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Increase Your Influence, Increase Your Sales
Selling is everyone’s lifeblood whether they realize it or not. We all sell in the sense that we attempt to convince others to go our way. That is the way that we want something to go whether we are convincing our children, our coworkers, bosses,...
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Ugly Man From Australia Shows You How To Increase Yours Sales 1,200%
*Do you have an incredible product but no one buys? *Do you know other people that are selling the same products earning a lot more then you? I can GUARANTEE if you would only take a few moments to listen to what I say, you can turn your dismal...
Website Owners: How to Get Sales and Marketing Help
Many people mistakenly believe putting up a website is marketing. FACT: Websites need to be marketed so likely customers will visit them. Many people mistakenly believe offering items on a website is sales. FACT: You can have lots of traffic and...
Winning Sales Letters Always Build Rapport.- Here's How...
Listen, wouldn't you love to have the power to influence people to listen to you, to your ideas, to your demands, maybe even give money to you? And maybe even create a loyal base of customers, fans, or friends? I know I would. So how do we go...
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More Sales with Less Selling
Have you ever passed by a bakery display case without feeling the urge to buy at least one cookie, dessert or cinnamon bun? Have you ever taken a child into a candy store and not had them ask to buy at least one of their favorite sweets?
The smell of fresh baked goods and the memory of the taste of a candy bar makes us want to buy more. The owners of bakeries and candy stores don’t have to spend a lot of time extolling the merits of their goods or the length of time they’ve been in business; they can concentrate on helping us satisfy our appetites.
Wouldn’t you like to be in a similar situation with your marketing? How would you like to have prospects who were so eager to buy that you didn’t have to sell, but could focus instead on taking more orders?
If you are like most small business owners you’d like to increase your sales but you don’t enjoy selling. You don’t want to be seen as a pushy person, whether it is on the phone, in person or in your marketing materials. The problem is that you don’t sell baked goods or candy - instead you may sell accounting, design, engineering, or informational products and services.
What can you do to increase your sales and spend less time selling?
Stop Selling
Stop worrying about closing the sale. Focus instead on understanding what your prospect wants, and open the door to a mutually profitable relationship. When a prospect thinks that all you care about is getting their money, they’ll view the relationship negatively and this can easily kill the sale.
Start Helping
Once a prospect is at your web site or on the phone with you, they’ve demonstrated an interest in finding a solution to one of their problems or concerns. Take the next step and demonstrate your interest in them. Use your conversation or your site to ask them questions that will identify what they want to accomplish and how you can help them.
Help them clarify the problem they are trying to solve. Even our prosperous bakery owner has questions to ask. Is the hungry customer looking for bread for lunch, or a dessert for a celebration? How many people are they feeding? Once you have all the details, you confirm it by repeating the information back to them. “You are planning a party for five couples and want a chocolate cake with mocha frosting. Is that right?”
When your customer says yes, you’ve got your order. You just used a series of questions to get your prospect
to tell you what they wanted. You didn’t have to sell anything: they sold themselves. You helped them get what they wanted. Isn’t that what you’d prefer to be doing?
Obviously, the questions you use to “sell” are going to be unique to the products and services you provide. Remember that when people come to you, they are hungry for a solution. The questions you ask can help them define exactly what they need and, more importantly, what they want. Then you can take their order.
Does this approach apply to selling less tangible and less immediately satisfying services and products?
Imagine you’re a financial advisor and you’re having an initial conversation with a prospect. You could launch into an explanation of your services and the seven ways you help clients grow assets using a strategic mix of stocks, bonds, currency and commodities. If you did this you’d be likely to miss connecting with them. Or you could ask them a couple of questions to identify what they want.
Most people have a common set of concerns related to managing their assets. Use these to formulate your questions. Ask them:
- Do they have an investment strategy?
- What is it?
- What have the results been over the last five years?
- How risky or safe do they feel their strategy is?
- Are they happy with the investment return of their portfolio?
- Do they want to know how to get better returns without additional risk?
You could use a similar set of questions to ask them about their taxes, investments, and whether their individual financial strategies complement or conflict with each other.
Whether you sell cakes and cookies or services and informational products, you can use questions to move your prospects to become clients and customers.
Ask the right questions and you’ll establish your credibility while you help your prospects clarify what they need and help them determine the value of your products and services. Focus on helping instead of selling and your prospects will thank you by increasing your sales.
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About the Author
Charlie Cook2005 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved. The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Plan eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com
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| Sales - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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| Manage Smarter - Performance Gateway |
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| Sales Jobs - Search Sales & Marketing Jobs at Monster.com |
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| Worldwide association of sales and marketing management. |
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| Transactions for the sale (and leasing) of goods is governed mainly by sales ... Federal law has a limited impact on transactions for the sale of goods. ... |
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| Sales Jobs, Marketing Jobs, Advertising Jobs on CareerBuilder.com |
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| Compare prices for retail store sales at SalesCircular |
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| REALTOR.com: Real estate listings & homes for sale |
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| Marketing Jobs / Sales Jobs - NationJob.com Careers, Work ... |
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