Stop and think for a moment…. Think of the ‘TYPICAL’ salesperson?
Who was it that you immediately thought of? Let me guess…. Used car saleperson, real estate sales person, door to door sales, insurance sales, TV infomercial salesperson? These are the most common answers I get.
What is it that we think about these people? Generally, it is along the lines of pushy people! They want us to buy whether or not we need or want something, they will sell us a lemon, they are a bit dodgy or they lie. I’ve heard all these things and more things that I wouldn’t dare even write down!!
Many business owners wonder why they struggle with sales or more likely, hate selling. Why wouldn’t you if this is what you think a salesperson is and how you have to sell to make a sale.
Sales people that are pushy are not an example of what I think you need to do when selling!
What I believe is that if you want to be a great salesperson, then STOP SELLING! Yes, stop selling and START HELPING your customers.
When you break sales down to its most simple form, basically what is happening is a customer is needing or wanting something. They either need to solve a problem they have or they want something. Your job as the salesperson is to either solve the problem they have or to fill they need/want they have. That’s it.
So instead of selling something to them, why not let them buy from you? I know that is basically the same thing, but the experience for the customer is EXTREMELY different. Are you giving your customers a selling experience or a buying experience?
Your job as the ‘salesperson’ is not to sell, it is to help. Help your customer work out what their problem is? Then you see if you have the solution for them that will help them solve that problem. Remember that some of your customers’ problems may be that they actually want something… like they may not need a new pair of shoes, but they really want a pair of new shoes.
It may not seem like a big thing, but it can dramatically change how you ‘sell’ to a customer if instead of focussing on making a sale, you focus on helping your customer solve their problem.
Now, you might be good with this as a business owner and you understand all that I’m saying, but the question is, if you have staff that are supposed to be selling, do they understand this?
Here’s an example for you. Years ago, I did a one hour session with a group of massage therapists (who also did facials, etc). The owner of the business really wanted them to be selling more products after the treatments of their customers. This is where these types of businesses can really explode their profitability with the after service product sales. Now they were averaging $400 of product sales a MONTH! This is not good at all…. The owner wanted me to come in and teach their team to sell.
I started by asking the question of what they thought of salespeople? Well, for a group of beautiful, caring, massage therapists, they came out with words that I would never dare to repeat. The reason they were not selling products was because they felt pushy!
So we took one hour – just one hour – to discuss why and how these products would HELP their customers. We talked that a customer is going to use moisturiser anyway, so why should they use the product they had over one from the local supermarket? Why was their product going to HELP the customer more?
What was the result? Starting THAT DAY, they started selling $400 of product a DAY! Yes, a day!
Was it fancy sales techniques and scripts? No. Was it understanding the products better? No. It was all down to changing their mindset from pushy salesperson to understanding that they could help their customers. In fact, I went so far to say to them that they were actually disserving their customers by NOT telling them about their superior products.
It is such a simple change of mindset – going from selling to helping your customers – but it can have such a massive impact on your business.
Action Step:
I have two different action steps this week.
If you are the only person selling in your business?
Take a few moments to write down (power is in pen to paper) how you HELP your customers. What is it that really makes a difference when a customer buys your product or service? What are your customers’ biggest problems and how can you help or better still, solve them?
Now ask the question, how can I give my customer the best BUYING experience?
If you have a staff that are selling in your business?
Do the same activity, but do it together as a group. Start off though finding out what they think about salespeople, because just like with my massage therapy client, it was their mindset on salespeople we needed to change, not their scripts! Then do the questions above together as a team discussion and then ask the question – how are we going to implement these ideas.