Selling – Prospecting, Rapport & Trust, Identifying Needs, Presentation, Answering Objections, Closing The Sale

Selling can be defined as everything that happens from the first contact with a prospective customer all the way through to satisfactory delivery of the product or service. If your advertising is effective, it will attract prospective customers to your business. If you are engaged in direct selling where you telephone and make appointments and then go and see customers personally, you must prospect for customers. Each part of the professional selling process must take place no matter how you meet customers for the first time.

The First part of professional selling is Prospecting. The first rule of selling is to spend more time with better prospects. Your first job in the prospecting process is to separate prospects from suspects. Your goal in the initial stages of your first meeting is to determine whether the person is a genuine prospect or just a tire kicker. For many people, shopping around is a form of entertainment. They are polite and pleasant, and they ask lots of questions, but they have no real intention or ability to buy in the foreseeable future. In prospecting, you ask carefully planned questions to determine whether this person has a genuine need that your product or service can satisfy. These questions will differ depending upon what you sell and whom you sell it to. One of the best investments you\’ll ever make is in books, CDs, and professional sales training programs. I urge you to learn how to be a better marketer, salesperson and build a better business, I can help you achieve this via my online business growth and marketing program at BuildingSuccessMarketingAcademy.com, this program is the same marketing success training, I teach to my private coaching clients that pay me upwards of $50K+. They learn how to become excellent at prospecting and finding new customers.

The Second part of selling is that part of the sales process is establishing Rapport and Trust with customers. Today aren\’t pampered, spoiled, and fickle. They will only buy from someone they like and whom they feel likes them. They don\’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. People decide emotionally and then justify their decisions logically. In the first few moments with the prospect, you must slow down and take the time to build a minimum level of trust and likability with that person. You do this by asking friendly questions and listening closely to the answers. You establish rapport and trust by being genuinely interested in the other person as a person rather than just as a prospective customer.

The Third part or step in professional selling is Identifying Needs in this part of the sales process. You ask the prospect questions about what he or she is currently doing, what he or she needs now, and what his or her plans are for the future. Whenever someone asks me for my advice about which one of my programs to buy, I always ask \”What sort of work are you doing now when someone comes into your place of business?\” Perhaps the worst question you can ask is, Can I help you? This question will almost always generate a response. \”No, thank you. I\’m just looking,\” and the person will soon leave your place of business. A better opening question would be, \”is there anything specific that I can help you with today?\” You can also say thank you for coming in and then ask \”How can I be of service to you?\”

Note my past career as a Healthcare Executive and Hospital Administrator is coming out here. In medicine, they say prescription without examination and diagnosis is malpractice. Most salespeople, unfortunately, commit sales malpractice every single day. They start talking to the customer about the product or service before they have taken the time to do the examination and the diagnosis.

The Fourth part of the professional selling process is the presentation. Once you have established rapport with the prospect and clearly identified what he or she wants, needs, and is looking for. You can then show how your product or service is the very best choice for this prospect at this time. All things considered, whom you use, and what is called educational selling. Instead of trying to persuade the prospect to buy your product, you teach the prospect about your product, what it is made up of, how it worked, and especially what it does for the customer.

You teach the special benefits that owning this product offers to the customer. You do not try to sell at all. Instead, you focus on giving the customer or the prospect good information and let him or her evaluate that information without pressure.

The Fifth part is answering objections. There are no sales without questions or concerns without objections. A good customer will want to know about what will happen if he or she buys what you were selling. The customer may have questions or concerns about the price, competitive offerings, or suitability for him or her at this time. You must be prepared to answer these concerns openly and honestly.

The Sixth part of selling is closing the sale. This is often the most stressful part of the sale for both the customer and the salesperson. However, it does not need to be difficult. It simply requires that you develop two or three simple ways of asking the customer to make a buying decision. Here are three different ways to close the sale.

• The first called the assumption close. After your presentation, you ask a question like, \”Do you like what I\’ve shown you so far?\” Or \”How do you like this?\” If the customer says something like it looks pretty good or it looks fine, you then assume the sale and behave exactly as if the customer has just said \”yes, I\’ll take it.\” You ask, \”well, then would you like me to wrap this up for you\” or \”well, then if you have no further questions, how soon do you need this?\”
• The second close that we\’ll talk about here is the invitational close. This is where you ask, \”do you have any questions or concerns that I haven\’t covered?\” When the prospect says no, you close the sale by saying, \”Well, then why don\’t you give it a try?\” you\’re selling services, you can say, \”Well, then why don\’t you give us a try?\” If you\’re selling a tangible product, you can ask, \”Well, then why don\’t you take it\” or \”why don\’t you buy it?\” In every case, once you have explained your product or service to the customer and explained how he or she can best use it, you should invite him or her to make a buying decision. Just say, \”why don\’t you give it a try?\”
• The third closed we\’ll talk about here is the alternative close. Customers often find it easier to buy if you give them a choice rather than an ultimatum, for example. \”Which of these do you prefer the red one or the blue one?\” Or \”which of these do you like better the model 25 or the model 30?\” If you only have a single product, offer a choice between methods of payment. \”How would you like to pay for this? Cash or charge?\” Or you could offer a difference in delivery, \”Would you like to take this with you or should we send it out to you tomorrow?\”

There are more than 100 ways to close sales of different kinds. In my experience, having trained many business owners, I\’ve concluded that you only need to know about seven closing techniques. Once you have learned and memorized these techniques, you will then have them in your head to use at the appropriate time.

The Seventh part of professional selling is getting resales and referrals immediately after making a sale. You could ask Would you happen to know anyone else who might be interested in getting what you had just purchased to get resales? You must be sure to follow up the sale with excellent customer service, as we will talk about below.

• The First element is resales. The reason that resales and referrals are so important is that they are the most profitable and easiest sales. You can make a sale to satisfied customers 10 times easier than going out advertising, selling, and finding a new customer. This means that it takes one-tenth of the time, cost, and energy to make a resale, as it does to make a first-time sale. All successful, profitable businesses are built on the second sale and the third and the fourth, and the fifth.
• The Second element is referrals. A referral from a satisfied customer is 15 times easier to sell to than a cold call or a new customer. This means that it takes 15 times the cost and energy to find a new customer through advertising, promotion, and sales efforts, as it does to sell to someone who has been referred to you by a happy customer. Perhaps the most important word in business success is credibility. The higher your credibility, the easier it is for someone to buy from you. And everything that you do in your interaction with the customer raises or lowers your credibility. Everything counts when you get a referral from a satisfied customer. It will almost invariably be to a friend, relative, or close business associate of the customer. The customer has already established a high level of trust and credibility with that person. When you call on a referral, it is with all the credibility that has already been established by your customer. As much as 95 percent of the sale has already been made.
• The Third element or part of successful business development on the way to wealth after marketing lead generation and selling lead conversion is customer service and customer satisfaction. As mentioned above, almost any company can attract a customer for the first time, but it is your ability to keep that customer coming back and buying again. That is the true measure of your effectiveness as a businessperson. What customers want more than anything else is for you to fulfill your promises when they bought from you and gave you money, you made them certain promises about your product or service. And these promises may have been written down, spoken, or merely implied in the transaction. But it is only when you fulfill your promises and the customer feels that he or she actually got what he or she paid for, that the customer will buy from you again and recommend you to friends, relatives, and associates.