selling while presenting!

Selling while presenting

When you are presenting your product or service to the potential client and while flipping from slide to slide you would need to consider several factors which could ensure that the audience is not only attentive but also deliver your unique selling proposition.

While presenting data, relate with laymen examples which helps the potential client to paint a picture of how he would gain advantage after using your services. When you find any one disinterested kindly pause the presentation so you could ask for their thoughts on the subject which helps voice out the reason for their resistance. You could then clarify their thoughts and then proceed with the session.

Always remember it is not only important to sell your product but also focus on why this product must be bought from you only, and why now. You could add things like your expertise in the particular domain and how you have helped customers in the similar industry overcome some common problems due to your high quality standards, etc.  Selling the product is just the first thing your focus must be about why the product must be bought from you only.

Happy Selling!

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The wolf of Wall Street is asking you …. “Sell me this pen”.

The wolf of Wall Street is asking you …. “Sell me this pen”.

Since the inception of my sales career at every sales interview it is the most used common question which was asked “Sell me this pen” I used to start bragging about the features and then relate why this pen was an advantage to buy over others and then move to how it is going to benefit to the customer. Now Sales is not like writing a line of code managing a balance sheet or knowing an answer to a particular questio, Sales is mostly about the resilience factor. Your ability to handle every objection and combat it with an appropriate solution and still there are many customers who will not buy.

My Irish sales trainer Noirin told me that she did not want to use the pen to write, she wants to place it in the fancy coffee mug on the office table. The importance of profiling is very essential but sometimes curtails the liberty of the customer to choose. There have been quite a few cases where the customers get confused “ This happens when you try to sell Once a friend tried to sell a $500 K Big data solution and just because there was pressure to up sell the add on’s he ended up confusing and losing the sale.
I also heard a few sales people use strategy called convince, confuse or cheat. Convincing is fine but the other two horrific words confuse and cheat is a definite NO. This strategy is never good for you or the company, because the post sales division is going to be face challenges and it would be an unpleasant experience and may result in big losses/ legal penalties for companies.
So when you sell it is not just about features, advantages and benefits but also assure him about post sales, Always pressurizing for a budget would also not be ideal and if you find resistance don’t push them. Most of the men I know don’t plan budget they just go buy for the features or specific quality.
Hence I would say that the priority is not just about handling objections and answering standard rebuttals but to understand that and not every customer is the same, Listen carefully, look out for cues to relate and questioning skilfully and again look out for cues and create an analysis and read out what he stated by constantly assuring him what he said he wanted and you bundle it together and send him a quote. This model will help you reach your quota and improve customer satisfaction which can guarantee referral business as bonus.
You may read my other articles like "The sales mantra".
Happy Selling!

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Sales Mantra -

The Sales mantra - You & Why.... for all sales personal out there… Read this out Loud.

The most important thing in selling is “you”.

The customer buys “you” first.

The first sale that is made is by “you”.

The customer buys it because it is “you” who matters,

It is “you” who are the face of the product,

It is “you” who is the face of the company.

The first person who wants to make the difference is “you”.

It all begins with the most important person “you”,

The person who is being put to test every moment every day is “you”

Once you recognize the power in “you” then you would need to look at why. Why leads to one thing you can’t make sales without. “Why you” and “why are you doing this”, what’s in for you once you are done? Why are you involved in the selling profession? What do you have to gain out of it, Is it money then get out of sales, if it is for some greater purpose like helping people, provide value , provide answers, you are there to provide, Learn your best and do your best than you are in the right place. Evaluate why and why them, what is in it for them, how do they benefit, why should they buy from you , why ask and why ask why? But if you don’t master the power of asking questions you will never understand the element of engagement.

The two most important words are “you” and “why” and if you master them you will master your cheque book.
You could also look at sales beginners which will be useful to improve additional revenues.
Happy Selling!

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Is Sales a science or an art – An argument with an interviewer?

Is Sales a science or an art – An argument with an interviewer?

It has been quite an intriguing experience when my education credentials and sales certifications were discarded in the first few seconds of the interview,He was a senior sales director of a $ 7 billion enterprise. He stated sales is actually an inbuilt talent, an art being street smart, not something which could be learnt a science. Oh My God ! now how do I contradict this?

Things prevailing on my mind at that moment.
a)Is the interviewed looking at resilience factor, so I combat with all logical conclusions and not give up without a strong fight?
b)The Interviewer with a strong background of 15+ yrs of  field sales experience must genuinely have resistance to this  idea, The advent of Inside sales are now shaping the future of organizations, So the question now is that should I subvert his ideas and experience and relate how productive this new process..

c)Or am I wasting my time as the hiring manager, my potential boss as anticipated is like senior sales leaders who would use insurmountable pressure tactics on you to deliver targets without any logical reasoning. Is it truly worth taking that risk…. Having said that I am not afraid of taking risks but not at the cost of my health. (That week, I was mourning the death of my mom’s younger brother aged 52 and we lost him due to extreme stress followed by a heart attack ).

I want to live a longer and a healthier life, Sometimes you have to evaluate is it worth the pain!

The above thoughts  flashed on my mind …Time was running out ...I quickly came back to my senses and explained him vividly the how sales has changed over time, Using a common phrase “Nobody likes being sold to” we now need to avoid hard knocks , cold calls and using fancy scripts which would depict the sales greed in the tone.
The way forward is about looking for mutually beneficial partnerships, prospecting approach, adequate research on the potential clients, business through referrals.

Most important is effective marketing, story boarding, pitching our case studies and testimonials and how we helped solve the problem by avoiding technical jargon. Eventually I was not selected probably for other reasons.

However this experience had a lasting impression on me,  I was always clear as a Sales person it was important for me to focus on understanding from the client’s perspective.

Client is investing time so the first thing that would attract is the what is he benefiting, and what kind of advantages it has followed by features and your company padding.

The recent economic times was celebrating Flip kart’s journey to $1 billion, it never spoke about how it made life easy for users to purchase on line….. Cash on delivery, buying process is reduced to a very few steps etc.

 Amazon did not fail to realize the potential of Indian market but it failed to realize the problem in its e commerce portal…. Ease of doing business, user experience, and security.

When companies talk about their financial success does it not mean that they have robbed us to make that wealth, Have they offered any significant difference to pay that premium, This paradigm shift is very important for us to focus, before we evaluate to sell our product to potential client it is important how does the our solution suffice the needs of the client, have we identified what would we offer significantly different.

If you find someone over achieving his target by five to ten times then there is definite not potential integrity issue you would need to battle up as a leader.
GE, Toyota, Motorola and other companies have been using six sigma and various other tools to improve quality, I recommend you should use the same energies to improve sales quality by adopting scientifically proven statistical sales techniques which guarantees predictable revenues.

I am writing this to assert that a sales is a definite science and you would need to master it by researching deeply from a client’s perspective. Question skilfully and listen patiently.
Not the other way around.
You could also look at my article "how to deal with sales pressure".

Happy Selling !

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