CONTENTS
Page #
Overview 3
| The Rapidly Changing Marketplace | 4 |
| 1. What Is A Sale? | 4 |
- How Do Our Clients Perceive A Sale? 4
- How Do We As Sales Professionals, Perceive A Sale? 5
- What Skills Do We Need? 5
- Setting The Scene 12
- Factors Affecting Sales/Marketing In The World Today. 18
- What Is Marketing? 21
- Changes in the Marketing World. 22
- Modern Trends in the Marketing & Sales Process. 22
- Love Your Clients or Lose Them. 23
- Forming the Partnership Relationship using the ’12 Immutable Laws Of
Relationship Based Selling’. 25
- Developing Initiative & Creativity 30 OVERVIEW
This presentation has been designed to provide all the participants with a review and enquiry into the basic principles of sales and marketing, as perceived through the eyes of an international marketing and sales consultant.
It is also understood and appreciated that any enquiry into the subject of sales and marketing, must provide an insight into human interaction and buyer behaviour, and this subject will also be catered for within the format of this presentation.
In order to assist all participants in utilizing and/or reviewing their present market practices and attitudes, a motivational environment will also be created in order to entice the attendees into action. This segment of the presentation will also review the factors that inhibit motivation, and as such, eliminate some of the obstacles to the challenge of change.
THE RAPIDLY-CHANGING MARKETPLACE
In order to analyse the work practices so important to capitalise on the everchanging marketplace, we must first analyse what we understand constitutes a sale.
SETTING THE SCENE
Before any learning can begin in relation to the selling process, we must address ourselves to the following questions:
What is a sale?
How do our clients perceive a sale?
- How do we, as sales professionals, perceive a sale?
What skills and attitudes do you feel are required?
With reference to the previous 3 points, what skills do we then need, to perform in our day-to-day sales tasks, not only in a general sense, but more specifically by product and by client? With this in mind, we should review the requirements of a sales professional relative to the following headings:
- Courage
The courage tube is best defined as man’s tendency to increase his determination in the face of resistance. A sales person with a strong courage tube becomes more emotionally, analytically and verbally powerful, when faced with objections.
What question/s can you ask yourself and/or your staff to assess the degree of courage required for success in your business?
- Focus
There are two aspects of the focus tube. The first is to do with how accurately you respond to a question. The second part of the focus tube relates to what kind of models you have in your mind that relate to the proficient sales professional.
How appropriate are these two parameters to your business, and how can you use them?
- Woo
The “Woo” tube is evident in people who always want to make new acquaintances. If you are the type of person who clings to his or her friends when in a social group, you are a person with a weak “woo” tube.
What questions can help you analyse the existence of “Woo”?
- Ego Drive
Ego drive is reflected in a person’s desire to be a significant person. He/she has self esteem and needs a great amount of recognition from other people.
List methods of analyzing ego drive:
- Stamina
Stamina indicates endurance and tempo. Endurance is how long you will work, and tempo is how fast you will work.
What questions can assess stamina in a candidate?
- Empathy
An old Indian Chief said “You do not know a man until you have walked 2 moons in his moccasins”. He was talking about empathy. Empathy means that we can see the world as another person sees it.
How can you assess empathy?
- Persuasion
The people who have persuasion enjoy manipulation of ideas, and they like to re-arrange the ideas of the people they meet, to conform to their own.
If we assume that persuasion is critical to the inter-personal sales process, how can we assess this in our staff?
- Gestalt
This is a German psychological principle that conceptualises man’s tendency to see in terms of configuration, rather than in terms of parts.
Is this tube important in your business, and if so, how can you assess it in people?
- Communication
There are three aspects of the communication tube that are of value to a sales professional:
- Fluency
- Power
- Zest
How can you test for these parameters?
- Competition
The competition tube is bright when a person always wants to win. If they cannot win, they don’t play, and they are poor losers.
How important is the competition tube to successful sales in your business?
- Work Orientation
This is high in people who rehearse mentally whatever it is that they are going to do. They have almost obsessional thinking about their work.
What questions can you use to assess your commitment to the concept of work orientation?
- Ethics
The most important component of the ethics tube in relation to selling is the area of integrity. For our purposes, this means that a person will do what he/she says they will do.
How important is ethics to your business, and how can you reinforce it as a regular standard of business principle?
- In order to set the scene of the basic sales skills required in any sales environment, discussion will be developed under the following headings:
Dress and Presentation
First impressions are important and are difficult to change. In the first few minutes of any interview, people decide how they feel about you. Dressing correctly can help you gain credibility and authority.
Personal Appearance
Business Appearance
General Appearance
What are the Basic Rules of a Sale?
Relax the client
Develop interest
Turn interest into desire
Close the sale
There are three opponents to successful sales.
The customer
Opposition Suppliers
You (The Seller)
Where is a Sale Conducted?
Client’s premises
Your office
In order to fully benefit from discussion based around the venue of any sale, it is important to discuss both the advantages and disadvantages faced at either venue. This will vary naturally, in terms of your product, the availability of your client’s time, and your selling requirements. However, it should be regularly reappraised so as to ensure the maximum utilization of available selling time.
Advantages of use of client’s premises
Disadvantages of client’s premises
Advantages of your offices
Disadvantages of your offices
How Long Does a Sale Take?
It is generally accepted that a sale should take no longer than a given amount of time, which is usually based on the availability of the client’s time. It is our belief that time plays a critical role in the value of any sale and with this in mind it is important to discuss a survey recently conducted by an internationally acclaimed research organisation into the subject, “What It Takes To Make a Successful Sales Call”.
500 successful sales calls in 24 different industries were analysed. The products and services sold ranged from high technology computers to industrial refuse disposal systems. The observers recorded each interaction as it occurred in each call. For example, what did the salesperson do, and how did the customer react, and vice versa.
The purpose of this study was to pinpoint sales behaviours which are associated with success or failure. A successful result was defined when the customer committed himself to the proposition. Here is what actually occurred:
The average successful call had this statistical profile:
How long did the average successful call last?
Your estimate______________________Actual_______________________
How many product benefits were described?
Your estimate______________________Actual_______________________
How many product features were described?
Your estimate______________________Actual_______________________
During the average successful call, the clients did the following:
How many different needs did the client establish?
Your estimate______________________Actual_______________________
How many objections did the clients raise?
Your estimate______________________Actual_______________________
How many buying signals did the client transmit?
Your estimate______________________Actual_______________________
And how many questions did the client ask?
Your estimate______________________Actual_______________________
Dangers and Pitfalls in Conducting an Effective Sales Interview
To extend the concepts outlined above, it is perhaps only appropriate that we analyse the common selling mistakes assessed in the survey already discussed.
Common Selling Mistakes
Telling a customer how a product or service might be of value, instead of asking questions to uncover needs.
Over-controlling a call by asking too many close-ended questions, instead of encouraging a client to freely reveal needs.
Responding to clients’ needs with statements of product or service features, instead of explaining to the client how those features will satisfy their needs.
Responding to every client’s stated problem with a solution, instead of first making sure that the client desires or wants a solution.
Failing to recognise, or have an appropriate strategy for, handling client attitudes of objection, indifference and scepticism towards the product or service being sold.
Failure to recognise when or how to close, or making weak or unrealistic closing statements.
How is the bridge from a poor or average to a successful salesperson made? It involves learning and using each of the following skills:
Asking questions skilfully to gather information, and to uncover client needs.
Recognising when a client has a real need and showing how the benefits of the product or service can satisfy this need.
Establishing a balanced dialogue with the client.
Recognising and handling negative customer attitudes promptly and directly.
Using a benefit summary and action play requiring commitment when closing.
In summary, selling today requires a high degree of sophistication. This research reveals the importance of subtleties in selling, and the importance of understanding precisely the need satisfaction sales dynamic. Critical skills make a difference and the successful salesperson knows how and when to use them effectively.
How To Win
The best solution that we can offer is to improve your understanding of why people are what they are and how they react to different situations and environments.
The best initial inquiry into this subject is via an investigation of you, as a person, prior to an analysis of client profiles.
Most of us react very differently in different circumstances, and it would be fair to say that, in general terms, we are a complex series of reactions most of which are out of our control.
To achieve a skill of understanding and analysing human behaviour is of immense significance to improved sales success.
We will now embark on a Temperament Evaluation exercise designed to assist us in a better understanding of human nature, not only related to our clients, but also related to ourselves. This is of particular importance in assisting us in understanding the many varying attitudes expressed by all of us, and our clients, and which is based totally on their, and our, habits and feelings, rather than on rational decisions.
- What factors are affecting sales/marketing in the world today?
In order to assist your enquiry into this question, here are some factors which may be affecting your marketplace:
- the breakdown of family life:
How can this affect the buying process?
- artificially high living standards:
How does this affect your market?
- the de-regulation or re-regulation of finance markets:
How does this affect your business?
- computerisation:
Can this affect the buying process?
- new and improved media:
How does this affect buying decisions?
- new points of sale:
How does this affect buyer behaviour?
- information explosion:
What opportunities to increase your market are available?
- the pressure of sub-group culture:
How does this affect your clients’ perception of your service?
- new product mania:
How has the consumer-led market pressure affected your business?
- the loss of brand loyalty:
Has this occurred in your industry?
- the advent of the consumer society:
What pressures exist from consumer groups on your business?
- the advent of early retirement and the alternative lifestyle system:
How can this begin to affect the buyers comprising your market?
In addition to the above, what factors do you now assess are affecting your market opportunities?
- What is marketing? To assist in the simplest possible way, a definition of what marketing is, may clarify your perception of this question.
The definition of marketing is:
Your definition:
ISI’s definition:
“Marketing creates the environment on which the sale takes place. Selling is the executive function of marketing.”
- What has changed in the marketing world, and who can we learn from?
The successful marketing strategies of yesterday are the disasters of today. The need for creativity in the marketing process has never been so critical as it is today, especially when placed under the pressure of constant media assessment.
It may perhaps be appropriate for us to analyse a specific market segment, and in particular, I refer to the environment of “why people buy from a supermarket as experienced in an isolated market opportunity”.
Space is provided for your own assessment of this environment.
- Modern trends in the marketing and sales process.
Clients and suppliers are gathering together to form a new relationship which guarantees mutual success. This process is referred to as “PARTNERSHIP MARKETING”.
What process, from the examples given on partnership marketing, can you utilise within your business sectors, and how can you achieve this? To maintain your memory of them, you may wish to specifically highlight, in the space provided, the examples given.
- Love your client or lose them
For our evaluation and discussion, the following is an editorial extracted from the Journal, “Marketing” during August 1986:
Customers are the beginning and end of marketing. If you are not customerorientated in today’s tight markets, you can forget it.
This is so fundamental it’s almost ridiculous to say. Caring for customers comes naturally to all great marketers.
As a customer yourself, however, you’ll recognise that many companies show their customers almost criminal neglect. They go for the ‘one off’ sale, forgetting, if they ever knew, that the next sale starts as soon as the last sale is closed.
In the new world of marketing, the sale is no longer as important as the relationship. Smart marketers build long-term relations with their customers, earning brand loyalty, creating buying habits and becoming part of a customer’s lifestyle.
How have you attempted to improve your customer relationships?
- Forming the partnership relationship.
There is a critical difference between customers and clients. It is generally understood and accepted that the word customer and client is regularly interchanged, as it means different things to different people. The concept of “customer service” is far more recognised as a business process, however, there are some businesses that refer to this process by the term “client services”. Regardless of the term you may use “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” is a relevant methodology on differentiating types of customers. This range of business interaction commences with a customer, grows into a client and ideally matures into an advocate.
To commence this learning it is important that you differentiate levels of business interface, starting with the difference between a customer and a client. The information contained in this document will provoke your thought on what difference you may feel there is, and how you can sustain the development of clients through relationship marketing. The document commences with a powerful statement that makes the following observation.
Consultants cannot consult with customers. A consultant must have a client. Customers and clients are very different people. A customer only purchases a system, first off, on price alone, whereas a client will be loyal to the seller and buy a system on value and not price. Converting customers into clients is a major task of the modern day sales professional.
If the seller allows a buyer to remain a customer, the seller will be put at a serious disadvantage. The customer will treat the seller as an alternative supplier, seeking other sellers with better prices. As such, the customer will create a competitive position with other suppliers. The seller will then be forced to persuade the customer that the seller’s system delivers the best benefits. Prominent amongst these benefits will have to be the “best price” from the customer’s point of view.
The chief distinguishing characteristic of a client is a value-to-price orientation that favours value. A customer, on the other hand, is generally focussed towards price.
The trade-off a client makes with a consultant about accepting a higher price in return for added value can be expressed something like this:
“I accept that your higher price is proof of your added value. However, for the extra initial cost that I will incur, I want something extra. I will insist, therefore, that you support our relationship in ways that exceed my expectation. Exceeding my expectation will prove to me that you understand the importance of “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling”.
The best way to convert a customer into a client is to respect and implement “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling”. A relationship seller who wants to achieve a consultant’s position has to implement a process that from the client’s point of view sustains and proves the value of relationships.
“The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” described below are an exceptional and proven method of building quality relationships with any buyer over a continuous period of time. Understanding and using “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” in everyday business interactions will sustain and widen the gap between you and your competitors.
“The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” also enables professional sellers to regularly analyse their existing business relationships and should a particular relationship be no longer as good as it was, then referring back to “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” will in most cases uncover where a breakdown has occurred and how to rectify and relaunch a new relationship.
As you read through this document you will find that it is not “rocket science”. The process is a very simple, effective and a sustainable method of gaining, maintaining and developing relationships in all walks of life. You will find that the “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” is completely relevant even in the relationships you have in your personal life where no commercial process exists.
For many professional sellers sharing the “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” with their business associates is a way of sustaining the process of exceptional “sales culture”. Creating a culture with these laws will mean that the process will become natural to everything you do.
The Sales Institute values and respects the process referred to as “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” and it is the mission of the institute to sustain the quality of its member’s activities by regular education based on these principles.
Traditional sales training methodologies have been primarily based on gaining the sale with little recognisable methods of how to sustain and build relationships. Based on the reality that “the next sale starts when this one is closed”, it would seem extremely valuable to have a method that builds on this first sale in order to create sustainable long-term relationships.
Traditional sales training has focussed its attention on training the seller to maintain control of the sale through a series of planned methods. The “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” on the other hand will change the communication from one of selling to one of consulting. This can be best expressed in how you communicate with your Doctor, your Lawyer, your Accountant or any other professional you interact with each day. Yes, they sell their service, that’s how they maintain their business, but do they sell, or do we buy from them? You will rarely meet people who think that their doctor sells them services. Doctors do not attend sales training programs, they do however, spend an extraordinary amount of time learning how to help people overcome physical and psychological obstacles. This is how a doctor moves from being a seller to a professional consultant and it is the same methodology as “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling”. The system has 12 unique points of relationship activity.
- “Understand my needs and issues”
Get things done – respond to my needs.
Produce results fast because I have more needs.
- “Communicate with me in simple terms” Speak to me in value creation terms.
Let me know you clearly understand the issues.
- “Don’t surprise me/Level with me” Tell me the truth.
Criticise if you need to, but let me know what’s working as well.
- “Work with me”
Become a part of my team.
Show me you’re interested in what I’m doing. Ask questions.
- “Give me the best you’ve got” Give superior value.
Your higher service makes your price extremely reasonable.
- “Be 100% professional”
Be a real professional in everything you do.
- “Keep me informed”
Continuously share some of your experience and expertise with me and my people.
- “Lead and own the process”
Get out in front of my problems.
Roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty in my business.
Compromise with me once in a while but don’t give in on what you know is vital.
- “Worry for me”
Think hard about my problems.
Let me know what you think even without being asked.
Give me immediate access to you when I am worried – be available. Put my needs first – never mind anyone else.
- “Be creative/Inspire me”
Apply yourself in a way that transcends normal boundaries.
Offer me options.
Show a strong desire to achieve our objectives.
Don’t leave a single stone unturned in looking for solutions.
- “Be faithful”
Keep our business confidential.
Make your relationship with me personal and continuous – don’t pass me along to others.
- “Treat me like a person, not just a client”
Treat me like an equal – deal with me one-to-one.
Don’t talk down to me.
Throw in a few “little extras” every now and then.
Advise me on closely related matters even if you’re not being paid for them.
What “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” amounts to is an expression of a customer’s concern for an investment in a system, of the need for visibility of commitment, and of the dependency that must be placed on the seller’s expertise.
A consultant must be sensitive to the buyers needs to receive these rights, and also to demonstrate that they will diligently adhere to them.
Along with the profit-improvement benefits of the consultant’s system, the recognition of “The 12 Immutable Laws of Relationship Based Selling” is the most important contributor to outstanding sustainable relationship selling.
- Developing initiative and creativity.
This subject would already have been catered for throughout the duration of the presentation.
It is however, important that you commit to the principles for improved initiative and creativity in your day-to-day life and so, in order to encapsulate the principles already discussed, this segment is entitled “You, Yourself Incorporated”.
Of all the examples given in this section of the presentation, which two issues are of most pertinence to you, the individual, in re-evaluating your personal commitment to initiative and creativity?
To assist with this subject, it may be appropriate for you to list the 5 principle product advantages of You, Yourself, Incorporated, as you see them.
