By Daniel W. Jacobs (www.Danielwjacobs.com)
People want to own, often they don't like to buy. An important part of your job is to smooth the edges of the buying process and make it as painless as possible.
Remember the door-to-door salesman? The second you opened the door; they would begin fast-talking while sliding their product case just inside the door before you could close it on them. Those days are happily gone forever, as that style won't open any doors in today's marketplace.
People have become seasoned buyers, they're had lots of practice saying no, and they're good at it! The ways can be blunt or rude or camouflaged by social niceties, but they're still saying the same thing. No!
Buying has become a pain to them, a necessary evil they have to put up with to get what they want. Is it any surprise that Internet sales are growing exponentially? People don't like to deal with unfriendly salespeople if they don't have to. However, this could be the “open sesame” to the sales career that you're looking for.
What can you do to make the process easy on the customer - so that buying is fun?
One thing to remember is that you do the selling and the customer does the buying. It always works that way. It doesn't matter if you think they should buy what you're offering. They do the buying . . . or not.
People must get to know you, to like you and to trust you before they will become your customer.
People respond to honesty, interest in them and friendly helpfulness. These qualities are a benefit to them and their instincts tell them when it's real and when it's not. You can't fake it. They'll smell it a mile away and bring out their handy-dandy little “no” machine. Even if they seem to be agreeing with you socially, they're just being polite. Mentally, they've already made the decision not to buy, and now they're just looking for the door out.
Never talk just to fill up the space. Never tell them you like something when you don't feel that way. And never feign admiration or interest. If you're not interested in their answer - don't ask the question.
Only ask a question or find a point of agreement on things you're really interested in. This maintains a sense of reality. People are interesting if you look hard enough. They're also interested in people that are interested in them . . . if that interest is sincere and genuine.
Any difficulty you're having in getting people to open the door and let you in comes from you. They're only responding to what they perceive intuitively in your manner, your interest, and your sincerity or the lack of it.
All this adds up to the fact that you create your own success, not the customer or the client. It all starts with you. If you're not interested in talking to people that day, you might as well stay home.
Mean what you say and say what you mean. And if you don't mean it, don't say it. Honesty, sincerity and helpful interest will open the door to making selling easy.
But sometimes a simple old saying says it best.
They don't care how much you know - until they know how much you care.
Comments