Posts Tagged ‘selling’

I was with one of our clients the other day and he shared the following sales wisdom with me.

So let me share it with you.

He declared that the number one sales tip was this: ‘Get the other person talking about themselves and you’ll make a friend, and ultimately a client.’

I have personally found that to be true. I never go in to a sales meeting ‘to sell’. I go in there to make a friend, find a need – and I do that by using the art of questioning. My purpose is clear, and that is, that I am more knowledgeable about their business at the end of the meeting than I was at the start of the meeting.

Here’s another trick that a business coach shared with me – to make sure that you are using the number one sales tip.

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This is the edited transcript of the LIVE CHAT conducted by:

Peter G. James Sinclair (http://www.motivationalmemo.com) with:

Bob Burg (http://www.burg.com)

The chat was scheduled for one hour and the subject was:

“THE AWESOME POWER OF NETWORKING”

Peter Sinclair : Hi Bob, I just want to welcome you formally to our live chat today.

Bob Burg : Hello Peter. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Peter Sinclair : OK Bob, let’s get straight into it. Four decades ago a concept called “six degrees of separation” was announced. That concept stated that all of us, through our social networks, are within 5 or 6 connections with anyone else on the planet. I thought it was a pretty powerful statement Bob. How would that fact impact the power of networking as you know it?

Bob Burg : Peter, in my opinion, it pretty much shows that he or she who masters the art of building relationships is many, many steps ahead of the game.

Peter Sinclair : So is networking just about building relationships?

Bob Burg : Networking will always be about people and not about things. No matter how good the things. It is not “just” about building relationships, as you said, but without the relationships nothing else happens.

Peter Sinclair : So if you were asked to define networking what would you write?

Bob Burg : I define “networking” as the cultivating of mutually beneficial give and take, win/win relationships. The emphasis is on giving. The “super networkers” who are the most successful networkers tend to be the biggest givers.

Peter Sinclair : So, with that in mind, is giving the only quality you’d suggest we develop to become more effective networkers?

Bob Burg : No, not at all. It just happens to be one quality of a successful networker.

Peter Sinclair : Bob would you please expand on that?

Bob Burg : Sure Peter. What a networker does is constantly reach out and develop “mutually beneficial,” give and take, win/win relationships with people. They do it on a continual basis. The successful networker does this by planting seeds wherever he or she goes. In essence, they are following an intelligent, workable, proven “system” for networking success.

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When I was eighteen I started my own jewelery business in my bedroom. That Christmas I sold a lot of jewelery to my relatives and their friends. Why did they buy from me? Out of relationship, and I had no trouble in selling to them at all.

Then in my thirties I attended a two week sales training schedule with an insurance company and learnt the art of rebuttals – basically learning by memory an answer for every objection that a potential client would come up with. I had to throw out everything that I previously knew about selling from before and had to learn this system. But because this process went totally against all my previous sales experience, knowledge, success and my ability to relate with others in a personal way, I failed dismally. It took me quite some years to once again regain my confidence in selling.

However, the experts are now confirming that what I was doing when I was 18 was in fact right. Selling effectively is all about developing relationships and about developing trust. It’s not about how smart you are, or the greatest rebuttal argument that you can come up with. It’s all about consultative selling where it emphasizes client needs and how your product and service can not only meet those needs but actually provide more value to the client than just the face value of what they purchased. It is about working as a consultant who first determines the client’s needs and then provides them with a solution.

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OE Design massages the sale with obligation free complimentary consultations.

Peter Sinclair CEO of OE Design – The Web Designers says, “There is so much pressure on sales teams to DO THE DEAL! And to DO IT NOW! But it is my experience that you don’t necessarily ‘DO THE DEAL’ the first time you meet with a prospect. In most cases there is a process that takes time, is built upon relationship and trust and this is extended over a period of time, learn to massage the sale.”

OE Design presents their business professionally communicating who they are and what they do from phone inquiries to the documentation that represents them.

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Most people don’t realize how powerful a negotiating tool silence is. I discovered exactly how effective as I recently observed someone discussing a deal with a prospective customer this past week.

The customer started describing his situation and after a few moments he paused – briefly. It was an opportune time for the sales person to make a comment or talk about her product and service. However, she remained silent, sensing that the customer had more to say. Her intuition proved correct – a few seconds later he continued talking about his needs, and when he had finished discussing his point he paused. The sales person refrained from speaking and her customer began talking again.

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