The Newsletter Pro - December 2017

COVER CONTINUED ...

For example, if you want to sell Jim a service, he might feel your company’s reputation is good and give you eight points there. Jim thinks you have the product that will solve his problem, so you get nine points there, but you’re a jerk, so you only get three points, and you aren’t closing a sale. Of course, it makes sense that your salesperson needs to be likable. Let me show you another example. Jim now gives you 10 points and the product nine points, but when he Googles you, he sees you have horrible reviews and your company gets one point. Do you think Jim is buying anything from you? Unfortunately, the two examples I just gave are the easy scenarios. Most of the time, it isn’t that black and white. Most of the time, the scenario looks much more like this. Jim is considering the product you sell and three other competitor products. Jim gives you six points, the company five points, and the product 5 points. He is literally sitting on the fence. You have to meet a person’s threshold in all three areas or you’re screwed.

To sell anything complicated or expensive to a prospect today, the prospect must meet their internal personal sales threshold in three areas.

year warranty on this piece of equipment they didn’t understand.

Think about how different that was from how it is today. In 1996, I was the internet for Apple computers. I was the place people came to for information to make purchasing decisions. Prospects needed me in order to buy. Today, prospects have already researched the products they want and the needs they have. Today, prospects educate themselves on what RAM is or how big of a hard drive they may need. Of course, many products still need salespeople, but the prospects are much smarter today than they were over 20 years ago.

First, they must believe that your product or service is not garbage and can help them.

Second, they must believe that you are a good salesperson and also not garbage. They need to know you will help them before and after the sale. Third, they must believe that the company you own or work for is not garbage and will stand behind whatever they buy. You have to achieve each person’s minimum sales threshold on all three of these areas if you even have a prayer of selling anything to them. Think of these three areas as a points-based system. Each area has a maximum of 10 possible points and a minimum of one possible point, and each person has an unknown minimum number of points that you must achieve in order for them to close and become a customer. You have to work at increasing your points in each of these areas if you want people to buy from you. This is where so many people misunderstand the use of media and how it relates to selling, but that will have to be another article or training for another time.

So, why do we keep selling as if it were 20 years ago?

Prospects walk in with a base level of education. Now, it may be internet-based education, which isn’t always reliable, but they don’t know that.

“Two-thirds of winning any deal is making people TRUST YOU AND YOUR COMPANY ...”

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