August 2002 Track Selling Times Feature
"The Seven Deadly Sins of Selling"
by Roy E. Chitwood, CSP, CSE |
(From May 1999 Track Selling Times)
There are seven deadly sins in selling.
Review the list and see how many of them you commit:
1. Talking too much, listening too little.
Most salespeople talk too much. You enter the prospect's office, spend the obligatory two minutes on pleasantries, then launch into a high-powered sales presentation.
The result: 90 percent of the time you are shown the door.
Instead, before initiating a canned presentation (which may or may not apply), try listening to the prospect to uncover their real needs, concerns and challenges.
A good salesperson is a good listener and a great salesperson is a great listener.
2. Selling the product, not the benefits.
People buy based on their answers to the question, "What will it do for me?" They look for the benefits of a purchase, not the features. Yet most presentations almost exclusively focus on features such as size, speed, megahertz or gigabytes.
The average prospect doesn't buy 'a 6.6 GB hard drive with 128 MB of RAM.' They buy a system that responds to their needs instantly, is easy to use and has enough space to store all of their files. During your next sales call, give the benefits more coverage than the features, and watch your closing ratio climb.
3. Never asking for the order.
62 percent of salespeople never actually ask for the order. Instead, they keep talking on and on until the prospect either says 'yes' or terminates the interview. Many are terrified of hearing the word 'no' and seek to avoid it by continuing to talk or scheduling another appointment. However, a 'no' today is much better than a 'no' in three months.
Make a point of asking for the order.
4. Pushing for the close.
When failure to ask for the order is not the problem, the pendulum usually swings to pushing too hard for the close. Instead of realizing that a resistant prospect needs to be helped to make the decision to 'buy,' some invent various trick closes to 'sell' the person.
Underlying objections and refusal to buy, however, are usually undisclosed or poorly understood needs. Once you know these, it is possible to move the sale forward and smoothly complete the transaction.
5. Wasting selling time.
In every industry there are certain golden hours - those times in the day when it is most productive to visit prospects. This might be in the morning, the afternoon, or in the case of various consumer-based products, the early evening.
Unfortunately, many salespeople waste these precious golden hours in 'busy work' which could easily be done off 'prime time.' Instead, reserve your golden hours exclusively for prospect calls and schedule developing proposals, support activities and other paperwork during off-peak periods.
6. Not identifying prospects from suspects.
Probably the greatest misuse of a salesperson's time is presenting to someone who doesn't have the need, the authority or the money to buy. Learn to identify and gain access to decision-makers and to qualify your prospects before engaging in lengthy sales presentations.
7. Making a sale, not a customer.
What happens when a sale is made to 'earn a commission', 'make the quota' or 'keep the doors open'? In all likelihood, that is the last time that prospect buys from you. Why? They never really became your customer.
Successful salespeople quickly learn that the only reason to make a sale is to help a customer fulfill a specific need. That's why the greatest advertisement any salesperson or company can have is a happy satisfied customer.
How many of the seven deadly sales sins are you suffering from?
To eliminate them, transform selling into an orderly procedure in which each step contributes to the whole and results in a smooth transition from introduction to completion of the sale.
And that's what the Track Selling System is all about.
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