Why Salespeople Don’t Close Every Sale

It is possible to close every sales opportunity, but it typically never happens.  Even when a salesperson does everything right, the buyer is still the one in control.  They have the ultimate and final word and because of that, sometimes a sale is not made that should have been closed.  Here are ten principles that will help every salesperson close more sales if the buyer is willing and possibly even close every sale.

1.     Selling is a process.  To be successful at selling you must realize that selling is a process and not just doing a lot of stuff.  The correct process should include: 

       a) identifying qualified prospects 

       b) building rapport 

       c) discovering the need 

       d) presenting your product or service as a solution to that need 

       e) resolving concerns and objections 

       f) closing the sale.

2.     All sales activity should fit within your personal philosophy and style.  You need to sell within yourself and your own beliefs.  It is true that you must follow the process, however, every person has his or her own style and personality.  Be true to your own style.  This is a form of social integrity that will make you more believable to your prospect.

3.     Develop a game plan for each sales opportunity.  Don’t just wing it.  Determine exactly what you believe will need to be done to successfully close the sale and then do it.  Every winning sports team follows a game plan and it is no different in selling.  Your game plan will include the specific ways in which you deal with each step of the sales process.

4.     Focus on the needs of the buyer.  Selling is not about you, your company or the product.  It is one hundred percent about the buyer and meeting his or her needs.  Place your attention on what is important to them and help them achieve it.

5.     Romance the sale.  Selling is very similar to the courting process.  Statistics have shown that the average person requires between five and seven contacts before they feel comfortable enough to buy from you.  Romance, romance and romance even more, to increase the reality of making the sale.

6.     Demonstrate the value of the product or service in meeting the specific needs of the prospect.  Show them how others have benefitted from the product.  Share testimonials of happy satisfied customers to support your claims.  Let your current and past customers sell your product or service for you.

7.     In your presentation and subsequent romance visits, create a dialogue with the prospect, discussing how your product will meet their specific needs.  When the two of you are discussing the features and benefits of your product in terms of meeting a specific need, they are more likely to draw the conclusion that your product will be the solution to their problem.

8.     Telling isn’t selling.  Find every opportunity to ask questions that will encourage the prospect to reveal the information that you might otherwise tell them.  Hearing themselves talk about the product and its benefits is more convincing than hearing the same thing from the mouth of a salesperson.

9.     Avoid asking the two most worthless questions in the world, which are: “Have you made up your mind yet?” and “Do you have any questions?”  You need to know the answers to these questions, but the best way to receive the answer is to share additional valuable information about your product.  As you discuss the information, the prospect will naturally share their progress in the decision making process.

Always ask for referrals.  Let a prospect know that referrals are the method you use to grow your business.  Ask them this question:  “If the time ever comes that you become a happy satisfied customer, would you be willing to give me referrals or introductions to people you know who could use my products or services?”

Establish Focus And Direction In Your Life

You have frequently heard the statement, “the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line.”  That statement is also true with regards to pursuing a career in sales.  The “straight line effect” is a function of establishing focus and direction in your life.  Focus is not the process of developing a one-track mind intent on doing just one thing at the expense of everything else in the shortest time possible.  Rather, focus is an undeviating coarse of action, over time, that will ultimately lead to the achievement of your objective.

Focus requires that you are traveling in the right direction to achieve your objective and once your direction has been established, focus will allow you to more narrowly define your course.  Focus becomes an unwavering beacon or sentinel to keep you on course amidst the many distractions of life.  An analysis of most people’s lives would indicate that they travel through life without direction doing those things that seem appropriate at the time.  They choose between events and opportunities that arise from their wanderings instead of determining a course of action ahead of time.  Instead of focusing on what they want to achieve in life, they are content to deal with the unguided events of a life without direction.  For these people, life is like a leaf blowing in the wind.  The leaf goes wherever the wind blows, without the ability to determine its own direction or fate. 

Salespeople have the ability to choose their own level of success by establishing direction and focus within their sales activities.  Daily effort focused on your anticipate results will allow you to experience regular progress toward your objectives.  Being busy and just doing “stuff” are only excuses for not applying a focused approach to the achievement of your dreams.  When you are focused, you are aware of the impact that time, activity and money have on reaching your goals.  When you are focused, you can look beyond distractions and obstacles that ensnare those without a definite purpose.

Here is a list of ten benefits of establishing focus in your sales career.

1.     You will bee firm and resolute in your actions.

2.     You will make correct choices and stick with them.

3.     You won’t waste motion and will align all your effort to reach your objectives.

4.     You will decide the type of lifestyle you want to live and then sell to make it happen.

5.     You won’t be misguided by random events.

6.     Your sales activities will become a means to an end.

7.     You’ll focus your activities on what you want to achieve and won’t alter your course of action.

8.     You’ll experience greater happiness in your day-to-day activities.

9.     You will find purpose in your life.

You will achieve more success than you ever thought possible.

For Salespeople, Christmas Should Be A Time Of Giving

There are many gifts you can give your prospects and clients at this time of year.  Here is a list of just a few:

1.     A listening ear

2.     Great Service, beyond expectation

3.     The perfect solution to their problem

4.     Time

5.     Knowledge

6.     A sincere compliment

7.     A referral

8.     Friendship

9.     A tangible gift, a token of your appreciation

10. A smile

Here is my gift to you.  Share it with everyone you meet during this special season.  I first read this story entitled “The Christmas Local”, told by Aleene Sanders in the December issue of the Amtrak magazine almost twenty-five years ago while traveling from Washington DC to New York City.

We never considered the wail of the old steam locomotive mournful, as I’ve heard some people say.  The passage of the trains behind our house was often the only contact we had with others for days at a time.  My brother and I were thrilled by the roaring engine, the clicking wheels and the shrill melodies of the whistle.  At the first sound we would rush out back to wave wildly to the crewmembers or even try to outrun the engine as it slowed for the dirt road crossing a quarter mile away.  We felt as though the trainmen were our friends, although we never got a chance to talk to them.  They often tossed us the funny papers from distant cities or bags of hard candy or black liquorice whips

It was a hard winter for us.  Dad’s little temporary job played out.  A bout of the flu left him weak and coughing for a month, unable to cut trees from across the tracks and split them into firewood.  Probably the hardest thing of all for him was breaking the news to us that there would be no Christmas gifts this year.  My brother and I took the news in stride.  We had discussed the possibility privately many times.

The day before Christmas dawned cold and frosty.  Mother had us stay in our warm beds until mid morning.  She then dressed quickly and went to our depleting woodpile.  When she returned, we could see tears on her face as she built the fire.  We stayed close to the stove all day to keep warm.  Nearing sundown we heard the Local Train whistling its return trip.  It was sounding short, sharp blasts so insistent that we all grabbed coats and hurried outside.  Looking down the tracks at the slowly approaching train, we saw an amazing sight!  The head brakeman was dancing on the high mound of coal on the tender car.  With each hopping step, he kicked off great lumps of precious fuel.  The black nuggets and chunks littered the right of way as far down the tracks as we could see.

The fireman leaned far out the window of the engine to drop down a big brown paper package carefully wrapped with heavy twine.  The rear brakeman jumped from the caboose and thrust a large cardboard box into Dad’s hands and then he and the conductor shouted “Merry Christmas”.  Excited and delighted, we helped our parents gather plenty of coal for the night, leaving the rest to be picked up by morning light.  Later that evening when we had warmed and settled a little, Dad took out his pocketknife and cut the cord on the box.  Apples, oranges, Christmas candy and nuts greeted our wondering gaze.  The brown paper bundle yielded a dear little sleepy-eyed baby doll, a toy truck, crayons, coloring books and a game of checkers.  Along with the toys was a scribbled note, “We noticed your woodpile was getting low.  Keep warm.  Merry Christmas!”

Later, while we happily clutched our unexpected gifts, Dad opened the Bible and read aloud the wonderful story of the first Christmas in Bethlehem.  Together we thanked God for the gift of the Savior and for the generous railroad men He had sent our way.

Am I Selling As Well As I Can

No one will ever reach perfection and the history of the world has clearly proven that point.  If you are one of those salespeople who believes they are doing their best and there is no room for improvement, your are just kidding yourself.  In reality, you have probably become complacent, lazy, delusional, bored, lost your focus, or become infinitely wealthy.  There is nothing you do that cannot be improved upon, even if the degree of improvement is insignificantly small.  Watching the Olympics is a lesson in the psychology of the human spirit.  There are no limits to one’s ability and every record is just waiting to broken, even if by only one thousandth of a second.

You can become better in every aspect of your sales process.  Have you ever made a consistent effort to improve your performance?  I see salespeople every day reaching new sales targets they never imagined possible.  Why, because they understand their sales process and then looked for areas of improvement.  Selling is simple in theory and yet complex in application because no two sales opportunities are exactly the same.  However, in its simplest form, selling is comprised of four main categories: Prospecting, Presenting, Romancing and Closing.  Within each of these broad catagories, every salesperson can find areas for improvement.  Here are just a few ideas to cause your mind to ponder ways you can sharpen your sales skills.

Prospecting:  Are you taking advantage of your bucket of happy satisfied customers?  They can provide three different types of opportunities.  First, you can find additional opportunities with them.  Second, you can ask for and receive referrals to other prospects.  Finally, you can ask for and receive a letter of recommendation that endorses you as a qualified supplier.

Presenting:  Are you assessing the true needs of the prospect before you begin to tell them about your product of service?  To begin to sell before you assess the needs of the prospect is like putting the cart before the horse.  Do you spend the majority of the time talking, or do you ask the questions that will cause the prospect to reveal their pain.  Salespeople should spend the majority of the time listening to the prospect.

Romancing:  This is a subtle way of following up with a specific purpose without offending and asking the two most worthless questions pertaining to sales, i.e. “Do you have any questions?” and “Have you made a decision yet?”  Romancing provides an opportunity to provide additional information necessary to make the sale.  It is also an excellent tool for building and strengthening the relationship.  Romancing affords you the opportunity to be with the prospect when they make their decision.

Closing:  Do you evaluate each sales opportunity whether it is won or lost?  Identifying those things done well in addition to recognizing those things that could have been done better will raise you to the next level of performance.  Closing the sale is a process and to be successful, you need to perfect your process and then follow it regularly.  If your sales closing ratio is not where it should be, discover areas of improvement and implement them.

Every salesperson can improve their performance and until you have become perfect, continue to evaluate, modify and refine your process.  Set achievement goals each month and challenge yourself to reach and exceed them.  You will never know how good you can possibly become until you make an effort to do just a little bit more each day.

Salespeople Need To Measure Their Performance

Establishing goals provides a measurement tool for your sales performance.  When you are held accountable to yourself or others for reporting your activities you will not just reach your goals, you will exceed them.  Thomas S. Monson is often quoted relating to performance.  He said, “When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates.”  No statement could be more applicable to salespeople.

To be successful at selling you must establish a system of accountability.  Hold yourself accountable for performance on a daily and weekly basis.  Strive to increase your efforts from one day to the next and to improve your results each week.  By doing this you can take corrective action as well as reinforce your positive performance 52 times each year.  Common sales practices separate personal performance from accountability.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There cannot be a separation of the principle assign & report.  They are one and the same – inseparable.  To set a sales goal without reporting on the performance is to imply that there is no value or importance to achieving the goal.  If you are not going to establish a pattern of reporting your performance, then don’t waste your time setting goals.  Reporting establishes the value and importance of the goal.  You can’t have one without the other.  The number one reason for lack of sales performance is due to setting goals without establishing a procedure for daily and weekly reporting.

Create a structure of accountability relating to your goals.  Discuss your accountability plan with your supervisor.  It is not good enough to just be accountable to yourself.  You might also consider involving family, friends, co-workers and anyone else you feel comfortable with discussing the steps and achievement of your goals.  You will find strength and courage when you involve others.  It requires courage to hold yourself accountable.  My favorite, yet simple definition of courage is “doing what you say you will do even when the emotions of the moment are past.”

Here are five benefits of measuring your performance through applying the principle of Assign & Report in your sales activities.

1. The importance of achieving your goal will be firmly fixed in your mind.
2. You will focus intently on doing those activities that will allow you to reach your goal.
3. Knowing that you will be reporting your performance will inspire you to not fail.  No one likes to report failure.
4. You will feel empowered through a heightened sense of achievement that comes from the power of sharing your success.
5. You will be driven to perform beyond your goals because it feels so good to communicate that increased success to others.

Remember, sales success is nothing more than the establishment, achievement and reporting the performance of worthwhile goals.  You will never achieve your true potential until you measure your performance through goal setting and then hold yourself accountable for your activities.  Applying the principle of Assign & Report will become one of the most important reasons for your increased sales success.