Just imagine how strange it would be for someone to go into McDonalds, patiently queue up, and, when it is their turn to be served, they ask the till operator “What’s the best price you can offer me on a big mac?” and when given the price, they reply with, “If that’s the best price you can give me, I need to go away and discuss it with my family.  I will come back to you and let you know about our decision.”

What are the chances of that really happening? I am sure you will agree, pretty slim. Why is that? It’s because it is a low risk purchase, which means little or no sales resistance  and less decision time on behalf of the customer which, therefore, requires a low sales effort on behalf of the till operator.

Now imagine you have decided to purchase yourself a new coffee machine and you see an advert for the very impressive Clover Coffee machine. So, in a similar scenario as above, you approach the company and ask, “How much?” Only to be told, 8500 euros! What is your sales resistance like now? How much sales effort is required? How much decision time is needed?

The clover coffee machine is real and until it was bought by Starbucks it was retailed at 8500 euros for the baby in their product range. So how on earth do you sell an 8500 euro coffee machine?

The way they achieved sales was by taking people through a carefully thought out sales process that would include a number of personal touches designed to build a relationship and trust.

Before I go on to explain the process and the difference having a process could make to your business, consider the McDonalds scenario and ask yourself “How often is a similar situation occurring in my business?” and “How often am I giving away my profit in order to make the sale?”

To sell a Clover Coffee machine, the first thing the sales person has to be really clear about is their target market because clearly it isn’t an ‘anybody in the market for a coffee machine’ kind of product. They will have a clearly defined description of their perfect customer. This allows the Clover Marketing team to have a laser like focus in their marketing efforts, instead of the more usual ‘shotgun’ approach to marketing.

This opens up the idea that a sales process is as much about de-selection as it is about selection. How much time is spent in businesses all over the country wasting the most precious resource we have; our time, hoping that people within the sales pipeline will one day make a purchase. The whole thing smacks of desperation and, once that sets in, the customers sense it and will begin to haggle on price. If YOU don’t see the value in YOUR product, then don’t expect the customer to see it either!

Once their marketing hit the spot, enquiries were made, and people are then offered the opportunity for a home trial. A company expert brings along the machine, a free supply of coffee beans and makes sure that invites are sent to the customer’s friends, family members and neighbours. With everybody gathered, the machine is strategically placed in a place of prominence in the kitchen and a demo is given to all attendees (or, should I say, additional future customers)! The question here is, ‘How good does coffee taste when it has been brewed in an 8500 euro machine?’ Once the expert is confident that the customer understands how to get the best from the machine he lets them get on with their trial.

This technique is what is known in sales as the ‘puppy dog close’. Imagine you are going to purchase a puppy and, when visiting a breeder, you find a pup that you take a liking to.  If the breeder were to say to you that you could take it home for a trial and give you some free food, all the while ensuring you know that the cute little pup has all its inoculations and that if you have any problems, you can just bring the puppy back and pick another… What are the chances that after a few weeks of growing attached to the pup you would decide to take it back? The same thing is happening here with the coffee machine, the customer will grow very attached to the superb coffee they are drinking and sharing with jealous friends, family and neighbours.

Once the trial period is over, the expert returns to discover what the customer has enjoyed most about having the machine, safe in the knowledge that they will have grown very attached to having this superb piece of engineering taking pride of place in their kitchen.

Once the customer is gushing over the experience they have had with the machine, they will then be shown the full range-remember, this was only the baby model. The customer, who has enjoyed showing off the new machine, is now shown bigger and better models, with the expert pointing out how much envy people would have if they had an even more impressive model to show off.

With the up-sell in place, the customer is now shown ways that this could be made more affordable by spreading the payments over a longer period and, of course, in no way will they miss out because the nice sales person will leave the present model with them until his or her new model arrives.

Now the sale can be made, “All we need to do to ensure delivery by xx date, is for you to autograph the paperwork…” and suddenly, a sale for a 8500+ euros coffee machine has been closed.

• The key pieces to this sales process are:
• Dealing with the correct target market
• They are only ever selling the next stage and not the machine: “We have this brilliant coffee machine for sale do you want to buy one?” will not work!
• They test, measure and constantly improve each stage; knowing where people dropping out of the process lets them know where improvements can be made.
•  Each stage is designed to grow the customer’s attachment to the machine and therefore provide a ‘need’ to purchase the product.
•  It is as much a de-selection process as a selection process

If you are selling a high ticket priced item ask yourself “What does my sales process look like? “Is it mapped out and does each stage build trust and relationship?” “ What measures have I got in place at each stage?”” What difference would it make if I did have a process?”

As I mentioned Clover Coffee machines are now owned by Starbucks and they are utilised in a number of their more upmarket stores where their clientele is generally more affluent.  Here, when ordering their coffee, customers can select their preferred coffee machine; the cheap regular coffee, or the Clover Coffee, which, incidentally, is about twice the price of the regular cup.  Another clever bit of sales work is at play here; customers are offered the prestige of ordering the most expensive coffees on the Starbuck menus in front of their company; friends, family, associates, clients etc. and Starbuck turn a nice profit, but also, the Clover name is spread and advertised more and more and, additionally, those same clients that were so delighted to show off their Clover Coffee machine to friends and family in the original sales pitch, can also reference the Starbuck model too-they will have their very own top of the range coffee machine that is so good that even Starbucks use it, but only for their top end customers of course! Double boasting rights.

Want to know how to put in place a sales process that will really ramp up the sales in your business? Come alongto our Double Your Sales Workshop. It will be great to meet you.

Thoughts:

“it’s not your customer’s job to remember you. It is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you”…Patricia Fripp

“The sale begins when the customer says yes”…Harvey MacKay

“Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service”…Brian Tracy

“In sales there are going to be times when you can’t make everyone happy. Don’t expect to and you won’t be disappointed. Just do your best for each client in each situation as it arises. Then learn from each situation how to do it better the next tiem”…Tom Hopkins

“Always be closing…That doesn’t mean you’re always closing the deal, but it does mean you need to be always closing on the next step of the process”…Shane Gibson

Dedicated to your success

Kevin
Business Performance Coach


Our next Workshop 'Double Your Sales in 2015' is on Friday 21st November 2014
To Book Simply go to http://www.eventbrite.com/e/double-your-sales-in-2015-tickets-13756053727

"Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?" said Alice
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to" said the Cheshire cat.
"I don't much care where..." said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go’

Telephone 0151 348 1202 / 07802 434 872
Growing Your Profit, Transforming Your Business, Changing Lives
www.mpcforprofit.com 

How to turn Yesterday's NO into Tomorrow's Yes...

I imagine that all of us (including the top sales guys) have had to face up to the dreaded ‘NO’ in a sales meeting. For some, the answer is to say “never mind I will get the next one that is just one NO closer to a YES” and they move on and book their next appointment. The challenge is that by going into the next sales meeting and doing more of the same and expecting a different result is Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity.

What would be a better approach?

To treat the NO as feedback or indeed feed forward, learn from it so that at the next sales meeting you take those learnings and turn them into opportunities to get to YES more often.

A great place to start looking for some feed forward is from the person who said ‘NO.’ This can be a toughie because our ego tells us we don’t want to go back to the place of our past failures. You need to get over that because, at the end of the day, the only person who truly knows why they said ‘NO’ is the person who said ‘NO.’

To help you along, you might like to take this or a similar approach:

“Ian, I know that you have decided to place your order with ABC Company. First of all, I would like to thank you for the opportunity of meeting with you and for allowing me to present our product. I fully appreciate your decision and hope that everything goes as well as you expect it to with ABC. I do hope that you will consider doing business with me in the future and just so that I can help you better when that time does arrive, do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions, so that I can understand how you made your decision.”
The fact that they have accepted your call, and that you asked nicely, would suggest that they are more than likely to agree to answer a couple of questions such as:

• Did I provide you with enough information within during our meeting for you to make an informed decision?
• Do you feel that I communicated in a clear and concise way?
• What added information did my competitor give you that helped you choose them?
• Did my competition present their offer in a way that was more appealing and if so how?
• What specific benefits do you see with going with my competitor?
• What could I have done better in my presentation?

Some people might prefer to be nice to you at this stage and as you may know nice is an acronym for Nothing Inside me Cares Enough or in other words they may not want to hurt your feelings. To compensate for the awkwardness of them giving negative feed forward you could say:

“I would really appreciate your honest opinion and candour. I consider myself to be a professional so there is no need to worry about hurting my ego. The information you give me will make sure that in future I am better equipped to help you and all my other clients.”

The key thing now is to let go of the ego; some of what they tell you may hurt, but remember it is feed forward and by taking great notes and applying what you learn you are definitely a NO closer to a YES.

We will be continuing with this sales thread over the next month or so but if you really want to ramp up the sales in your business join us at our ‘Double Your Sales in 2015’ workshop on Friday 21^st November.


Thoughts:

“If we learn from losing, we become winners in the end”…Anon

“Success is the culmination of failures, mistakes, false starts, confusion, and the determination to keep going anyway”…Nick Gleeson

“If we are smart, we make a lot of mistakes”…Raman Frey

“Too often, sales reps simply regurgitate their presentations and expect to land the sale. It doesn’t work”…Harvey Mackay

“You don’t close a sale; you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise”…Patricia Fripp

Kevin Gallagher
Business Performance Coach


Our next Workshop 'Double Your Sales in 2015' is on Friday 21st November 2014
To Book Simply go to http://www.eventbrite.com/e/double-your-sales-in-2015-tickets-13756053727

"Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?" said Alice
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to" said the Cheshire cat.
"I don't much care where..." said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go’

Telephone 0151 348 1202 / 07802 434 872
Growing Your Profit, Transforming Your Business, Changing Lives
www.mpcforprofit.com

Ever heard “I love your product but it’s too expensive”? Here is one way of moving past it.

I’m guessing that at some stage in your career you will have been really pleased with a sales presentation you have given, consider you have ticked all the boxes and be dreaming about how good it will feel when you deposit the cheque in your bank account, only to be met with “I can’t afford it” “It’s too expensive” “I can get it cheaper from XYZ company,” or some variation of this theme. What tends to happen in this situation is the sales person becomes a crazy person and instantly begins to offer discounts. In other words, to give away their profit just to make the sale! That is one of the main reasons that we have so many Busynesses.

If you were to put yourself into the buyers shoes, you would see that the challenge they are having is twofold; they don’t want to make a bad decision which they will regret in the future or they have not seen the value in what it is you are selling. They do not feel there will be enough benefit for them for the money you are asking them to spend.

What they are not saying is, “NO!”  It is your job to calm their fears and help them reach a better decision (I am presuming here that they are better off with your product than without it).

So how can you handle this? There are a number of options open to you and, if possible, you should have plenty of them in your arsenal, but here is one that I have found works particularly well for both myself and my clients:

Agree with them.

Here’s an example of how this may sound:

“That could be true, Tom. I agree with you that nowadays we all want the most for our money. What I have found over the years and, I am sure you may have found this for yourself, is that the cheapest price is not always what we really want. In actual fact when making any kind of purchase most people look for three things:

1.          The best quality
2.          The best service
3.          The lowest price

I am yet to find a company that can offer all three: the best quality, the best service and the lowest price. Just so I can help you best, which one of those three are you most willing to give up? Quality? Service? Or Lowest price?”

Price is always a factor but most customers have an elasticity in their budget and will rarely want to skimp on quality and service.

In a nice, gentle way you have reminded them that you get what you pay for. By using this process you are reinforcing the benefits that you have already discussed with them in your sales presentation and this will also focus them in on the value you are offering.

They will start to think, “I may be able to go elsewhere, but what would be the long term costs of that decision?”

We will be continuing with this sales thread over the next month or so but if you really want to ramp up the sales in your business join us at our ‘Double Your Sales in 2015’workshop on Friday 21st November

Thoughts

“I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard”…Estee Lauder

“People don’t ask for fact in making up their minds. They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen fact”…Robert Keith Leavit

“People don’t like to be sold but they love to buy”…Jeffrey Gitomer

“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry. No desire, no trust”…Zig Ziglar

“Persuasion occurs when trust and confidence meet belief, risk tolerance and safet”…Jeffrey Gitomer

Dedicated to your success
Susan
Business Performance Coach

Our next Workshop 'Double Your Sales in 2015' is on Friday 21st November 2014
To Book Simply go to http://www.eventbrite.com/e/double-your-sales-in-2015-tickets-13756053727

"Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?" said Alice
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to" said the Cheshire cat.
"I don't much care where..." said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go’

Telephone 0151 348 1202 / 07802 434 872
Growing Your Profit, Transforming Your Business, Changing Lives
www.mpcforprofit.com