That’s not a contradiction.
For most people, the phrase, “To sell,” seems to imply coercion. Nobody liked to be “sold” anything. As a sales trainer, I believe it is vitally important to make the distinction that being a successful salesperson does not necessarily imply “selling” is involved.
I believe that successful salespeople are skilled craftspeople. They rely on a combination of learned skills and their personal ability to connect and collaborate with people to solve their problems and satisfy their wants, needs, and desires. Every situation and every customer is different, to be successful, a salesperson must adapt and mold their skills to each situation, all the while following their sales processes. While many people call themselves salespeople, only a few really excel at this craft, and one of the primary reasons is, the great ones never sell anything.
Those exceptional salespeople listen, interact, and combine their previously acquired knowledge with what they have learned from their customers to address the specific needs of the customer or customers in front of them.
Sales is about far more than just furniture, appliances, automobiles, houses, and any number of goods and services available in the marketplace. Sales is about ideas, concepts, leading change, education, and social services. There isn’t a type of organization or individual on the planet that isn’t affected by sales.
Sales is a process; no different than how a sculptor unlocks images in stone or how a builder turns a pile of lumber and bricks into a home. Both involve listening to what people want and then using their skills to shape something that will be used and celebrated by the customer, client or audience.
The sales process begins by earning trust and building rapport with the wider community and then influencing people to see what you are offering. For a brick-and-mortar merchant, building rapport begins with advertising and continues when a customer enters a store. Online sales follow a similar path beginning when a customer initiates contact, and for a leader or supervisor, building trust and rapport begins with every interaction with their audience, whether customers, clients, staff, or anyone else.
Building trust and rapport is not simply a step in the process to start and finish, quite the opposite, building trust and rapport occurs through every step in the sales process and will transcend not only the initial contact but will last through the entire relationship, being built and strengthened over decades. Being appreciative, approachable, accessible, genuinely interested, and present whenever needed is the key to sales success. From the smile used when greeting someone to the thank you and walking to the door, the successful salesperson does things few others do.
While each step in the sales process is equally important, the second step is perhaps the step that separates the truly successful salesperson from those who are merely order-takers or tour guides – qualifying.
Discovering what someone’s problems, needs, or wants are will ultimately determine whether the sales process will be successful. Successful salespeople listen and organize their thoughts starting with their first smile. The time spent greeting, welcoming, and making their audience feel at ease lays the groundwork for the complete experience. Shifting subtly into the qualifying step they ask purposeful questions, listen, reframe, and ask more questions to establish what exactly their customer, client, or audience is searching for and what is their primary motivation.
Some people will be reluctant to provide the salesperson with that information. Successful salespeople understand this is just part of the process, they rely on their skills and experience to earn the trust of their audience and are persistent without being annoying.
Eventually, successful salespeople will be able to establish those wants, needs, and desires, while also determining what the person’s motivation is. People who are looking for a quick solution to an immediate need are motivated by utility. People who have a history with you and have returned because they have trusted your organization in the past are motivated by security. Others are motivated by the prestige your services, products, or ideas can provide. Still others are motivated because they believe they deserve or want to enjoy nice things, they are motivated by the pleasure they receive from goods, services, or ideas. The final motivational category is savings, these people are driven to get the best deal possible, they could be wealthy or not, but knowing they got a deal means everything.
A salesperson who knows what their client, customer, or audience wants as well as what their primary motivations are can now implement the remaining steps in the process using their skill and knowledge to help find the best and most likely solutions for their customer. Too many average salespeople do not listen or make assumptions and are ultimately unsuccessful. Assumptions kill sales; listening, asking questions, and listening even more is worth the time … every time.
With a clearer understanding of what their customer’s wants, needs, and desires are; the successful salesperson can now apply the applicable competitive advantages to educate their audience on why they are the best person and organization to help resolve their issues. The education process is general in scope and is an extension of the qualification step. Listening and watching for a reaction is important while building up the customer’s knowledge with the goal of helping them to make an informed decision.
Education evolves into the demonstration step, as successful salespeople narrow the choices or options for solving their customer’s wants, needs, and desires. Through careful demonstration and use of feature/advantage/benefits (FABs) to tie what the customer has said they want or desire to what is available. Having their customer agree to those FABs helps the salesperson know they are helping find an effective and tailored solution. To be successful, a successful salesperson watches and listens to reactions and proceeds based on positive responses or backs up and tries again when receiving negative reactions.
Throughout all of these steps, successful salespeople must be present. The very best salespeople are never distracted when working with their customers, while a customer is physically present, their entire focus is on that customer. They are not sitting at their desk or engaged in side conversations, they are focused and committed to their customer, client, or audience.
Although a salesperson may have built a great rapport and earned their customer’s trust, all steps are vital. Even being a great qualifier, educator, and demonstrator isn’t enough, to be successful, the salesperson must use all six steps while being unconsciously competent in their execution.
Listening and asking questions, satisfying objections, and gaining agreement still requires the salesperson to take the fifth step and Close the sale. Asking for the sale can be done in many ways and can be very subtle or very direct, like a craftsperson, a successful salesperson looks for the buying signs and acts accordingly, if the signs are not obvious, they will attempt one or more low-risk trial closes. A trial close can lead to a completed sale, or it may mean backtracking and addressing additional objections and then trying again.
A successful salesperson knows the sale is not over when it is written. A successful salesperson follows up and provides After the sale service.
A successful salesperson is only finished when the customer has accepted delivery of the product, service, or idea and is satisfied. When the sale is written, it should be reviewed and signed off by the customer and any special exemptions should be in writing. For a bricks and mortar store, each customer should be walked to the door, thanked, and a referral should be requested, up to and including providing two business cards. Even if the customer has requested a delay and leaves without purchasing, they should still walked out, a request for follow-up should be made, and they should be thanked. The process for online should be similar. If a product or service is ordered, the customer or client should never have to suffer the anxiety of not knowing what is happening, they should never have to call and ask about delays.
When delivery of the product or service is made, follow-up should always be completed to ensure the customer or client is satisfied. If there is a problem, the successful salesperson wants to know and resolve any issues, knowing that trust is only earned and is fleeting. Successful salespeople also ask what else their customer is looking for next and ask permission to stay in touch. They know reputation and trust must constantly be earned.
Only when the customer is satisfied is the sixth and final step complete.
Throughout these entire six steps, the successful salesperson has not sold or coerced their customer, client, or audience. They listened, asked pertinent questions, listened some more, and repeated the process until their customer has made an informed decision. They have helped their customers resolve their issue, want, and/or desire without forcing anything on that person/people. By executing this interactive process, they have connected with and satisfied their customers using their skills, attitudes, and behaviors to build an incredible customer experience.
People have choices, and few organizations have a monopoly on anything, although many act as if they did.
Successful sales are about creating the right experience for people to make informed decisions, not about selling a product, service, or idea. The sales process applies to all of us whether we make our living as merchants, project managers, or any other endeavor.
Good luck,
Paul.