Straight Selling Your Way to the Top 20%!

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Straight Selling Your Way to the Top 20%!

Written by Mike Brooks

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Selling Strategies - Solving the Pain or Creating a Gain

Customers make decisions emotionally and back them up with logic to justify their decisions. Our goal then is to ask the key questions that get to the heart of the decision maker and build trust and confidence leading to a long term consultative relationship. We need to be a partner to the customer and not a vendor.

Of course the answer is “it depends.” The more important question to the customer is “when it comes to investing in the solution, what’s most important to you?” That will more closely address which is more important, solving the pain or creating a gain.

Customers make buying decisions based on needs. As Miller Heiman mentions in their model, customers take action when they are in “trouble” or “growth” mode, not “even keel” or “overconfident.” So the need is generated from a problem or challenge they are facing or the potential growth or gain they are looking to achieve.

Customers also buy for both business and personal reasons. The business reason is tangible and objective, the “Result.” It’s to increase productivity, decrease operation expenses, improve market share or their competitive position. The personal reason is the “Win.” This is the intangible and subjective result which says what it will do for the decision maker. Will it give them peace of mind, a promotion or a bonus? Both business and personal reasons drive the decision, but understanding which reason might move the customer to decide is key.

In Rick Page’s book “Hope Is Not A Strategy” it says this about pain. “Pain doesn’t come from the business problem; pain comes from the political embarrassment of the business problem.” I believe this is so true. Customers don’t make decisions until the pain hurts to a point that it must be alleviated, which includes their own embarrassment for not taking action. Pain needs to be heightened from both the business and personal perspective. We need to explore with the customer which need is hurting the most. Pain is a present existing condition, which is easier to address than exploring potential gains, which is a promise in the future. Rick also says that to create a sense of urgency to close business, we must creatively take the invisible costs and make them visible and politically painful. In other words we must put a price on the customer’s procrastination. Giving out more price cuts or discounts doesn’t create a sense of urgency to buy unless it’s for a stereo system on sale just for the day! With complex sales situations emotional issues usually override cost justifications.

I agree with Rick Page that emotional and political problems drive buying activity more than logical ones. That’s why we scratch our heads when our pipeline forecasts look like a cloudy weather report. Customers make decisions emotionally and back them up with logic to justify their decisions. Our goal then is to ask the key questions that get to the heart of the decision maker and build trust and confidence leading to a long term consultative relationship. We need to be a partner to the customer and not a vendor. Vendors sell hot dogs. When we become a trusted partner the promise of the “gain” in our solution becomes a reality to the customer based on their confidence and our track record to deliver.

We should always prepare questions prior to our meeting with a customer which can gain us credibility and earn us the right to continue down the path to winning the sale. Most sales people don’t ask the tough questions since it will ruin a perfectly good forecast. Some example questions that I like to use to engage the customer are:

How have these issues impacted your business?
What are the critical success factors you expect from the solution?
What is most important to you for this project?
What other impacts might this problem have on your business?
What do you see as the benefits in solving the problem?
For you personally what’s most important?

These are some examples of some pain and gain questions that can help us to dig deeper into the real issues the customer is facing from both a business and personal perspective. Asking our customers better questions gives us better answers and a leg up on our competition.

Good selling!

What's one of the biggest differences between the top 20% and the bottom 80%? The bottom 80% are still using stale, phony techniques that don't work, and they are still trying to trick the gatekeepers and assistants as they try to get to the decision maker. All this does is identify them as another pesky sales rep trying to sell something the prospect doesn't want.

The top 20%, on the other hand, have found that by being honest and real - I call it "Straight Selling"- they not only differentiate themselves from their so called competition, but they are also able to make a real connection and so establish the kind of rapport that is crucial for any sales transaction.

Here are a couple of scripts you can use to begin practicing straight selling:

If while cold calling, your prospect says they are not interested, use this response:

"I don't blame you, _________, you've never heard of me and you don't know what my company does or how it can help you. I'm sure you get sales calls all the time, but I'm also sure that sometimes a call turns out to be truly worthwhile. This happens to be one of those calls..." (Now provide a benefit, or ask a question)

If you reach an assistant and are told they will take a message, say:

"You know, ________, I'm sure you work closely with _______, right? Great. Listen, I'll be honest with you - I don't want to bother you by calling and calling trying to reach ________, so let me tell you why I'm calling and you can tell me if you think this would be something he'd be interested in hearing more about..." (Now ask qualifying questions to see if they'd be a fit)

If your prospect is avoiding you after you've sent info, or is putting you off, when you finally reach them try:

"________I'm glad I finally reached you, and let me ask you something and please be honest with me - I've tried to connect with you several times, and the timing just never seems to be right. Level with me - is this just something you're not really interested in at this time, or do you sincerely want me to schedule another time later to go through this with you. You tell me..." (Now shut up and listen to their response.)

As you can see, these straight selling techniques will not only give you the respect you deserve, but they will separate the buyers from the non-buyers. And that is one of the most important top 20% techniques of all.

If you'd like to see more phone scripts like this, download Mike Brooks' book, The Complete Book of Phone Scripts. Click here.

Mike Brooks
		About the author:
		With over 20 years of inside sales closing experience, Mike Brooks has been billed nationwide as Mr. Inside Sales. Once a bottom 80% producer, Mike learned and perfected the skills of Top 20% producers and became the number one sales rep out of 5 Southern California branch offices. Author of the hot new book,The Real Secrets of the Top 20: How To Double Your Income Selling Over the Phone, Mike's proven techniques, strategies and skills are used successfully by companies in industries such as securities sales, high-tech sales, pharmaceuticals, equipment leasing and other business to business applications. Mike combines proven, current tactics and skills with personal experience to provide a motivational and practical presentation. .