Tuesday’s Sales Truth {11.13.07}
By Brooks Group on 13 Nov 2007 at 09:49 am
The Tuesday’s Sales Truths are taken from Bill Brooks’ Book Entitled: Universal Sales Truths
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Each year millions of dollars are spent trying to teach professional sales reps how to sell more effectively while almost no money is spent teaching those same sales pros why people buy. Understanding why they buy is all that really matters. Jeffery Gittomer, in his book, The Little Red Book of Sales dedicated a chapter to why people buy a particular product or service from a sales representative, thus the chapter “Why They Buy”. In his research of hundreds of purchasers he found some common denominators and listed the top 12.5 reasons that people buy. The number one reason….I like my sales rep. What was number two? You guessed it….I trust my sales rep. Like leads to trust and trust leads to a busines partnership.
Sales Truth #45 is indeed critical to sales success. The funny thing, however, is how so many salespeople lose sales because they never managed to accomplish the goal of getting the prospect to trust them. In my early career I was so money motivated that I lost focus and put my needs before the customer. It wasn’t until I learned that always putting the customer’s needs first would actually work much better. By sincerely putting their needs first I earned their trust and confidence. And, of course, success soon followed!
This is one of the best truths I have heard about sales in a long time. Trust, confidence and value are the character traits of a real sales professional and highlights the difference between those interested in simply winning the order and those who want to win over the clients confidence.
We all know that customers on average need at least six points of contact before making a decision to purchase. A major reason for this high number of contacts is to do with the client building up sufficient confidence in the vendor and fully understanding the value proposition, before making the commitment to purchase, especially if the up front costs appear more expensive than the current solution.
I would strongly suggest that as sales professionals we spend a little extra effort when in front of client to be seen to listen too and respond to customer needs. This will go a long way to establishing a climate of trust, whereby when the time comes to make a decision, we will improve the chances of the order being made in our favour.
Remember the old adage “When everything is equal, people buy people”
This does not mean we should not close the sale earlier if possible but you need to assure yourself that you have establish trust and confidence with your client before closing or risk being seen as an order chaser.