Down under the under, a term I used to tell my American clients to describe where New Zealand was in relation to Australia has had one of the best summers for several years.
It’s a chance to reflect as well on what makes this part of the world a special place.
And why I think that us Kiwis are a clever bunch of people when it comes to innovation and following our dreams.
Every year down under the under most of us get to take a few weeks away to enjoy our summer. I get to go to a family beach house I have been going to for 20 odd years.
Most of my partner’s family have been going to this part of the world much longer, probably three generations.
The beach is a five-minute walk, it’s a daily ritual with two children and of course Bruno the dog.
Part of summer holidays is reading, usually for me fiction an easy read about not much.
Kind of takes your minds off things if you can sprinkle that with the odd nonfiction it gives you some balance.
Those that have read some of my thoughts on goal setting know that I am not big on doing these in the New Year… I tend to set them at different times of the year so they overlap.
I was looking through some of my posts from years gone by and I came across this one, £25 and a Dream.
It’s important I think in this day and age when our young folk think that they are the only pioneers of entrepreneurship, that we did have trailblazers paving the way, with as much passion and determination dating back a year or two.
Its author and Contiki founder John Anderson blends his autobiography, and tales of travel into a great read its Australasia’s great untold business stories.
A story about a company that started on just £25 pounds and became a worldwide travel company.
For those that do not know about Contiki, it’s a travel company for the 18-35-year-olds.
You get to explore Europe and other parts of the world with other young people your age. Many friendships are formed that have lasted years. He says that he thinks the company is responsible for over 5000 marriages.
It had such an impact on so many young people and these are told in this great read.
There are also some great lessons we could all take note of if we are in sales,
I am going to explore a few with you with a couple of revamped posts and lessons I learned from John’s book.
PLUS: WHENEVER YOU’RE READY…
Here are 4 ways I can help you make more sales in your business – whether your business is big or small.1. Want to become a Sales Mindset Blueprint Member. Every month you get access to an exclusive coaching session with me as well as full access to my sales programme. Get the deets here.
Try the new ‘7 Days to Sales Success’ framework.Make more sales in 7 days. The framework of everything you need to get started in making more sales in your business. The Sales Success Framework is based on a simple 7-day challenge. Click here to find out how you can grow your business by making more sales.
Join our private Facebook group – The Sales Mindset Inner Circle. Get all the latest up to date sales ideas.Every week we do Facebook Live updates on all things sales. Tips, ideas, free coaching, and much more. Join me by clicking here
Work with me one-on-one.If you’re a business owner, small or large or in the professional services you might just be a few strategies, tactics and tools away from doubling your lead flow, revenue and impact. Jump on a FREE 15-minute brainstorm call with me by clicking here.
We all know that Negotiation is a form of selling, and our ultimate goal is that everybody wins. Impossible, right? Maybe not. In my book Selling is Not Optional- How to Master the most important skill in business and life I devote a whole chapter to negotiation.
Mutual Success
In the chapter I stress the goal of mutual success for both the buyer and seller. Often, we think negotiations can only succeed one way: we present the product, say all the right things, and get the client really excited about buying. Then we ask for the business and they jump across the desk and hug us, saying, “You saved my life.” Right?
It simply doesn’t happen that way.
What’s your fear?
Often, salespeople don’t even ask for the business for fear of rejection. They are afraid to hear, “No, not at the moment,” or, “I want to negotiate.”
As we have seen from other chapters in the book , mindset makes a difference; you have to be open to the next step. Often, after someone does decide to purchase, they still want to parry a little. People feel it is a bit of a game.
We are all in the game of negotiation. I left the house this morning negotiating with my wife about a couple of things. We negotiate with our partners and our fellow workers, and I can tell you as a parent of teenagers, we negotiate with our children.
Salespeople should avoid cultivating a closed mindset around bargaining. Negotiations are just a form of communication. Consider how negotiations can get you closer to finding a mutually beneficial solution.
A Beautiful Mindset.
Think of the John Nash story, told in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Nash, an American mathematician, proved that when you cooperate, everybody wins, and wins bigger. Game theory demonstrates that cooperation can increase each player’s ultimate reward. Having a collaborative mindset is actually the key to successful negotiation.
Here are some takeaways from my book on the subject of negotiation. (link)
Plan your negotiation approach. Have a checklist. Don’t forget your agreement.
There are often only a few standard areas of concerns for your clients.
Keep your sense of humour.
A new signature, please on all emails from this week.
PLUS: WHENEVER YOU’RE READY…
Here are 4 ways I can help you make more sales in your business – whether your business is big or small.1. Want to become a Sales Mindset Blueprint Member. Every month you get access to an exclusive coaching session with me as well as full access to my sales programme. Get the deets here.
Try the new ‘7 Days to Sales Success’ framework.Make more sales in 7 days. The framework of everything you need to get started in making more sales in your business. The Sales Success Framework is based on a simple 7-day challenge. Click here to find out how you can grow your business by making more sales.
Join our private Facebook group – The Sales Mindset Inner Circle. Get all the latest up to date sales ideas.Every week we do Facebook Live updates on all things sales. Tips, ideas, free coaching, and much more. Join me by clicking here
Work with me one-on-one.If you’re a business owner, small or large or in the professional services you might just be a few strategies, tactics and tools away from doubling your lead flow, revenue and impact. Jump on a FREE 15-minute brainstorm call with me by clicking here.
In my training I talk about the importance of asking yourself powerful questions when it comes to conditioning your mindset.
To finish off that discussion here are some business questions you might want to think about as you move into another week of selling.
• What am I most happy/excited about in my business?
• What am I most proud of in my business?
• How does it make me feel to employ other people?
• What am I committed to doing to improve sales
systems?
• How/why do I value my customers?
Set up Systems
With all of these questions, you are asking yourself about your business is it not the time to set up systems to routinize these questions for your sales team so their conversations with customers flow more naturally? Efficiency is especially important with today’s shorter buying cycles and your clients are considering several competitive offers at any one time; there is little time to waste.
What does a quality question look like in practice? A quality question is one that cannot be answered with a simple “No.” Can I help you is the wrong question, because “No, just looking” is not the answer you want? Where can you go from there? Nowhere.
The phrase that you thought was helpful has just shut down the conversation you were hoping to have with a potential client. Is it hard to come back from a dead end? You bet.
The Other Guy’s Shoes
How do you get your sales team to open up the conversation? Get them to think about the customer’s experience. Many salespeople are concerned about coming across as nosy. In reality, there are few topics that are truly off-limits. Obviously, you wouldn’t ask anything too personal, but if you genuinely indicate your desire to help, people are quite willing to talk about themselves.
Keep in mind that the customer’s most urgent need at the moment he or she walks in your door may not be to buy your
product.
It may be something much more basic, like a need to be understood. Before they buy anything, they may want to know that you appreciate them.
The importance of considering the customer’s current circumstances is succinctly told in a famous sales story, called The Man in the Desert.* It goes like this: A man comes into a store after living in the desert for months. The store sells best quality food and clothing, but those are not the first things the customer needs.
What he needs is water. The best conversation starter for this man is a glass of water. Maybe after his thirst is quenched, you will learn that he also needs lunch or a new jacket. He might need other things to help him feel better.
If you sell those things, you are in business. You have opened a dialogue that would never have taken place if you had not recognised the customer’s most basic need.
So many people stop at the glass of water. You almost always have to ask more than one question to find out what the client wants. If that person says, “I’m just looking,” you can respect that, but you know they must have come in for a reason. Have the courage to ask another question.
For example, if someone is looking at a product, ask them what they like about it. Get them talking. The only questions that don’t work are questions that close the conversation.
Of course, for a salesperson to be willing to let the conversation wander, he or she must be prepared with the things we talked about earlier, including sufficient knowledge of the product to confidently answer any questions that come back from the customer.
If you know your product well enough, the answers come intuitively, which makes a sales interaction feel more like a friendly chat.
Have a good week selling your stuff.
Mike
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
PLUS: WHENEVER YOU’RE READY…
Here are 4 ways I can help you make more sales in your business – whether your business is big or small.
Want to become a Sales Mindset Blueprint Member. Every month you get access to an exclusive coaching session with me as well as full access to my sales programme. Get the deets here.
Try the new ‘7 Days to Sales Success’ framework.Make more sales in 7 days. The framework of everything you need to get started in making more sales in your business. The Sales Success Framework is based on a simple 7 day challenge. Click here to find out how you can grow your business by making more sales.
Join our private Facebook group – The Sales Mindset Inner Circle. Get all the latest up to date sales ideas.Every week we do Facebook Live updates on all things sales. Tips, ideas, free coaching, and much more. Join me by clicking here.
Work with me one-on-one. If you’re a business owner, small or large or in the professional services you might just be a few strategies, tactics and tools away from doubling your lead flow, revenue and impact. Jump on a FREE 15-minute brainstorm call with me by clicking here.
In my last blog, I talked about the importance of knowledge, of knowing your products and your clients’ products strengths and weakness better than your competitors.
If you did the exercise, you will now be armed with more tools to sell your product or service.
So far, in the selling journey we have had Mindset, Insight, and now the Path-Evaluating clients’ needs.
The next stage in the selling journey is the Path.
Every sale involves some type of discovery. At this point, you have adjusted your mindset and achieved solid insight into your product or service. You are now ready to get on the path to a sale.
The next step is discovering what your clients’ needs and wants really are. You are not ready to seal the deal, but you are looking down the road ahead of you, mapping out the territory that will lead to the sale.
You will cover this ground alongside your client, by focusing on your clients’ needs and how you can move together down the path toward fulfilling them. Think of “the path” as the discovery process behind every sale, where we find out how we can match up our product with the needs of the customer.
I sometimes put it another way – “Stop selling your solution, and find out their problems.”
We should understand that the intersection is not reached all at once, and the journey is seldom the same twice.
Clients’ needs differ depending on many variables, including timing and general willingness to buy. Our job is to discover the underlying need or want, and to be there when the timing and willingness converge.
We can do that by creating events and taking actions that position us in the clients’ path, so we are there when they are ready to buy.
You can only be truly ready to provide solutions to your clients’ problems if you develop a deep understanding of their wants and needs.
In the first instance, you do this by asking questions. We’ll explore that some more in the next blog.
Evaluate emotional needs
Remember this: Every one of your clients has a need for your product, usually at an emotional level.
What I want you to do is a simple, quick exercise.
Either spend some time with a notepad, or just answer these in your next sales meeting, or do them now on your own.
Why do my clients buy this?
What result does it give them?
What does it do?
What am I really selling? (Are you fulfilling a pent-up desire?)
How do they feel when they buy it?
What emotions trigger a sale?
What are the motivations for them buying your product or service?
There are several more exercises you can do to construct valuable tools and these are found in Chapter 5 On the Path: EvaluatIng Clients’ Needs (Link). Selling is not optional – How to master the most important skill in business and life.
Here are 4 ways I can help you make more sales in your business – whether you businesses is big or small.
Become a Sales Mindset Blueprint Member. Every month you get access to an exclusive coaching session with me as well as full access to my sales programme. Get the deets here.
Try the new 7 Days to Sales Success Framework. Make More Sales in 7 days. The framework of everything you need to get started in making more sales in your business. The Sales Success Framework is based on a simple 7 day challenge. Click here to find out how you can grow your business by making more sales.
Join our Private Facebook Group – The Salesmindset Inner Circle. Get all the latest up to date sales ideas. Every week we do Facebook Live updates on all things sales. Tips, ideas, free coaching, and much more. Join me by clicking here.
. Work with me One-on-One. f you’re a business owner, small or large or in the professional services you might just be a few strategies, tactics and tools away from doubling your lead flow, revenue and impact. Jump on a FREE 15 minute Brainstorm call with me by clicking here.
