‘’For the past 25 years all I have been doing is selling. Selling products, selling services, selling businesses, selling myself. Sometimes I have been manipulative. And sometimes I’ve sold things I’ve had such passion for I sold it cheap just because I wanted the message out about what I was selling.
And often, it was very much in the middle: I needed to sell something because I had to pay my bills. Maybe I was a little desperate, a little hopeful, a little scared, and I wanted to make sure my family got fed.
So here are the rules of this cheat sheet: None of this comes from a book. All of this is from my own.’’
– James Altucher – investor, programmer, author, and several-times entrepreneur.
Assuming that you’ve read thousands of sales articles from multiple sales experts, here is a snippet of sales tactics straight from the horse’s mouth. With James Altucher selling all through his life – you can be rest assured of learning – hot core selling strategies. (No frills; no strings attached.)
Let’s admit it: Irrespective of the product/service you are selling, chances are there are thousands of vendors selling the same category of product/service with relatively same or better features. So what should you do? Create a better selling pitch? Nah…
Offer a comprehensive package. Reason: The product or service you offer forms the top of a huge pyramid. The base of the pyramid is the service you can provide to them i.e. when they have access to you, your sales process, your network and experience.
Paraphrasing the words of James Altucher – For any sales rep, his offering should not be merely constrained to a single product/service. Rather it should ideally include – product, services, employees, experiences, ideas, existing customers, and present competitors.
The idea is simple: In the long run nobody cares about your product but about your combined offering, service and you as a representative of your company. Without that, you only manage to build a mediocre business that may or may not pay the bills.
What’s new about it? – is what many of you might think.
Now while every sales rep is aware of this statement, majority of them apply it incorrectly.
Not taking ‘no’ as an end is looked upon by many sales people as forced selling. Result: They keep pushing and trying new things until they get a “yes’’ from the customer.
But does the yes actually come? Not really. Contrary, most sales reps end up being in the spam box. People ignore or let’s say totally boycott the sales rep.
So what should you do?
Develop friendship with your potential customer. (It’s not that difficult) Follow the lead on every possible social platform – Twitter, Facebook., Google+ etc. Make use of CRM and get regular social feeds of the lead. Use this data to understand the lead’s evolving needs, preferences and requirements. Accordingly, send updates – fortnightly, monthly.
Paraphrasing the words of James Altucher – Who knows eventually you, will get the “yes” from the lead.
As sales reps, we often come across the category of overly demanding fussy customers. Always seeming like they are at the back of you, these customers never get satisfied and expects you to work magic to meet their unrealistic demands.
So what should you do?
Clarify upfront what your product/service can deliver. Set realistic expectations and a framework for the conversation moving forward. And if it still doesn’t go well – fire your customer.
Paraphrasing the words of James Altucher – A bad customer spreads like a disease and affects the sales rep, employees within the company, existing and future customers and competitors.
People form opinion about products in five seconds. (Yes it’s proven)! And believe it or not, even the best sales pitch cannot make you convince the customer in that short span. So what should you do?
Make your customers dream. Show the long-term vision in relation to the product. Paraphrasing the words of James Altucher – Talking about the product right there in front of the customer doesn’t make much sense often. People can see what your product is right now. What can actually convince them is…the future perspective of the product.
Hence, your focus should be to highlight aspects like;
How will your product help in the long-term?
Will your product empower them to make more money or reduce manual effort etc?
Your pitch should be all about building up images of the dream that shows the prospective benefits of the product. Giving a taste of what the dream is like; letting it linger in the minds of the customers and ensuring that the imaginations of the customers’ take hold of the dream strongly should be the key.
66% of people prefer sticking to a company because of their added product/service offers. So you can say that setting an expectation and delivering according to it is run-of-the-mill thing. Even your nearby competitor will do the same thing.
So what should you do?
Evidently – over deliver to your customers. Give them that extra value that works as an added incentive.
Paraphrasing the words of James Altucher – If someone pays $100 then you ought to give them $110 worth of value Otherwise you simply F.A.I.L. Chances are that the person might never purchase from you.
The idea is simple: People are three-year-olds. They like to get presents. As a result, they want to do business with people who give them presents. And surpassing customers’ expectations is indeed the best way to do that. Not only does it makes you feel good but you earn a lot with little extra effort at the beginning.
Patricia is a full time CRM consultant at ConvergeHub and part-time blogger. She has earned herself quite a fame as a specialist and market expert in CRM software. In the last five year she has worked with various companies as CRM consultant to help them move their businesses to cloud. Her expertise lies in offering cloud CRM consultation, CRM customization and integration solutions to small enterprises. For last one she is engaged in building ConvergeHub, cloud-based CRM solution for SMBs, as a consultant.Follow her at Twitter: @convergehub
