Oct 30 2007 8:53AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
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I want to give you an exercise for your next sales meeting. I think it’ll open your eyes and your sales associates' eyes too. Hopefully it may even cause you to think about selling as it compares to buying. Here’s what you need to do.

Ask everyone to take out a small piece of scrap paper … something they can use to write one sentence. And once they are ready, have them jot down the reason you pay them a commission. In other words, ask them, “What do we pay you to do?”

Go around the room and ask everyone to read their answer. I think … no I hope … you’re surprised by what they have to say. Other than the few that substitute “our lifestyle” or “our community”, most everyone will write, “Sell homes”. Which is not the right answer. Let me share with you why.

Sales associates that are trying “to sell” something, always end up talking more than associates that are trying “to help” customers make great decisions. It’s just the way it happens. Think about it this way.

What would you do if you were trying to “sell” something? Wouldn’t you discover what your customer was looking for … make a presentation based on what you learned … and then base your closing on your customer’s needs?

On the other hand, what if your goal was to help someone make a great decision? At the very least, wouldn’t you need two, maybe three times as much information to achieve your goal? See what I mean? In this case you’d be asking more questions. And our research confirmed the same thing.

If your customer had a opportunity to choose the decision they most wanted to make … which would they choose?

• A Good Decision
• A Great Decision
• A Perfect Decision

If you said, “Perfect”, you’re right. It only stands to reason … if your customer is going to spend two hundred … three hundred … four hundred thousand dollars or more … they want to make the “most perfect” decision they can make.

We found that sales associates that were trying “to sell homes” had less success than sales people that were trying to help their customers “make great decisions”. Which means you might need to rethink your sales process. And based on today’s customers, you probably don’t have a choice.