetico park in Ontario, Canada just adjacent to it) always produce wonder. There is something about seeing a moose swimming in the water, but seeing zero human beings that same day that recalibrates something within you that helps you maintain your sanity.

Wildlife is full of complex and marvelous creatures.

And customers are complex and marvelous creatures, too. They never cease to intrigue me. I observe them in a state of wonder, trying to understand and learn about their wide array of behaviors and the motivations behind these behaviors. An entire field of study has developed over the history of mankind to study these creatures' behaviors (psychology). Sometimes puzzling, sometimes humorous, and sometimes frightening, customers display a diverse range of behaviors.

Like wild animals, customers can surprise you. Even when you think you have them figured out, they can behave in surprising or even shocking ways. You can try to predict their behavior, but customers and prospects are wild by nature - you never know what can happen. Aggressive one moment, in retreat the next, entertaining the next, customers are fascinating.

Sales training can provide you with wonderful tools to deal with these intriguing creatures. But these tools are only half the sales survival story. The other half is to develop a sense of wonder about, and respect for, these beings. They pay our salaries and give us clear purpose in our careers. We must study them as a scientist studies natural phenomena if we are to make progress in understanding them and successfully taming their varied instincts. How do they think? Why do they do what they do? What motivates them? What behavior is going to happen next?

And to make selling all the more wondrous, each customer is different.

Behold the mystery, complexity, and individuality of these marvelous creatures we call customers*.

* And prospects, too.

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

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This Prospect Will Make Or Break Your Sales Career

 
Your effort will make or break your sales career. So will your knowledge and skill and ability to add value to your prospects' lives. So will your ability to create trusting and genuine short-term and long-term relationships with prospects, customers, managers, and suppliers.

But, perhaps more than any of the factors above, this prospect type will have more to do with your career success than any other:

The "on the fence" prospect.

This is the prospect that could fairly easily either become a customer or a no-sale. They have an interest in your product, and your company, but they also have an interest in perhaps buying from another company or buying another product, or an interest in not buying anybody's product and keeping their money instead. They are hesitant, or cautions, or not completely convinced. They've given you time to present your product and its features and benefits, they've communicated forthrightly about their needs and maybe even asked good questions. They've expressed interest and perhaps excitement about your product and about owning it, or using your service.

Yet, there they are: on top of the fence, swaying first to the "no sale" side of the fence just a bit, then over to the "customer" side a bit, and then back again, but they remain squarely on the fence.

Ultimately, though, a prospect cannot stay on the fence forever. The default decision for fence-sitters is to remain a non-customer, since buying a product requires that the fence-sitter tip to the "buy" side and off the fence. Make no mistake about it: fence-sitters are non-buyers until they get off the fence and into your customer (meaning "people who have bought from us") list.

I see many salespeople who spend tremendous amounts of time working with prospects who are simply not going to buy. Persuasion is a good thing in selling. But just as Glenn Beck is simply not going to persuade supporters of Dennis Kucinich that Beck has the "correct" political viewpoint, and Rachel Maddow is not going to persuade Texas Governor Rick Perry that she has the correct political views, a salesperson is simply not going to persuade a prospect who is dead-set against buying to buy.

I also see a lot of time and energy wasted by salespeople on prospects who are definitely going to buy. In the areas where my client companies work (one-call close, B2C selling, retail), salespeople need to do their best work with people on the fence, let those who are definitely going to buy buy, and let those who definitely not going to buy not buy.

So here's my sales training tip for the day: The prospects whom you deal with in the next year who are on the fence will make or break your sales career in the next year.

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

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10 Favorite Responses to the Dead End Prospect

My definition of a "dead end prospect" is a prospect with which you've completed your selling process, handled any objections, and, despite your best efforts at doing a bang up job selling, have reached a dead end, without any clear reason why the prospect isn't buying.

The dead-ender almost always is a result of the salesperson missing something (or several things) during the selling process. As salespeople, we should always want to know why a potential customer is removing themselves from the "potential buyer" category and placing himself in the "not a buyer" category. Usually, during the sales interaction, you're able to drill down enough to understand why.

But a dead-end prospect is one that catches you off guard, that surprises you, that hasn't given you any answers as to why he's not buying, and suddenly declares he is not interested. These are those few shocker prospects that leave you scratching your head and without a sale.

Here are my 10 favorite responses to the dead end prospect in a one-call close or big ticket retail environment [all assume that you've had a productive and positive sales interaction up to this point]:

1. "Hold it please! Let me write down what you're saying [grab a pad of paper]. What was it you were looking for today?" [This is really starting the selling process over again, and works well because in most one call close or retail scenarios, the prospect is the one that initiated the interaction with us in the first place].

2. "I'm not surprised you would say you're not interested, as lots of our customers said they weren't interested at first. But after I was able to understand the real reason why they were saying that, it created better communication between us. How can you and I communicate better about this?"

3. "What are you thinking?" [Said in an inquisitive manner not an accusatory manner.]

4. "Is it the money, is it me, or is it something else?"

5. "Hmmm. I'm just wondering what it is I'm missing here. Will you help me out?"

6. "Let's talk about it for a few minutes, would that be okay? [then be silent]"

7. "What changes would allow you to become interested instead of not interested?"

8. "John, were you interested when you called me out to your home to discuss getting a widget? Were you interested when we were talking about your need for a widget an hour or two ago? So please help me out here so I can understand."

9. [Via Brian Tracy:] As you're leaving the home, or they're leaving your retail establishment, you suddenly say, "Terry, what's the real reason you didn't purchase today?"

10. "I'm so sorry Becky! Tell me what I missed?"

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

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Passion in Sales: Where Has it Gone?

When I start working with a company and their sales force, it doesn't take long to identify which salespeople have a real passion for their customer, for their product, and for the sales activity. These are the individuals who have a superior drive to achieve, a sparkle in their selling eye, and a true love of their customers and their product or company.

Is it just me, or are there fewer of these passion-rich salespeople out there in the last five years? More individuals seem to be going through the motions and what I call "reluctant salespeople" (reluctant to commit to their career, reluctant to be joyful about their career, reluctant to fully engage their prospects).

Is it a generational thing? I've noticed that some gen Y'ers have an aversion to shaking hands, for example. I love to shake hands with prospects, with customers after they buy, when seeing someone I haven't seen for a while; This long-time social tradition that is probably milleniums-old isn't an attractive interpersonal tool to some twenty-somethings, at least according to my observations. But then again, I'm getting to be an old dude - maybe it's just me.

Is it a economic downturn thing? Are people tired of being beaten down, or fighting for every dollar of revenue, for every percent of commission? Are more salespeople dragging themselves to work and then going through the motions because of the challenges they've faced in the last couple of years?

Is it a management issue? Has the consistent beat of the "profit now" drum lulled some salespeople into a bit of complacency? Is there more conflict with management, or more conflict with salespeople? Have managers lost touch with the front-line sales force? Is micro-management to blame? As management in retail has continued to hire customer service reps instead of sales reps, does that have any effect on this issue?

Is it a B2C thing? I work exclusively in the B2C space - is this a business-to-consumer trend, or does if effect B2B, too?

I'm not sure about any of this, but I see something out there that's different, and it is starting to concern me a bit. It's not that sellers of the day are untalented or lazy or disinterested, but there are strains or low-passion people and low-passion behavior that seems to be slowly infiltrating the sales industry. This is a subtle change, and nothing to be alarmed about, but I think it's worth discussing.

So let's discuss it:

If you manage salespeople, have you noticed anything happening with your team that is indicative of less passion? If so, what do you think is the cause?

If you sell, how do you feel about passion in selling? Passion in a salesperson? Is passion becoming "old school?"

Please share your comments.

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

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Hard Closing Still Works, But There's a Price to Pay

Many salespeople live in fear of the "hard sell." They don't want to be the guy that hammers prospects into the sale, that manipulates them to achieve an order, that puts the salesperson's needs over the prospect's. They like to put themselves above that. Sometimes they're so hyper-sensitive to it that they avoid simple and respectful assertive behavior that sales trainers like me teach them (as simple as asking the prospect for their business, for example).

But hard selling still works. It's just a question of if you want to go there or not. There is a price to pay for using hardsell tactics, and that price is often paid on both ends of the equation: the buyer and the seller. 

The price of the hardsell on the customer side can be manifested in increased cancellations of orders, negative word-of-mouth, an end to future opportunities for sales to the prospect, and more challenging relationships with prospects and customers.

The price of the hardsell on the salesperson is the possibility for increased anxiety, feelings of guilt, or sales aggressiveness that grows out of control, especially when working in a company that uses competition between reps as the key motivation tool. Few hardsell salespeople would want their wives, partners, parents, boyfriends, or children dealt with in a hardsell manner, so internal conflict can arise when the salesperson treats their daily prospects in this same way. On the other hand, some people in sales don't care about anybody else, so these people are ideal for the hardsell environment (but please, keep them away from me).

Selling, in the most simplistic view, is achieving the agreement of the customer to purchase a product or service in exchange for something of value, it being money almost always. That isn't unethical. To the contrary, I believe it's a profession that should be celebrated.

But I find it impossible to celebrate hardsell tactics. When a salesperson uses aggressiveness instead of assertiveness, cunning instead of cleverness, brute force instead of brute skill, and allows his own needs to tower over those of his prospect, I choose to part ways with him.

Hard closing still works, but there's a price to pay for it. I suggest the price is too high.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Here are a couple worthy recent branding/marketing posts worth your visit:

> Tony Johnston has a great article on his Biz Matters Blog about branding and marketing that made Tiffany & Co. an iconic consumer brand.

>Trendwatching.com has six interesting (kind of long, but interesting) videos featuring consumers from around the world who share their thoughts about brands, products, and consumerism.

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

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Retail Sales Clerk v. Retail Sales Professional: Which One Are You?

I'm on a mission to advance the sales professionalism of retail sales representatives, especially in big ticket retail sales.

Most definitely, retail clerks have their place in the retail industry, and if you're a retail clerk, please don't be offended by this post. Retail clerks work very hard at what they do. Different skills are required for a shopper interested in a $3.49 bottle of shampoo than a shopper interested in a $34,900 car (having said that, if all sellers of shampoo were properly trained on how to sell, they'd sell more $34.99 bottles of shampoo, not to mention all the add-on sale possibilities!).

What I have a problem with are retail clerks filling a position that requires a sales professional (or a company hiring clerks when hiring salespeople would be so much more profitable!). The roles of clerk and salesperson are very different.

Part of success in B2C retail selling is determined by how you view your job. Your thoughts and beliefs about your job will direct your behavior in your job. If you see yourself as a retail clerk, you'll act as a retail clerk. If you see yourself as a professional salesperson, you'll act like a professional salesperson, and a retail clerk and a retail sales professional are as different as nurse assistants and physicians: both work in a similar field, but the difference in education and expertise is significant.

So how do retail sales clerks and retail sales professionals differ?

Clerk: Is always busy with busywork.

Retail sales professional: Is always busy advancing the sales process.

Clerk: Is reactive.

RSP: Is proactive.

Clerk: Understands how to restock shelves

RSP: Understands shoppers and how to influence them.

Clerk: Completes transactions.

RSP: Makes transactions happen.

Clerk: Checks stock.

RSP: Checks if the prospect will buy if it is in stock.

Clerk: Is product focused.

RSP: Is customer focused.

Clerk: Knows how to merchandise a display.

RSP: Knows how to sell the products on a display.

Clerk: Understands prospects' needs on a very basic level, if at all.

RSP: Strives to develops a rich understanding of prospect needs.

Clerk: Gets you to sign up for the store credit card.

RSP: Gets you to spend twice as much (or more!) as you intended to spend.

Clerk: Asks, "Do you have any questions I can answer?"

RSP: Engages the prospect in conversation, even if the prospect doesn't have any questions.

Clerk: Talks about his product knowledge.

RSP: Talks about his product within the framework of the shopper's stated needs.

Clerk: Earns minimum wage; sometimes a bit more.

RSP: Earns a lot more.

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

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That Buying Fog: 4 Ways to Fight It

Much of the time, consumers are in a fog - a buying fog. The buying fog is fueled by a lack of personal clarity about what they really want or desire, by their dislike or fear of salespeople (whether it be strong or mild), and by their lack of: time, money, clarity, silence, or priorities.

But it's difficult to make progress when someone is in a buying fog. The fog blurs common sense. It limits emotional buy-in to what you're selling.

Here are 4 ways to clear the buying fog of your prospects this week:

1. Be engaging. 

Have your prospect take notes, or fill out a worksheet while you give your presentation. Get him up out of his chair if you sell in a sit-down environment (office), or get him into a chair if you sell in a stand-up environment (retail). Have him help you measure, search a brochure, look up data, call your vendor, punch 3 holes in a document, take something to the copier, listen to your voicemail, try to break your product, take your product apart, press a button, drive you to a demo, open a carton, hold the controller, wipe it down, lift something up, etc.

2. Be undeniably funny.

When someone is laughing, they're not in a fog. So figure out how to entertain your prospect. If you're funny and can elicit a belly laugh - or at least a smile - that buying fog will lift. Would you rather watch a public speaker with no sense of humor? Or one that lets you laugh several times during the presentation?

3. Be outrageously helpful.

Are you offering to get coffee for your prospect during a meeting? Great! But instead of "coffee," hand them a menu of your four different coffee choices. Then bring in a huge tray of different coffee mugs and cups and let the prospect choose one that is to their liking. Don't just offer one sweetener, offer five. Clean your prospect's raindrop-laden glasses. Walk them to their car with an umbrella. Don't just tell them where the restroom is, walk them there. Be a concierge, not just a salesperson.

4. Be outrageous.

Consumers live in a noisy environment. There's noise from their families, their banks, their kids' schools, and their places of worship. The noise continues at work: who is noisier than your manager? Or your employees? Or coworkers? Add the noise of media, of advertising, of mailers and TV and internet marketing and emails and you have one hugely noisy existence for most of us. Constant noise elevates mental fog, and when one of these individuals shop, their fog turns into buying fog. Fight the fog by being outrageous. Do the unexpected. Be the unexpected. Be outrageously you, but in a fog-fighting bigger and better way than you ever have been you before.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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Sorry, We're Going to Go With Your Competitor

Every salesperson hates to hear those words. But we're told we have to learn how to handle this type of rejection because it's part of sales.

And I agree that salespeople must learn to handle rejection. But if the rejection can be avoided, we can avoid having to handle it.

Here's a scenario for your consideration:

Let's say you sell landscaping design and services. You meet with your prospect and do a needs assessment, measure the property, and schedule a second meeting. A week later, You schedule a second meeting with your prospect for a week later, at which time you plan to present your proposal and make the sale.

But while you're away from your prospect for a week, there have been several key events:

1. Your prospect found out he's being sued by a business partner;

2. Your prospect has been looking into purchasing the property next door;

3. Your prospect received a proposal from one of your competitors, who has successfully convinced the prospect to change the prospect's previous stand against adding a hardscape in the northwest corner of the property.

The day for your second meeting arrives. You sit down with your prospect, present your proposal, and ask the prospect to sign your contract. But after you present your proposal, your prospect tells you she's decided to do business with your competitor instead of you.

What went wrong?

You started the second meeting as if the week between the two meetings didn't exist. You picked up where the first meeting ended, but that doesn't recognize that many changes could have (and in fact did) occur in the intervening week.

So what is the lesson to be learned here?

LESSON: Whenever your sales interaction with your prospect is divided into two or more separate events, at the beginning of the latter event, always ask your prospect if anything has changed since you last talked. Do this before you present a proposal.

Here's a great all-purpose question you can use to see if anything has changed since your last meeting:

"We last met three weeks ago to discuss your [widget]. Has anything changed since we last met?"

Or, you could go into even more detail by asking multiple questions, such as these:

> "Last time we met, we discussed the landscaping along the eastern border of your property, right around the old maple tree. You decided to plant ____________ and _____________ in this area, and we were going to place a casual gathering area under the tree. Has anything changed in your thinking about this area?"

> "We also discussed your love of lilacs, and your desire to include lilacs somewhere in your plan. What have you been thinking about lilacs lately?"

> "You wanted to keep the northwest corner of your property open for possible prairie plantings. Is that still your plan?"

> "Has anything else changed about your project or your ideas since we last spoke?"

By doing a thorough review of key issues before presenting a design or pricing, you can prevent confusion, prevent failed attempts at creating sales momentum, and keep you from frustration caused by barking up the wrong tree.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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Skip Anderson Interviews Shane Gibson, Co-Author of "Sociable!"

Shane Gibson and Stephen Jagger have written a brand new social media book titled "Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside Down." I interviewed Shane on the new episode of The Selling to Consumers Podcast.

I recommend the book to B2C companies and individuals who are trying to figure out if or how social media plays a role in everyday business. Listen to my interview with Shane Gibson at sales training podcast.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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5 Sales Lessons from the Street (Literally)

It's Girl Scout Cookie time, so I took my daughter out for her first door-to-door selling experience on Saturday, spending three-and-a-half wonderful hours with her. Her personal goal (set by her!) for the campaign is to sell 200 boxes, and on our first outing she made it two-thirds of the way to her goal.

I spent a lot of time in street waiting for my daughter to do her thing at the front door of each house we visited. Seeing that I'm obsessed with sales improvement, I couldn't help but spend that time identifying what we can learn about selling from the Girl Scout Cookie experience.

1. Prospects lie.

I don't know for sure, but I estimate close to 100% of the twenty people who told my daughter "We already bought cookies" were lying. After all, we were out first thing on Saturday, the first day of the Girl Scout Cookie sale. The entire time we were out, we didn't see anybody else in the neighborhood selling GSCs, so unless everybody rushed to buy them at work before the sales started, at least some (most?) were lying.

2. Some people avoid salespeople.

There were a handful of people who saw us coming or drove into their garage minutes before we arrived at their home to sell GSCs. But they didn't answer their door. Could they have been in the shower or using their toilet at the exact same time my daughter approached their front door and rang their doorbell? Yes. Is that likely? No. They were avoiding my daughter the salesperson. Some people will go out of their way, perhaps huddling behind the living room sofa, just to avoid a salesperson.

3. Enthusiasm counts.

My daughter knows both my wife and I are salespeople, so sales is a common topic at our dinner table. She was excited to get out on the street and sell GSCs just like the big girls she saw come to our door when she was little, but she was also excited to be a salesperson like Mom and Dad. That enthusiasm showed, and some people bought cookies because of it (and her irresistible smile...thanks to her mother's genes). Enthusiasm and smiles work for sales professionals of all ages.

4. Sometimes you have to ask for the sale more than once.

Surprisingly to me, many people in our neighborhood said "no" to my daughter. But if you follow-up with, "are you sure you don't want to buy just one box," some customers will do just that. Sometimes it takes more than one closing action to make the sale.

5. Get to the emotion.

If a cute eight-year-old girl bundled up for the Minnesota winter with her adorable little gloves and scarf and coat traipsing through the wintery Minnesota neighborhood with her dad isn't enough to tweak your emotions enough to invest $3.50 in a box of GSCs, I feel sorry for you. Yet, I understand that their just wasn't enough emotional octane for some to get them to open their wallet. You just need to ramp up the emotional component of interaction in order to entice some to go ahead and buy. When prospects said no to the cookies, following up with, "Would you like to buy just one box to donate to the food shelf to help a local family in need?" gets some people over that emotional tipping point. To the people who still wouldn't buy, I feel really sorry for you.

Find a Girl Scout Council in your neighborhood who is selling cookies right now. Order some!

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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6 Ways Hair Stylists Can Sell More Product

Hair stylists perform a service, but they also sell product. Some resist the product selling aspect of the profession, while others embrace it and not only earn more money, but have a greater impact on their clients' well-being.

Here are six tips to improve the sales of product to your clients:

1. Don't call it "product."

I get that the industry calls shampoo and conditioner and gel and the like "product." This term distinguishes it from services offered in the salon, such as haircuts, color, etc. But that doesn't mean you should call it "product" to your customers.

"Do you need any product?" doesn't sound good to my customer-sensitive ears. I'll spend money to look good, to have healthy hair, to reduce loss of hair, to have sexy women run their long fingers through my hair; but hearing about "product" from a hair stylist makes me picture a warehouse with floor-to-ceiling stacks of pallets full of cardboard boxes. Is that the image you want in your client's mind?

2. When you use a product, tell the client what it is.

If a product is available to the client for purchase, always tell the client what it is. Never add anything to the hair without taking the opportunity to speak the name of the product.

3. Explain the benefits of using the product.

When you add product to the hair, don't just tell the client what it IS, tell the client what it DOES. Give one or two or three quick bullet points that lets the client know the WHY of the product.

Customers don't buy a drill because they want a drill. They buy a drill because they want holes. Salon clients don't buy conditioner because they want conditioner. They buy conditioner because they want healthy or soft or shiny or manageable or beautiful hair.

4. Recommend the product.

After you've explained what you're putting in your client's hair, recommend the product. Recommending a product is different than merely explaining what the product is and what the product does and why they should have it. A recommendation is personal. "I recommend you try this XYZ serum for a month, and then I'd like to hear what you think of it the next time we see each other!" is a recommendation. 

Stylist recommendations sell more product!

5. Ask for the sale.

So you've used the product in the client's hair, you're explained what it is, what the benefits of the product are, and you've recommended it to the product.

Either immediately or at the end of your session, you must ask for the sale. A direct question is great ("Do you want to go ahead and take home some of that XYZ serum?") or an alternative close is great ("Do you want some of that XYZ serum or do you like the ABC serum I used before?") or whatever closing method you like, but ask for the sale.

6. Follow up.

If a prospect has purchased product previously, make sure to follow up with them at their next appointment. Ask them how they liked it and how it worked. Be curious. If they like the product, ask them if they would like to buy more either at the current appointment or a future one, but don't lose the sales momentum of the product by stopping discussion about it after the client has purchased it.

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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Retail Zen: 10 Tips for a Blissful Sales Career

True salesmanship in retail has all but disappeared in most sectors of the industry. Customer service and merchandising seems to rule the day at the mall. Not that customer service and merchandising aren't important, mind you, but what about the ancient art of face-to-face selling?

When the stacks of sweaters are folded, the carpet is vacuumed, the glass is sparkling, and the till is counted, how about stepping into the zone of retail zen? Here are ten tips to help you do so:

1. Look shoppers in the eye.

Eye contact between salespeople and customers has been gradually waning in retail for years. Let's bring it back!

I once read that parents spend each day with almost no eye contact with their children. It has been suggested that one way to show children you love them is by honoring them with your attention, and attention means eye contact when they're talking or you're talking. The same applies to retail customers. Put down the scanner, the sale signs, the merchandising plan...and lift your eyes to your customers.

2. Be clever.

"May I help you?" is great for a nurse to say when a patient at the hospital rings the nurse call button, but it's so awfully boring in the retail arena that I wish retail sellers would abolish it. Come up with something more clever. Infuse some personality into the day-to-day milieu.

3. Do the unexpected.

An additional "SALE" sign isn't going to help your store's sales.

But whenever prospects are confronted with something unexpected, they tend to pay attention. One challenge with retail is that it has become profoundly boring for most shoppers. Do your customers a favor: do the unexpected. Bake some spinach puffs in the new oven your company started selling and serve them to customers. Show an episode of The Office in the recliner gallery. Wear a football uniform to work at the kids play equipment showroom. Play a polka on your PA system.

4. Suck them in.

Draw the customers in with your smile, your wit, your knowledge, your interpersonal communication skills. Lock down the person-to-person connection first, then worry about the product. Selling is all about people. It is not all about the carpet, the shoe, or the computer; it's about what those things do for the customer.

5. Take a deep cleansing breath. Now exhale!

Outside B2B salespeople get to drive across town to meet with their prospect, or fly to far away destinations. Retail salespeople get to visit the rest room.

Fight the monotony of retail selling by taking time to breathe, to refocus, and cleanse the mind of unwanted negative thoughts. You may not be able to select the music that's playing on the speakers overhead, but you can select how to react to it.

Relax those tense shoulders!

6. Ask customers what they think.

You just put a new refrigerator on your appliance sales floor? Great! Ask the customer to take a look at it with you, then ask them what they think of it. Ask them what they think of your company's new logo, or your store's new video game display, or the new LED lighting.

7. Be a salesperson, not a clerk.

Become proficient at opening conversation with your shopper. Become skilled at identifying their needs, even the hidden ones that the prospect isn't likely to talk about. Help the shopper understand her needs. Clarify. Do an impressive presentation. Ask for the sale. Handle objections.

That's what salespeople do. 

8. Be thankful.

Retail can be a wonderfully rewarding career. Revel in it. You will probably talk to more people in one day than most business-to-business salespeople talk to in a week or more.

You could be stuck in a cubicle, you know.

9. Sell add-ons.

Isn't it mundane to only sell what customers say they want? Why not sell some things they haven't said they want? Sell two vases instead of one. Sell a digital camera with the laptop. Sell underwear -- yes, underwear -- with the suit. Sell a satellite dish with the RV. Sell a subscription to Metropolitan Home with the dining room.

The possibilities are endless!

10. Have some fun.

Do you sparkle at work? Do you add value to your prospects lives? Do you entertain, make people smile, and truly make them feel welcome? Find your inner retail child. Remember how much fun it was to play "store" when you were seven years old? 

What suggestions do you have to help retail sales professionals find "Retail Zen?"

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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10 Reasons In-Home Sales Calls Don't Succeed

For those who sell in consumers' homes, the in-home sales consultation is the catalyst to either sales greatness or failure. If you master the dynamics of selling in the home, you master your sales career!

Here are 10 reasons why in-the-home sales consultations might not be successful:

1. Not on time.

People are busy, and while prospects will likely cut a sales rep some slack if he's late (it's always best to call the prospect as soon as you know you're going to be late), outright disrespect for a prospect's time doesn't help grow sales.

2. Focus on the product instead of the prospect.

Of course salespeople need to present their product's features and benefits in a positive and interesting way, but that shouldn't be the centerpiece of the sales appointment. Although product and technical expertise is important in all kinds of selling, it's more important to have people expertise. The way to sell successfully is to focus on the prospect and her needs, not just the product that's being sold.

3. Do stupid things.

The salesperson parks in the driveway (a no-no in the eyes of some prospects), or plods across the lawn, he tells the prospect he doesn't like cats, he sets a tape measure on a nice cherry dining table and scratches it, he doesn't take off his shoes and tracks muck into the home, etc. Stupid.

4. Wrong pace.

Some prospects are naturally fast-paced, while others are s-l-o-w. Since people like to be around people who are like themselves, salespeople need to adjust their pace of speaking and the pace of their movement to the natural preferences of their prospects.

5. Not leveraging the location.

The prospect collects Italian pitchers. They're all over the kitchen, dining room, entry, and family room. But the salesperson is too busy playing with his order form, brochures, and PowerPoint presentation to notice, much less say anything about it to the prospect. Really? Yet this bozo told his sales manager during his job interview that he's a "people person." Yes, really.

6. No sit-down chit-chat.

The sales rep is in the home to do business. A great place, probably the best place, to do business is at a table, like a kitchen table or dining table. Yet, thousands of salespeople try to do business while hovering around the broken furnace, or in the unfinished basement, or in the upstairs bathroom, or in the entryway of the home where the security system control pad would go. Why? Because that's where the products they're selling are going to be installed if the prospect buys. Almost all in-home sales interactions can benefit from sitting down together first.

7. Missed opportunities for connection to prospects.

The rep knows some of her prospects own dogs, yet she doesn't t keep a small package of dog treats her our bag to offer one to the furry friends. She knows kids can be a distraction when trying to talk business, yet she doesn't t carry a couple coloring books and crayons in her supplies to keep the lovable kiddos busy while she has a serious talk with the Mom about her needs. She assumes everyone remembers her name, so she doesn't give a business card to the prospect at the beginning of the call. Missed opportunities. 

8. Not spending enough effort on discovering or understanding needs.

The prospect doesn't buy a sunroom to have a sunroom. She buys a sunroom to sit in it on a beautiful morning while enjoying her morning coffee while looking out at their apple trees and chatting to her college-aged son on the phone. If we only spend time telling prospects how great our product is, we miss the opportunity to relate the sunroom to the needs and desires and lifestyle of the prospects, and the things that are truly important in the customer's life.

9. Odors. Bad ones.

Cigarette smoke odor on our clothing, parmesan-chicken-with-garlic-mayo-on-ciabatta odor on our breath, body odor on our bodies, or overly aggressive perfume or cologne on our selves can make a sales interaction go south in a big hurry. These are offensive at any time, but these types of odors are even more troubling when they occur on the prospect's [literal] home turf.

10. No sale.

For many products and services sold in the home, our chances of buttoning up the sale AFTER we leave the home is slim. To maximize the sale, we have to know how to complete the sale while in the home. It's truly a skill, and one that every sales professional who sells in customers' homes must learn.

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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New FTC Guidelines for Endorsements & Testimonials in Advertising

New Federal Trade Commission guidelines regarding the use of customer testimonials and endorsements in advertising will start tomorrow (December 1, 2009).

No longer will a mere statement like "results not typical" be acceptable in communicating to consumers that some endorsements may not reflect typical results for most users or customers. With the new rules, the advertiser will have to clearly describe what results should reasonably be expected by the average purchaser.

There are other changes in the guidelines, too, for bloggers and celebrity endorsers.

You can read a press release from the FTC about the new guidelines here, and you can download an 81 page pdf with even more detail here.

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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Ouch! Sometimes it Hurts to Look for Customers' Pain

 
Some define selling as a process of identifying their prospects' and customers' "pain." Books and articles admonish salespeople to "find the customer's pain." This can be valuable, since relief from pain is most certainly a motivation for buying.

Pain takes many forms in our prospect's lives.

> Pain could be a dishwasher that runs six hours instead of one or two hours, thereby increasing energy costs and reducing opportunities to remove dishes from it.

> Pain could be the car that's difficult to start on humid days, thereby reducing reliability.

> Pain could be a closet rod that fell down in the middle of the night leaving the clothes in a large wrinkled pile on the closet for.

But where I think some are misguided is when salespeople think only about pain as a motivating factor for buying, as if it is the root cause for all purchases. But it isn't. Looking exclusively at pain as the reason for buying products and services can cause you to miss other reasons why people buy.

> I didn't buy 12 boxes of Girl Scout cookies from six different girls to relieve pain.

> I didn't download the new Zero 7 CD or go to the Minnesota Orchestra concert to relieve pain.

> I didn't buy my wife a necklace to relieve pain.

> I didn't buy my daughter a book at her school's book fair to relieve pain.

> I didn't buy a collection of municipal bonds to relieve pain.

> I didn't buy our latest piece of art to relieve pain.

> I didn't buy a Vineyard Vines tie to relieve pain.

It's great to understand pain is a motivating factor for some purchases in some situations. But don't stop there. Customers buy for more than just one reason. Focusing on only pain is like focusing only on the quality of the wine while dining. Don't miss out on the rest of the meal!

Missing other buying motivations can be painful!

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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Assumptive Language Helps the Sale Move Forward

 
The real estate agent, after a long discussion of our needs and wants, begins to show us property. My wife and I are getting a tour of a cabin in beautiful northern Minnesota. It's on a smallish lake, with loons and birch trees and some hills, with vintage, quaint cabins from the 1940's.

Sure, the property is fun to see. But what strikes me is the non-assumptive language of the salesperson.

Non-assumptive language might not be appropriate early in a sales conversation, and in certain sales conversations that are more exploratory in nature. But, especially after a salesperson has done a good job of investigating needs and desires, a presentation of a product or service begs for assumptive language.

Assumptive language:

1. Tells your prospect you believe in your product;

2. Tells your prospect you believe in your product for your prospect;

3. Tells your prospect it's okay to take ownership of the product, at least during the sales conversation;

4. Helps move the sales conversation to closure, especially if the prospect is on the fence.

Here are some excerpts from the mouth of the real estate agent, along with my suggestions for assumptive language:

AGENT: "And here is the boat house, where you could have guests stay, at least in the summer."

BETTER: "And here is your boat house, where your nieces and nephew will sleep when they visit during the temperate months in the late spring, summer, and early fall." [The agent found out that one of the main visitors to the cabin will be our nieces and nephew).

- - - - -

AGENT: "The size of the lot would give you plenty of room to add a second garage in the future to store your toys."

BETTER: "The size of the lot will give you plenty of room..."

- - - - -

AGENT: "The property owner's association would be one of the best in the area."

BETTER: "The property owner's association is one of the best in the area."

- - - - -

AGENT: "If you spend much time in the winter..."

BETTER: "When you spend time here in the winter..."

- - - - -

AGENT: "If the dock is too short, you can make it longer."

BETTER: "If your dock is too short, you simply make it longer."

- - - - -

AGENT: "The cabin's fourth bedroom is upstairs..."

BETTER: "Your fourth bedroom is upstairs..."

- - - - -

AGENT: "The current owners could close before Memorial Day so you could take ownership by the summer."

BETTER: "The current owners will close before Memorial Day so you will have the entire summer to enjoy your new lake."

- - - - -

Assumptive language isn't going to make an uninterested party buy something they don't want to buy. But it will give permission to your prospect to mentally take ownership of the product during your sales conversation. And sometimes, that can supply just the tiny bit of buying momentum that can make a sale happen.

* * * * * * * * * *

The nice folks over at Your Business Channel put together a brief video with quotes pulled from some of my writing. See the video at beat the recession.

 

 

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

 

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7 Indicators of High Pressure Selling

The vast majority of salespeople working today don't want to be high pressure sellers. In fact, some have a fear of using pressure to gain sales and avoid assertive, professional selling techniques because of their hyper-sensitivity to high pressure selling.

I also have a disdain for high pressure selling. But I know that professional salespeople need to be assertive, to be willing to put themselves out in the public's eye, to be able to take control, to drive their prospect's decisions, and to bring in the orders.

High pressure selling is something completely different. But what, exactly, is the high pressure selling that most of us dislike so much?

I think high pressure selling can be identified by the following seven indicators:

1. When the salesperson hasn't generated sufficient rapport with, or trust from, the prospect.

2. When the sales representative dominates the sales conversation and does not create customer engagement. 

3. When the salesperson lets the product dominate the conversation rather than the prospect's needs and desires, and their unique circumstances.

4. When the salesperson displays behavior that is disrespectful, rude, or offensive.

5. When the sales representative attempts to close the sale too early or in the wrong way.

6. When the salesperson crosses the line from being assertive (a valuable trait in selling) to being aggressive (attempting to dominate the prospect).

7. When the customer has incorrectly implied or communicated a high level of interest of commitment in the salesperson's product, and then feels taken advantage of when the salesperson acts congruently with that interest or commitment.

You'll see that six of the indicators listed above are the responsibility of the salesperson, and the last one is the responsibility of the prospect. Go ahead and hate aggressive selling. But don't let that keep you from selling.

Are there any sales behaviors missing from my list that you think is an indicator of high pressure or aggressive selling?

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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My [Very] Personal Story: The Pain of False Objections In Selling and in Life

I wanted to make love with my wife one night last week (especially because I've been very busy and have travelled a lot). But my plans were foiled when she told me she had a migraine. [She knows that the tried and true "headache" excuse doesn't work anymore, so in recent years she's elevated "headache" to "migraine"].

But I know she didn't have a migraine. No way. Her "objection" wasn't real. It was a faux objection.

The real reason my wife avoided my husbandly advances was because she wanted to watch a TV show.

[Great. Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe takes precedence over moi. While I'm thinking about getting "dirty" with my beautiful wife, my beautiful wife is thinking about Mike Rowe getting truly dirty as he plays the role of both a dung beetle researcher and a glass blower. That's just not the kind of role playing I had in mind. But I digress...]

It's not just wives that give objections; prospects do, too. So what do you do when you hear an objection from your customer?

The first and most important task is to determine how accurate and true the objection is. Is it a real objection? Or is it a false objection?

Salespeople hear objections every day. And every day, salespeople go after those objections not knowing if they're real or if they're a cover up, a false objection, a smoke screen, an excuse, an easy way out, a tall tale, a desire to exit the sales situation without having to make a decision, a temporary anxiety attack, or a manifestation of status quo paralysis.

Before we address the actual objection, we put our investigator's hats on and dig into the objection and ask some probing questions. Examples:

- - - - -

Objection: "I need to talk to my wife about it."

Investigative Question: "Being a married person myself, I can appreciate that. Let's set your wife aside for a moment. How do you feel about owning this [insert product or service here]."

- - - - -

Objection: "I can't afford this right now."

Investigative Question: "I agree, Bob, it's important that you only consider cars that you can afford. What was it about this [insert model of car] that made you want to test drive it today? [customer answers]. Is it more that you can't afford this car, or more that you don't want to spend this kind of money?"  etc.

_ _ _ _ _

Objection: "I'm going to have to think about this. Buying a townhome is a big decision."

Investigative Question: "You know, you bring up an excellent point. Let's think about this together. Do you like the location of the home? What do you think about the fourth bedroom? (I know you only needed three bedrooms). What do you think about the layout of the rooms?, etc.

_ _ _ _ _

Faux objections throw salespeople off course. Before you address an objection (or as you address it), find out if the objection is real and true. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't, but addressing a fake objection as if it's the real reason the prospect isn't moving ahead with the purchase is a serious sales strategy error.

By the way, Dirty Jobs is on TV again tonight. Argh.

 

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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Selling is a Skill

I loved playing baseball as a kid. I'd take my book about pitching outside with me and pitch for endless hours to my younger brother (probably my earliest experiencing in selling was learning how to "sell" my brother on being catcher to my pitches even after he wanted to quit).

It didn't take me long to figure out that pitching was a skill. You had to throw the ball the right way to get the ball to go where you wanted it to go and to get it there taking the path you wanted it to take. Great baseball pitchers need to stay healthy, to be able to work when called upon, and to handle pressure effortlessly, but they also need the skill to get the ball to do what they want and need it to do.

I am a trained classical musician with two degrees in music. I played two instruments semi-professionally, and taught, and conducted and composed music. Performing music requires skill.

Just think about the number of hours that top music students in top music conservatories and universities across the world spend honing their craft. It's crazy. But anybody pursuing music at this level understands that performing music requires skill. It requires more than that, too, but it definitely requires skill.

Readers of this blog will know that I had surgery earlier this fall. My surgeon was very skilled - I know this not only by the quality of his work, but also by the checking I did before my procedure. But the only reason I needed surgery is because the surgeon that performed this surgery on me one year ago was unskilled. He had botched it. Surgeons need knowledge, but they require copious skill, too.

And so it is in the profession of selling. The mission of sales training is to improve the skills of professional sellers. Just as with pitchers, classical musicians, and surgeons, salespeople need to have their skills developed to a sufficiently high level to result in sufficiently high sales performance.

If you want to get better at selling, work hard. Treat people well. Be helpful. But make sure you have developed the skills you need to achieve what you want.

Read over 100 posts in this blog about sales skills.

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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Apples and Oranges: 3 Ways to Get Prospects To See Differences

"I can get the same thing for only $13,000 and your price is $18,000."

Hearing something like that from a prospect stops many salespeople right in their tracks. Having no better way to handle that statement, some settle for spewing sales babble such as "But we're the leading provider of widgets in our city" or "We have the best customer service around, and you should really buy from us."

Often, a customer isn't aware of the differences between your product and the other product that is priced much less than yours. When this happens, you need a methodology to continue the selling process. With that in mind, here are 3 ways to continue selling when you hear "I can get the same thing for less."

1. Encourage further communication.

As salespeople, we need to learn more about the lower price from the competitor. The worst thing we can do is get angry or defensive. Thank the prospect for sharing the competitor's information with you. Ask questions, not with the intent to point out differences, but with the intent of learning more.

2. Ask the prospect the difference between the two products.

Sometimes the prospect will say "it's exactly the same." But other times, the prospect will recite a list of differences that can be a starting point for deeper discussion of differences. It's interesting how the prospect's statement of "I can get the same thing for less" can be quickly followed by the prospect acknowledging that it's not really the same thing. It's so much more effective if the prospect tells you how the products are different than if you do all the talking.

3. Use a Venn diagram

Sitting down with your prospect and creating a Venn diagram together encourages the prospect to share what they know about your product (or company) and the competitor's product (or company). The fact that you're sitting down together to create the diagram adds structure to the discussion, and the visual element can be very helpful in having meaningful conversation with your prospect.

Below is an example Venn diagram that might be created with a prospect who says they can get a sofa at another furniture store that is exactly like your sofa, but for less money. After completion of the diagram, it's easy for the prospect to see the real differences, and the prospect may be able to come to understand why your sofa is $350 more expensive than the other store's sofa.

Remember, part of the value of the Venn diagram is that you're doing it with your prospect.

If you like this post (or don't) please click on "comments" below and share your comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, in the financial, real estate, and insurance markets, and other consumer-selling industries.

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A Celebration of Sales Learning

I apologize in advance for the self-centered nature of today's post. You see, this is my 400th post on the Selling to Consumers Blog.

I love my job as a sales trainer, public speaker, and management consultant. I am so thrilled to be making a living doing something I love. Helping a client company or coaching client sell more fulfills me in so many ways. I just love it. This blog is for you.

But not every company or every individual who sells to consumers can or will hire me or my company. This blog is for you, too.

This blog is a celebration of learning about selling. Free to anyone, the 400+ posts of this blog will tell you a lot about what you need to know to be able to sell better and be more successful.

So if you're new in sales, or a veteran, or if you manage a sales force or own a company that sells to consumers, this blog is truly for you. If you have a passion for learning and improving, a passion for your career, and a passion for your customer, I hope you'll continue to join me here at Selling to Consumers for the next 400 posts. I know a bunch of you will hire my company to do training or consulting work, and that's great. I thank you. But even if you aren't one of those companies or individuals, I hope you visit here often and, most of all, I hope you learn something that helps you achieve your business and career goals.

Thanks for celebrating with me.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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Don't Worry About H1N1 - NAS is More Dangerous

Forget about H1N1. Here's the real affliction making the rounds in the sales profession: Negative Assumption Syndrome (NAS). NAS is the real [career] killer.

Salespeople can be their own worst enemies! I see it often. Salespeople decide for their prospects if they're going to buy. Then, once the salesperson makes this decision, he acts in congruence with that decision.

As of this date, there is no vaccination for Negative Assumption Syndrome. But there is a remedy:

Let the prospect decide if they're not going to buy - Don't do it for them.

Unfortunately, many salespeople don't use the remedy. Just like an expired bottle of pills wasting away in the back of the medicine cabinet, salespeople know they should assume the sale, but they forget. Instead, they exhibit NAS, like these salespeople:

- The rug salesperson who said to his coworker, "I know they're not going to buy...they said they were looking online for rugs...I'll bet they'll buy online."

- The real estate agent who - while driving to his open house - "The weather's too darned nice today...nobody's going to be out looking at houses today."

- The interior designer who says "I know you have to talk to your husband, so show him my plans and then let me know what you guys decide."

- The fitness club sales rep who thinks, "She can't buy a membership...she's got three kids! I only have two kids and I couldn't afford it if I didn't work here."

- The department store salesperson who never offers credit accounts because he says "Anybody who wants a credit card already has one."

- The furniture store sales representative who shows the cheapest recliner first, instead of showing the premium product first because "the economy sucks."

- The door-to-door salesperson who skips a house because "their bad siding tells me they can't afford a security system."

- The optical store rep who doesn't try to add on sunglasses because "times are tight and people can't afford two pairs of glasses these days."

You cannot predict the future. So don't waste time on dire predictions.

If you're going to make assumptions, then make assumptions that you ARE going to be successful, that your prospects ARE going to buy, that you WILL find a way to make it through challenges, that your hard work and sales skill CAN and WILL take you to new heights, that you MUST improve, and that you DESERVE to rise to the top.

Wherever your mind goes, your behavior follows, so select your assumptions carefully.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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Customers Lie

Nice customers lie. Mean customers lie. All customers lie. They can't help it. It's wired into their operating systems.

Customers consciously lie - yep, right to your face!

- They'll tell you their budget is $5500 when it's really $6500 (or $4500)

- They'll tell you they can make a decision today, but then want to discuss the purchase with their spouse.

- They'll tell you they're ready to move quickly on the purchase, but then drag their feet.

- They'll tell you that the widget they're going to buy must have the XYZ feature, but then buy a widget  without the XYZ feature from your competitor. 

- They'll tell you their brother-in-law bought the same thing for $13,000 when in fact it was $14,900.

- They'll tell you they'll buy if you knock 200 bucks off the price, then they walk after you do.

Customers also unconsciously lie. They don't mean to. They just can't help it. In fact, they're not even aware of it. Lies seep into the conversation without the prospect knowing it.

It doesn't mean you can't be wildly successful selling to consumers, it just means you need to be prepared. Put everything your prospect tells you into your truth machine for a second look. Be skeptical. Test the customer. Constantly reevaluate. Question your prospect. Look for cracks, proof, and evidence. Don't take much on face value. Investigate. Assume your prospect is lying in some way, especially on crucial issues.

Don't hate your customers for it. Love them. But like parents of devious children sneaking handfuls of cookies into their beds at night, listen carefully for their footsteps outside your bedroom door. And then look for crumbs in the morning.

Those who protect themselves will survive the onslaught of customer lies today and will sell anyway.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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6 Business Lessons from the Hospital Bed

I had surgery last week, and proceeded to have the longest hospital stay of my life. During the several-night stay at the hospital, I had plenty of time to worry about all the work I wasn't getting done, the prospects I promised proposals to but hadn't yet delivered, and the customers for which I knew I had to complete projects. But, alas, my intellectual self knew that -- no matter how much I worried or thought about the stuff I needed to finish -- my backlog of tasks were not going to get done while I lay there in the hospital bed.

So I decided to use the time to plan some future writing projects and study the operations of the patient care department. As a consultant, I'm always focused on finding opportunities for performance improvement. And what a better place to analyze the hospital's delivery of services than while I'm laying in bed for several days experiencing the nursing staff's performance from a front row perspective.

Chances are, blog reader, you don't run a hospital or manage a hospital staff. But you might sell insurance or handbags or custom closets or something else. So don't ignore this opportunity to see your business (albeit a different one) through the eyes of a consumer:

Lesson #1: Be Proactive.

Hospitals care for guests every day. They're in the business of patient care. With a wealth of knowledge about their customers, their operations, and all the regulations, one should be able to anticipate many patient needs. I'm guessing every patient in the hospital (at least those who are able) would like to take a shower by their third or fourth day having not had one.

So anticipate this, hospital care staff. Provide soap and shampoo and washcloths and towels, and instructions on how and when to take a shower with the patient's unique circumstances kept in mind. A patient shouldn't have to ask to take a shower on their third or fourth day in the hospital. They should already know it's available, how to do it, and what they need to do to accomplish it. If, due to the nature of the patient's situation, he is unable to have a shower or bath, then he should be told so proactively.

Use the knowledge you have about your customers and how they do business to do better business.

Lesson #2: Little Things Matter.

During my stay, I dealt with probably seven or eight nurses and probably seven or eight nursing assistants. I'm a human being. Nurses are human beings. Why wasn't there more human interaction taking place?

One of my nurses came to see me every day at the end of his shift to tell me he would be leaving in twenty or thirty minutes. What a wonderful way to recognize the humanity of your patients...keep them informed!

Little things matter to human beings.

Lesson #3: It's Not All About Hearts, Spleens, and Broken Limbs

During my entire stay, the light above my sink was burned out, as was the overhead light in my room. Several of the nursing staff noticed it, and I reported it more than once. Yet, by the time I left my room for good, it had not yet been fixed.

How much do you want to bet that the lights are still out now, even though I left the hospital three days ago?

Yes, it's very important to take care of patients' hearts, spleens, and broken limbs. But doesn't it stand to reason that an organization that cannot effectively manage burned-out light bulbs may not be so good at managing patient's spleens either?

Lesson #4: Personal Touches Matter

When a nurse comes into your room with a long face and a harried look, you just know you're not going to be treated very well, specially when you plaster a big smile onto your face and exclaim, "Good morning, Nancy!" and get a dour response. I'm sure nurses are overworked and underpaid, and they probably have more than their fair share of challenging patients, but none of that is an excuse for not treating your patients like special people (like customers for heaven's sake).

A facial expression (frown or smile), a tone of voice (warm or cold), and type of eye contact (direct or avoidant) speaks volumes to the patient. So does human touch. And what if every nurse would say, "Is there anything else you need before I leave?" every single time she left your room? Wouldn't you feel more cared for than if she simply walked out of your room?

Nurses live their careers at the hospital so everything becomes routine for them. But for most patients, hospital visits are anything but routine. I think it's important for all those serving patients in the hospital to remember that.

Handshakes, smiles, grins, chuckles, patience, warmth, a gentle touch of the hand - these are the tools of humanity and hospitals need more humanity. Your business probably needs more humanity, too.

Lesson #5: Customers Get Frustrated When They Have to Ask More Than Once

Lunch never came and you ask for it, and it still never comes after you call attention to the fact. You want a pain pill, yet, one hour later, the pain pill hasn't arrived. You ask a question and the nurse ends her shift without getting back to you with the answer, or at least telling you she doesn't have an answer yet.

I hate to have to ask more than once. Customers hate to ask more than once. What do your customers have to ask for over and over again?

Lesson #6: If It's Quiet They Want, Give Them Quiet.

Hospitals are noisy places. Some patients, like me, are light sleepers. Put noisy places and light sleepers together and you have a potential disaster. I would have paid just about anything out of my own pocket by the morning after my first night's stay if someone would have guaranteed me a quiet stay. 

The nurse staff chuckled and chortled all night, yelled from one nursing station to another about this or that, waking me up every single time. I'd get up and shut my door, but getting up with a blood pressure cuff around one arm and an I.V. in the other are major endeavors. Yet, whenever anybody would come in to check my vitals or give me some more meds, they'd leave without closing the door, even though I had asked them to do so.

I bet your customers would pay just about anything for something. If you can identify that something, you've got a huge money-making opportunity.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally unhappy with my experience last week. It's just that I know they could have done so much better.

Even though you probably aren't in the hospital or nursing business, what can your business learn from these lessons from the hospital bed?

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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2 Reasons Salespeople Fail at Effectively Handling Customer Objections

The biggest reason salespeople fail at handling objections from their customers is that they don't know what to say or do when they hear an objection, so they talk.

This is primarily a sales training issue, of course, but once trained, it becomes a sales management and coaching issue. Salespeople need to be reminded (daily? weekly? monthly?) how to effectively handle objections so that a simple customer objection doesn't kill a sales interaction prematurely.

The second reason salespeople fail at objection handling is anxiety. They get nervous, impatient, and loose their composure, often resulting in a haphazard response or an end to the dialog.

Again, this is a sales training and management issue. Just as anxiety control is important in being a pilot, a hockey player or a comic, anxiety control is important to the sales professional, too. High anxiety causes comfortable person-to-person timing to become rushed. During an episode of objection anxiety, sales reps loose their ability to listen, to think, and to react effectively.

If your sales team is struggling with handling customer objections effectively:

1. Make sure everyone knows what to say when the most common objections are expressed by prospects; and

2. Make certain salespeople know how to control anxiety through slowing down, improving listening, and lots of role-playing.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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The Power of a Sincere Compliment

Retail sales reps and salespeople who sell in customers' homes usually have a brief time to establish customer engagement. In the retail environment, customers get distracted, realize other priorities, or leave the premises. When selling in the home, the sales representative is on the prospect's home turf, so she can exercise very little control over the meeting.

In selling, sometimes small tidbits can create wonderful results. Sharing a sincere compliment with your prospect is one of those tidbits.

Although some individuals need recognition more than others, any human being loves to be recognized, and a compliment is a small way to recognize the value of another. I'm not suggesting fake compliments, wherein a salesperson shares a compliment in a sleazy manner to try to manipulate the prospect. I'm suggesting sincerity here.

There are some interesting gender and sexual-preference dynamics in the realm of complimenting customers. Sometimes women can compliment other women in a way that men can't. I've seen gay men interact with female customers in a way a straight man probably couldn't do successfully, and vice versa. Women salespeople sometimes need to adjust compliments to men customers if the men customers' wives are with them. It can be easier for a woman salesperson to compliment a woman customer than it is a male salesperson to compliment a male customer, so sometimes male sales reps have to work extra hard at complimenting effectively and inoffensively.

Here are compliments for you to ponder. Some of these are appropriate for retail settings, while others are appropriate for selling in the customer's home, yet others will work for office meetings. To engage your customer better, compliment better:

I love your glasses! Where did you get them?

You have the best laugh!

What a lovely purse!

Oh, what a beautiful baby! What's her name?

You have the most wonderful kitchen countertop. What is it?

This floor looks so exotic. I love it!

What a gorgeous family portrait - you have a beautiful family!

You look like you're relaxed and ready for the weekend.

You two make an adorable couple.

I love how you parent your little one. We see such poor parenting here sometimes; it's nice to see someone who sets boundaries for their kids.

I love looking at men's ties and I think yours is great!

I can see how much your wife means to you.

Oh my gosh, may I ask where you got those amazing SHOES?

What cool sunglasses you have on! They're stunning!

I could sit and listen to your accent all day! Where'd you get that?

Looks like you're bright-eyed and raring to go this morning!

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.

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