Gift Rep Sandy

Archive for the ‘Sales Techniques’ Category

Sales goals can be set for several levels of your business.  In order for goals to be effective, they need to be precise and measurable.  Writing them down for frequent review makes the goals more tangible and attainable for you.

Some sales goals to consider include the following:

1.  Sales presentations per day, per week, per month.  You cannot sell your products if you don’t make sales calls.  Setting a goal to make a certain number of sales calls within a certain time frame ensure the possibility of making some sales!

2.  Customers per town or region. Setting goals to see a certain number of accounts per town or region is also an effective goal.  For towns or areas to exhibit a good showing of your products, determine ahead of time how many stores within a geographic area you want to turn into customers.

3.  Sales taken per store or town. Some small stores will not be willing to buy a lot of your products, but other stores will be open to several of your lines.  Make a goal to sell a certain dollar amount to each store you visit.

4.  Sales taken per day, week or month. Setting goals on how many dollars worth of sales you want to take in a day, week or month keeps you motivated throughout the day to make those sales.

5.  Sales taken per line of products within a store. Once you have established a good group of customers, you can work at increasing sales within each line you sell to them.

6.  Number of lines sold within a store. If you service a store who sells one of your lines, you can use that relationship to sell more lines there.

7.  Across the board percentage increase. If you want to generalize your goals, you can aim at increasing sales for the year by a certain percentage over the previous year’s sales.  If you have kept accurate income records, it is fairly easy to figure a new gross income amount to sell.

Once you write down your sales goals, work out a system for keeping track of those goals.  For instance, if your goal is to increase buyers or customer within a town, how will you know when you have reached that goal?  You will want to develop a chart or list of all the buyers in a certain area and note when you have acquired a new customer.  Or if you want to increase the number of lines you sell in certain stores, keep a listing of what lines you sold in the past and introduce a different line to the buyer next time you are in the store.  Maybe you have used goals in the past and have other ways to record and keep track of them.

Setting goals are crucial to helping any business grow and be successful.  According to a study on goal setting done by Harvard University of their graduate students, the graduates who developed specific written goals earned the highest income in their class. As a business owner and entrepreneur, your purpose and focus is defined by what goals you have set.  As a sales rep, goals help you keep motivated and on track, especially on days that don’t go as well as expected.

Quoting, once again, my favorite sales and motivational author and speaker, Brian Tracy, there are three steps in setting and using goals:

1.    Your goals must be clear.  “For a goal to be effective in guiding behavior, it must be specific and measurable. It must be believable and achievable. It must be written out and time bounded.”

2.    Your goals must be written.  “Working from a list keeps you on track and gives you a visual record of accomplishment. The very act of writing out a list and referring to it constantly will increase your productivity by 25% or more the first time you start doing it.”

3.    Your goals must be prioritized.  “Use the 80/20 Rule continually. Identify the 20% of activities on your list that can account for 80% of the value of your entire list. Begin your work on the items in the top 20% before you do anything else.”

Personally, I start my goal setting at the end of each year by reviewing the goals I set for the previous year which list what I accomplished that year.  From there, I formulate a new list of the goals I wanted to attain the next year.  Setting goals, at least for me, was difficult in the beginning, mostly because I did not know what to expect. If you are like me, you will find as you become more comfortable with your business, you become more comfortable with setting and reviewing your goals.

Two major obstacles can get in the way of closing sales, if you let them! Fear of failure and fear of rejection.  Every sales person deals with these fears, but over time and with a little practice, you can turn these fears in a positive experience rather than a negative one.

First, failures are just a part of life.  Rather than dwell on your mistakes, make your failures a learning experience.  Look at what you can do, in the same circumstances, to make a better presentation, meet the buyers’ needs better, or just handle the situation differently.  Failures are just a stepping stone to the learning process.  Often we learn our best lessons when we have stumbled and moved on with a new perspective.

Fear of rejection can be very de-motivating if you let it control you!  If you approach a potential buyer as a potential friend, your fears will decrease.  And expect to hear a lot of “Nos” in the beginning.  But remember, most negative responses you receive come from a variety of sources that often has nothing to do with you or your products.  You may have caught the buyers at a bad time, during a personal crisis, or dealing with an issue that had distracted them from seeing the value of your products and services.

Back in my early salesmanship lessons, I leaned that every “No” answer is just an opportunity to work the sales process.  Maybe the buyer is saying no because they don’t have all the information about a product.  Addressing objections and answering questions gives you a chance to further explore the potential concerns a buyer has about the products you sell.  Most buyers WANT to be sold, so you need to sell them!  And selling is actually a process of communicating answers to your buyer’s questions.  If you meet each objection with an appropriate answer or alternative, you will write up more sales.

The Golden Rule says to do unto other as you would like others to do unto you, but I say “sell unto others as you would like to be sold to!”  The days of pushy uninformed sales people are over!  Today’s buyers are busier, more sophisticated and more concerned about what your products can do for them than ever before.  Besides, when was the last time you talked to a pushy sales person?  Did it prompt you to buy their products?  Probably not!

The best way to follow the ‘Golden Rule’ is by showing you care about helping the buyer whether they buy your products or not!  If you want to make a good impression on potential buyers, be honest about what you sell.  Don’t force your products or opinions on them.  Most buyers see right through those tactics.  Better to lose a sale on one item because you are honest about it rather than sell the store something you know from experience won’t work.

Tony Alessandra, graduate professor BBA, MBA, and Ph.D. in marketing, a diverse history in sales, and as an entrepreneur, describes this method as high-trust selling.   “Low trust selling is not dead … but it should be. Short-sighted traditional salespeople are still insulting their customers with high-pressure, low trust tactics, relying on an endless supply of new customers. The high trust salesperson relies on a philosophy that guides every aspect of a “non-manipulative” process that creates win/win situations for both buyer and seller all the time, every time.”

The Golden Rule is rather simple and straight forward as we all want to be treated fairly.  Your customers are your ‘bread and butter’ and need to be treated with concern and respect.  Once again, the long term relationship is more important than the potential sale for the day.

Selling to a store buyer is a process of information sharing between them and the producer.  Most buyers want to be sold on your products, but in order to make their decisions, they need time to explore the options you offer.  Best way to help work through the sales options is to prompt buyers with closed-ended questions.  These types of questions begin with verbs:  Is this the type of product you are looking for?  Are you interested in A or B product?  Have you considered adding X type of product to your store? Use these types of questions whenever you want the customer to be more specific or to take a definite stand on your product or service. This process of information sharing will narrowing down the specifics and brings you closer to helping the buyer make a decision.

Always ask closed-ended questions in a warm, friendly tone of voice — be courteous, caring and concerned and never use pressure or manipulation.  Your job is to aid your buyers in making good buying decisions for their stores.  Pressuring the buyer to close a sale often lead to poor choices that will reflect on you, the sales person, next time you are in the store.  If you use closed-ended questions in an effective manner, you address most of the concerns a buyer may have to closing a sale.

Keeping and maintaining good systems make the difference between a good sales business and a struggling business.  David Kohl, sales trainer and author, says “routine work is best accomplished by implementing effective systems.”  Efficient time saving and success in sales is increased greatly when effective systems are used.

The systems you set up to keep track of commission receivable will ultimately determine your success in managing critical cash flow; the systems you set up to turn prospects into customers, and turn customers into repeat customers, will determine the long term health and vigor of your sales rep business; and the systems you set up for writing and processing orders, including follow up on any particular order moving within this system will expedite the ability to continue generating sales.

Developing systems, before you make you first sales calls, make the communication between you and your buyer more effective. David Kohl suggested asking yourself the following questions before making your first sales call:

1.      Who is the most likely market (customers) for this?

2.      What problem does this solve for them?

3.      Why would they pay for this?

4.      What is the best way to gain access to the decision makers?

5.      What is the specific process I’ll follow to sell this?

6.      What is the best way to uncover the pain/problem this solves?

7.      What is the best way to present this?

8.      What are some natural and logical concerns they may have?

9.      What is the best way to resolve those concerns?

10.     How long will all this take?

11.    What tools will I need to accomplish this?

Reviewing these questions in writing is the beginning of a sales call system you can use over and over again during your visits to potential buyers

Different sales people use different sales methods and systems, but successful sales person, have these traits as part of their personality and goals:

• Has high self-confidence, self esteem and consistency
• Accepts 100% responsibility for results
• Demonstrates above average ambition or desire to sell
• Able to listen, empathize and help solve problems
• Goal-oriented focus
• Determined to succeed despite disappointments and rejections
• Believes in themselves, their products and the company (s) they sell for
• Is honesty with self and others
• Loves working with people and can turn a stranger into a friend

Although these traits should be part of your personality, most can be learned and reinforced through constant education and practice.

Nearly everything we do in life involved some level of selling.  We “sell” ourselves to a potential employee when we go to an interview; we sell ourselves to the member of the opposite sex when we start a relationship; and we sell ourselves to our friends and business associates when we want to implement a new idea or concept to a group where we are a member.  Sales are involved in every part of our lives, in one form or another.

Selling wholesale gift products uses the same selling techniques as any other product or service.  According to Brian Tracy, author and speaker, “selling is the process of helping a person to conclude that your product or service is of greater value to him than the price you are asking for.”  Today’s buyers are much more informed, intelligent and knowledgeable than ever before.  Most are bombarded by numerous sales people and thus more careful in making their buying decisions.  The choices for products are greater than it ever has been in the past, so selling today involved much more than in the past.

Contrary to most conceptions, selling is NOT just talking a potential store buyer into purchasing your products!   Sales are about creating valued relationships with your buyers thus making it easier and profitable for them to buy from you rather than your competition.  Effective communications between you and your buyer is the key component in developing this valued relationship.  “Your clients will tell you what they need, if you give them an opportunity,” says Mary Ellen Warner, MSA, DTM, speaker, author and coach who works with people overcoming barriers to effective communication. “If you focus on what you believe they need, you risk sending them on their way without a sale. Communication is not just about you talking about your product or service. It is about listening to the concerns of your customers.”  Good salesmanship is working on meeting your customer’s needs through the services you provide.