Feb 21 2008 7:16AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
Blog This! using: Blogger.com | LiveJournal |

I’ve had an interesting question from a sales person in Tennessee. And what a good question it was. It went something like this:

What do you do if anything ... especially in today’s market … to get a customer to stop shopping and start buying? In other words, how do you get them to say, “Yes, this is my best decision, let’s do it”. The answer might be easier that you think.

To begin … as a great sales person ... you need to understand more about how your customer “makes decisions” ... than you need to understand about “how to sell”. Most sales people know how to sell. After all, that’s what sales training is all about. But most don’t know how customers make decisions. Which makes my next question very simple.

How many sales people really understand a customer’s decision process? And as simple as it seems, the answer is not as simple as the question. Most sales people have no idea how their customer shops and finally makes a decision.

Selling isn’t about how “good” you are at closing. Anyone can ask for the order five to seven times (depending on who you believe). A rookie can do that. The good “closers” are the sales people that ask once or twice.

Good “closers” are the sales people that get their customer ready to be closed. In other words, they do more than other sales people prior to the close. So back to my initial question. What do you need to do to get a customer to stop shopping and start buying?

Customers in today’s market want to make the Most Perfect decision they can make. After all, they can’t afford a mistake with so much money at stake. That means that you have to understand what Most Perfect means to them and then prove that your product “fits the bill”.