Be Fair
When negotiati
ng, most sellers believe buyers have all the power. They have the money and can very easily buy from a competitor. In our Value-Added Negotiating class, we ask buyers who has the most power. Buyers respond with the seller. Buyers need what the seller has to offer. Sometimes competitive products and services are not as good.
Power in negotiating is a state of mind. It’s a perception. If you perceive your customer has all the power then they do. If you perceive you have the power, then you do. Remember, you have the power to walk away or choose not to make a deal.
Try this at your next sales meeting:
Want to learn more about how your people negotiate? Consider using the following exercise at your next sales meeting with your team. Focus on being fair; use the following scenario to gauge how your team determines what is fair.
You are the sales manager. You have one new company car. You have the opportunity to give the car to one of the following sales people. Who gets the new company car and why?
SALES PERSON #1 He has been with the company 17 yearslonger than any other sales person. Giving him the car shows you appreciate his loyal service with the company.
SALES PERSON #2 She has been with the company six months and is progressing very well. Giving her the car would be motivating and cause her to be happy with the job.
SALES PERSON #3 His company car is the oldest in the fleet. Service is becoming a problem. Giving him the car shows you care.
SALES PERSON #4 She has the largest territory and her car has the most mileage. It is time to replace the car. By replacing her car, you reduce the chances of roadside problems.
SALES PERSON #5 She is well over quota for the year. That is what counts. Show her your appreciation.
SALES PERSON #6 He has the most profit year to date. If you give him the car, profit is encouraged.
Who should get the car? Why?
This exercise will prove that “Fair” is in the eye of the beholder. Buyers and Sellers perceive fair differently. This enables your team to empathize with their prospects and level the playing field. Using the term “fair” during a negotiation lowers tension and builds trust if communicated in a calming tone. One of the worst things you can do during a negotiation is leave not knowing how your customer truly feels about your solution, your company, and most of all you. Don’t assume you know. Ask!
Click here for a PDF file of this exercise. Be prepared before you negotiate.
Questions – A Sales Person’s Best Friend
While talking with a client the other day, I happened to mention that Sales Concepts has been providing sales and customer service training for over thirty years. After this, the client said, “Wow, I guess you have seen and worked with a lot of sales people. What would you say is (as a whole) their biggest weakness?” Upon reflecting on that for about two nanoseconds, the answer was obvious. Sales people, as a whole, don’t ask enough questions! Why don’t we ask questions? There are many reasons.
Here are a few:
- Bad timing.
- It’s none of my business. I don’t want to pry.
- The question is too hard to formulate.
- The customer probably does not know the answer.
- Too many questions may annoy the customer.
- I don’t want to look stupid.
- Oops, I wasn’t listening.
- I just assumed that…
- Lack of preparation.
- The answer might be embarrassing.
- You are in “tell” mode.
- I just plain forgot.
This list continues. Perhaps a more positive approach is needed. Let’s take a look at the power of questions. When you ask a series of meaningful, well thought, well-prepared questions you come across as someone who cares. Caring is a natural bi-product of meaningful preparation. Questions can bail you out of a jam. Remember you can’t say something wrong if the customer is talking. Open-ended questions help you prepare for what is coming. Ask questions so that you are able to deal with objections later in the sales process. By the way, asking questions is the best way to handle objections. You may think you know what your customers are saying, but do you understand what they mean or more importantly—what they want? There is no better way to uncover opportunities than to ask questions.
Now let’s review that list one more time. Bad timing may be a reason to postpone a question; it’s never a valid excuse not to ask it later. Jot down your questions as you talk with your customers so you can ask them later. Of course, it’s better if you have them prepared in advance. The rest of the reasons we don’t ask enough questions can be solved by better preparation and a little confidence. Oh, and by the way, the best method to gain more confidence is to be prepared. Invest some time before your customer encounters. Be prepared. Recognize and test your assumptions. Have your questions prepared in advance. That way after your call you won’t pound your forehead saying, “Why didn’t I ask that?”
An orange is not as good as an apple.
What’s your favorite fruit? Why is that your favorite fruit? If you picked the apple, you probably value its shiny red image, self-packaging, ease of consumption, and the idea that if you drop a few seeds, some future generation benefits from that crop of apples.
What if you picked the banana? Poor you. The aroma of a banana is good only for a short while. Its attractive yellow color becomes brown and ugly, and the scent of a spoiling banana is…ugh! And it’s dangerous. People slip and fall on banana peels. (Is that really true? I’ve never known anyone who did.)
The orange is in the middle. It has the best aroma, is self-contained, and it provides juice and meat. It’s not as good as an apple, because you can’t eat it as easily. It’s superior to a banana because it smells better and no one drinks banana juice. However, it is not as good as an apple, because it doesn’t keep the doctor away.
Okay, time to earn my pay. The foregoing silly exercise has only one purpose. It’s hard to sell your favorite benefit to a prospect that values something else. You can talk until you’re blue in the face about the virtues of a banana to someone who only likes apples or oranges.
The trick is to find the benefit that fits the prospect’s need AND which he or she accepts. Don’t fall into the trap of selling what you like. It has to be from the prospect’s point of view. So remember:
- Customers buy benefits so, sell benefits, not features.
- Convert features to benefits by stating the feature out loud as if you are saying it to a customer. Then ask yourself the question “So what?” The answer is the benefit.
- Let the customer tell you what benefits are important.
- Sell the benefit that matters to your prospect. You can’t force someone to eat a fruit they don’t like.
Another way to put it, most sales people sell what something is. Most customers buy what something does. Think like your customers and win more business.
As a sales manager are you winning small battles, but losing the war?
You have established a track record of innovation, creativity, and strong motivation. Does your sales team develop realistic game plans toward effective business development? Many companies use warfare to illustrate how selling efforts are analogous to strategic sales battles.
Virtually every military expert says that air superiority is vital to success. It has great strategic value. They also say that ground warfare (boots on the ground) is ultimately where the battle is won. It is not a matter of one being more important than the other; it is the combination that insures a successful campaign.
In listening to many sales managers, we see the air aspect more than fully covered. The need is identified. A motivating theme is conceived and executed that drives home the overall objective for the team to achieve. Marketing and Operations support the plan. As with an air assault, many areas are adequately covered. To borrow a phrase, Executive and Sales Management provide the “Shock and Awe” (in a good way). However, the need for a strong force on the ground is also acute. It is the tactical aspect that comes into play.
Effective leaders continually assess if their troops are well armed and well armored? They know if their troops really understand who the insurgents (competitors) are and how they operate in this ever changing and competitive environment. They know what their troops need to know and do to protect and build upon the ground (customer’s business) they’ve fought so hard to capture. These questions need to be asked of each and every ground troop you have. The answers will vary, unfortunately, with each, as one-size capability does not fit all. Some may be troopers, infantrymen, rangers, snipers, or gunners. Everyone is different and everyone has different needs.
By identifying each person’s strengths and weaknesses you can build a personal training program for each member of your team encompassing and complementing your overall direction. It seems impossible to have 100% of one’s sales team executing the team’s game plan 100% effectively; however, you can dramatically improve both percentages whatever they may currently be.
The result: The ground you’ve won is secured and provides a base to capture more. Sometimes it takes allies or external forces to help sharpen the skills of your troops and elevate their capabilities so that as a unit they are more effective. At Sales Concepts, we endeavor to be your ally when it comes to training your troops. Please contact us should your team be in need of reinforcement.
Let Them Eat Worms!
You wouldn’t fish with a strawberry would you?
The following is a poignant message from one of our training consultants, Beth Bressan, that we should all remember.
During a recent trip to Florida to visit my son, we decided to go fishing. We got a boat; set up all of our gear, and headed out for the day. My son baited his hook with a worm. I reached into my lunch box and pulled out a strawberry which I put onto my hook. My son glanced over and gave me one of those looks only a teenager can give his (hopeless) mother and rolled his eyes asking, “What exactly are you doing?” I replied that I thought the fish would prefer to eat strawberries than worms – I certainly do. He gave a heavy sigh and replied “Mom, you’ve got to give them what they want, not what you’d prefer.”
As I thought about this exchange, I realized that his advice was not only true of fishing, but also true of selling. We too often think about our needs, —which products we need to sell, how to reach our quota, etc. — rather than the needs of the customer. What, in fact, does your customer need? Your customer needs your credibility but may or may not really need the product or service you want to sell. Your customers value what will minimize their risks and what will best meet your customers’ applications.
It has been determined by customer research that there is a four minute phenomenon-—the time in which it takes for you to make an impression on a customer. (I’ve had dates where that was a four second phenomenon, but that’s another story). To make the best impression possible be pro-active in your approach to discovering what your customer needs and wants. Actively listen to both the verbal and non-verbal clues and clarify by paraphrasing what you think your customer said.
We hear all too often about being customer-focused or, as the new buzz word calls it, “customer-centric”. The origin of the word “customer” derives in part from the Latin “sui” or “suus” meaning “oneself”. No wonder my customers don’t want my strawberries — my customers want what they are accustomed to and if you plan on selling to them, give them worms if that is what they want.
