Last week I promised you some additional tips to better prepare for your sales calls. Remember, just five more minutes?

Resist the urge to go on that sales call partially prepared: Let’s face it, that’s what the vast majority of salespeople tend to do – they rely too much on verbal fluency, hearsay, and their own opinions – they don’t bother to uncover any real information about the prospect. Why not give yourself an edge by preparing? You’ll stand out from the crowd.

Let’s look at positioning: How are you seen in your market? Yes, you! Not just your company, your product, your sales manager, or your sales team as a whole…How are YOU perceived?

Write down the 2 or 3 words your customer or prospect would use to describe you. Be honest. If I called your customer would they describe you this way? What have you done to deserve this description?

Your personal positioning is paramount to your success. Are you a value resource to your customer? Or are you more of a nuisance? Why would time spent with you be valuable?

Take five extra minutes and ask yourself:

• What do I know about this customer’s needs and wants?
• What have I done to understand this customer’s buying cycles?
• Who is the decision-maker? Are there other people who might influence a buying decision?
• Do I understand this customer’s most pressing issues?
• How have I distinguished myself from my competitors?

If you’ve done the above – and done it well – the customer’s description will truly position you well. Isn’t that worth 5 more minutes?

Submitted by: Richard Dickerson

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Last week we had a fairly large crowd in our Conference Center for the IMPACT Selling Open Seminar – 43 salespeople – all from different industries, different areas of the country and three from the Ukraine. But after spending time with this group of salespeople and countless others over the last 13 years, I’ve noticed 3 mistakes that seem almost universal in selling…

1. Too little research and groundwork to really understand the prospect’s business BEFORE meeting with them
2. Too few probing questions to get the prospect verbalizing their needs and wants
3. And the perennial sales mistake of too much talking and too little listening

All of these problems are symptoms of a larger disease that plagues salespeople and eats away at their ability to succeed – Not focusing on the customer. If you can’t take the time to understand their business, uncover their needs and wants and listen to their concerns, why should your customers and prospects trust you or believe that you have anything valuable to offer?

So here’s my advice: Try taking just 5 more minutes…

• Spend 5 more minutes on research and investigation before meeting your prospect
• Spend 5 more minutes preparing questions that will uncover information you need to make the sale
• Spend 5 more minutes asking questions and listening to your prospect before you jump in speak again

Yes, I know that salespeople often think, “I’m not paid to sit in front of my computer and do research…I’m not paid to hang around listening to prospects yak all day…I’ve got to get in there and sell something and move on to the next one.” That’s why I’m suggesting you take just 5 more minutes in these three key areas – that’s 15 minutes more per sale – invested entirely in focusing on your customer. You’ll be amazed at how well those 15 minutes pay off.

Next Monday, I’ll give you some specific suggestions on how to use those extra 5 minutes to increase your chances of making the sale.

Submitted by: Richard Dickerson

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Presenting price is both an art and a science – you need to master both.

• Create value before presenting price.
• Never place a modifier on your price (regular price, standard price, catalogue price, etc.). Simply say the price!
• Don’t ever “wow” or “crack”
  Wowing – Communicating that you, yourself, are “wowed” by the price (“are you sitting down?” or “are you ready for this?”)
  Cracking – Immediately folding under price pressure (“Where do we need to be?”).
• When the price assault starts (because it will) – simply stop, pause and justify the price (“Yes, our price is high…but let me tell you why it is where it is…” or “That’s exactly why you should do business with us. Let me tell you all you get for that price…”)

Is it that simple? Yes, it is.

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We’re in the process of putting together a one-day seminar based on the book, How to Sell at Prices Higher Than Your Competitors, so we’ve been talking a lot around here about why price selling is so stubborn – why even those who sell complex, high-ticket products are willing to haggle like they’re selling produce at a farmer’s market.

So I took notice of Warren Greshes’ blog post about beating price:

Could it be that you like selling price because it’s easy? And that maybe what it takes to duplicate great customers is just too hard to standardize? And instead of admitting that you don’t want to do the hard work and effort it takes to duplicate these great customers, it’s just easier to convince yourself that price is the way to go?

That’s exactly it. Long-term relationships – both professional and personal – are harder to build. They take more work, more sacrifice, better planning and far more commitment. But, the payoff is far greater. Most salespeople simply don’t realize that the choice is theirs – they can either put in the hard work that it takes to build a relationship or they can keep going out and pounding on doors looking for new customers.

Consider these statistics from Peter Drucker:

Your chances of selling to someone you’ve never done business with are 1 in 14.
Your chances of selling to someone you’ve done business with in the past are 1 in 4.
Your chances of selling to someone who’s a current customer are 1 in 2.

Sure, you can keep going out and finding new prospects…you can make sure you offer them a lower price than anyone else…and many of them will buy from you. But what happens the next time that customer makes a purchase?

Take a look at this clip from a recent training program on value-selling:

So many salespeople just don’t realize how much easier selling could be if they stopped focusing on price and started building value – if they stopped pushing so hard for the next sale and started focusing on their long-term relationships with their customers.

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Yesterday, we wrapped up another successful two-day IMPACT sales training seminar here in our conference center in Greensboro, NC. This seminar draws sales professionals from just about every industry and from around the nation. Yesterday, during their final break, we asked some of them what they’d learned. Take a look at what they had to say:

Shawn S.

Helen H.

Shara C.

Andy L.

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