How to Sell

How to sell

Selling – and Persuading

It will be difficult to start a business and not at some stage be involved in selling. When I am using the word “selling”, I do not mean the process of taking orders from a customer, I mean the act (or art) of persuading a customer to purchase from you and leaving them with the impression that they will naturally be back again to buy more.

Before I continue, let's just explode a few myths about selling. Selling is not about getting people to buy things they don't want to buy.....it is about making sure they buy it from you, rather than another business. Selling is more about listening than about talking. Selling is the art of building relationships and gaining trust from your customer. More than anything else, selling is about keeping your customer, once you have one.

Good and bad examples

There are very few good examples of selling and an awful lot of very bad examples.

I had a most unlikely Good example in my local Vodafone shop. I was in the market for a smartphone, the sort that can email and do Twitter and browse the web etc. The guy serving me had a sufficient level of knowledge to really understand what I was asking for.

This is a complex marketplace with many different innovations and issues to do with contract times and costs. However, he was always able to convey the different options to me very clearly and concisely. Listening is paramount, a salesperson needs to find out what buying influences already exist in the mind of the customer.

If a customer is mostly interested in the ease-of-use of a particular item, then make sure you emphasise its ease of use and avoid any mention of the complexities of the item. In other words, fan the embers that already exist. Try not to go about creating a new flame from scratch, the one that exists is sufficient to work with.

A Controversial Subject....Closing a Sale

You have probably heard of the phrase “closing a sale”. If not, then quite simply it is supposed to be the point at which a salesperson says something, pressuring the customer into making a purchase.

On the whole, I have found that you are always best off completely ignoring the act of closing a sale. My argument is that customers are there to buy, but in their own time. Some people go through extreme anguish and painstaking research before buying anything....trying to “close” a sale on such a person will be in effect losing the sale.

Most people will make a buying decision without you forcing the timing of it. It may seem to some people to be a more macho and virile way of doing business, but I'd have to say that I don't think it works.

If a customer is genuinely trying your patience to the limit, then why not just leave them to think things through, rather than to apply too much pressure.

Keep finding out more by asking questions, make notes about the encounter if the customer is going to go away to think about things. Remember the name of the customer, recall what you discussed and their attitudes to things.

WARNING – the advice you've just read about closing a sale will not be popular amongst old-school sales coaches. I would recommend that you experiment with various approaches and then go with the method that works for you, rather than accepting as gospel from anyone in particular.

An Open Secret – the most poweful sales tool......EVER!

I am completely amazed as to why this following technique is not used much more in sales or infact in any field of persuasion. It is called Reverse Psychology. If you're not a natural manipulating b**tard like myself, then this may be a new thing to you.

Take for example, the following scenario, familiar to all those with kids at home.

Kid: “I don't want to go to bed now”

Parent: “You're tired and you need to sleep”

Kid: “I AM NOT TIRED!”

Parent: Go to bed now please”

Result: No Sale. The kid does not get to stay up any later.

Scenario 2 – Using Reverse Psychology

Kid: “I'm feeling a bit tired, so I won't stay up more than another 20 minutes”

Parent: “OK, so make sure you get into bed before half nine then”

Result: SALE! Kid gets to stay up later.

The reverse psychology is devestating in any persuasion exercise. The parent is left with the illusion that the kid knows the sensible time for him or her to go to sleep. Thankfully very few kids know exactly how manipulative they could be if they were to use reverse psychology.

The last time I bought a car, I went round to about 10 dealers and I was shocked s to how poor the salesmanship was in every single place. I had an open mind and I wanted to be convinced by someone that there was the right car for me. No-one did. My last resort was to go to a car supermarket and I was then in front of a Salesman who knew exactly what to do. He found out that I already had a bit of a fondness for the Volvo make. He found out what I was likely to be using the car for. I needed something that looked respectable for business meetings.

Now the devestating part......he said that it would be very unlikely to be able to find exactly the right model, with automatic gearbox etc in the chain of garages they owned, however, he would do a search. Now, you may or may not agree to this, but by giving me the impression that the vehicle would probably not be in their stock, a seed of desire has been planted that I would therefore be very fortunate if the car was available. “Yes, it looks like our Derby branch has the exact car you are looking for”.....KERCHING! The sale is guaranteed.

Reverse Psychology – use it sparingly and at the right moments, like trump cards in a hand of Whist.