The 6 Pillars of Effective Sales Conversations
The 6 Pillars of Effective Sales Conversations
Behind every sale is a conversation. Without communication, a lead can't become a handshake, and the dotted line is doomed to remain unsigned.
Then if conversations are key to better results, why do so many salespeople still shoot from the hip? Why are most sales presentations such unstructured messes?
No matter what you're selling, if you want to help convert more leads into happy customers, it's time to take your sales pitch to the next level.
The Six-Shooter's Sales Strategy
Of course, no sharpshooter hits the bull's-eye every time. But everyone can become a better marksman, and just six steps stand between you and a potential pocketful of new sales:
1. Get excited! If you're like me, it's nearly impossible to not get amped up for a sales call. And for the prospect, it could be one of the most fun and interesting parts of his or her day. So don't kill the mood: Break out a smile, and let your energy show.
2. Create a foolproof game plan. After consulting with dozens of companies that struggle to train salespeople, I realized they had something in common: an unscripted sales process. So as soon as I started building LinkedSelling's sales team, I began writing a script. That script, with a few tweaks, has delivered big results.
Craft a living, breathing sales document that team members can read from, word-for-word. They'll find their own style—and that's great—but give them a starting point, complete with room for questions, banter and interjections.
3. Find common ground. People generally like people who they can relate to. In fact, my company signed a high-dollar client because he'd befriended my office manager. They didn't talk business, but instead discussed life outside the office, and it was this connection that sealed the deal.
So craft your sales script to create points of rapport. Try adding some non-business questions like “Where are you from?" and “What are your weekend plans?" that can help cultivate connections.
4. Be a student. Sales is about education, but it can't be one-directional. So build questions into your script to learn a client's business: Ask about their team, values, business model and customers. It's a simple truth: To understand somebody's situation, you need to ask.
My team learned this the hard way. Sales slumped in 2015, and I realized nearly everyone was pitching too early. But after consulting our sales script, I knew the mistake was my own: I'd included icebreaker questions, but hadn't given my team business-oriented questions to ask. After revising the script, we saw sales jump 15 percent nearly overnight.
5. Sell your "why." In a recent TED Talk, leadership expert Simon Sinek said, “People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it." Now, I'm sure people buy because of the product, too, but Sinek is right that people tend to buy logically and emotionally.
So in every sales call, try tying your business to something bigger. What's your big goal, beyond selling products? Sales is an endeavor of the mind, but it's also tied to the heart.
6. Do the math for them. ROI is—or should be—a part of any sales discussion, so quantify your product's benefits in dollars and cents. A few years ago, we began conducting ROI calculations during sales webinars and consultations, which really helped our product “click" with the logical side of prospects' brains. The focus on tangible ROI, in my opinion, is a big reason my company's business has tripled each of the last three years.
In the end, sales isn't rocket science; it's just people having a conversation about a product's costs and benefits. So if your goal is more conversions, stop “winging it" on sales calls. With a script in hand and data at your fingertips, your team should soon be shooting down its toughest sales targets.
