The perfectly rational consumer is a myth, much like the Gippsland phantom cat or the honest politician. Most consumers make their decisions at an emotional level – they choose to buy a particular item because they like the colour blue, for instance – and then rationalise their purchase after the fact.
Now, here’s a question for you: When you – or your staff – pitch a product at a potential customer, is your appeal aimed at their emotions? If not you could be missing out on potential sales – so make sure your benefit is an emotional appeal.
You would be amazed at how often salespeople get to this point and then don’t actually take that final, simple step of asking for a sale.
Asking “would you like to purchase it today?” after your sales pitch is all it takes.
If your customer turns down a sale, make sure you do some objection handling.
Objection handling is where, instead of just accepting the customer isn’t going to purchase a product they enquired about, you ask them why they decided not to purchase it.
What the customer will give you in response is a reason why they are doubtful about agreeing to the purchase. Perhaps they’ll say “it’s too expensive” or “what we’re really looking for is a product with features x, y and z”.
This is where you ask some more discovery questions. In some cases, what the prospective customer really needs is reassurance that they’re making the right decision by purchasing the product from you.
Once you close your first sale, it’s worth trying to cross-sell another product or some accessories for it. Start by asking the customer if they’re interested, perhaps followed by a couple of extra discovery questions and another pitch.
Make sure you try to sell them that cable!
Finally, if you ever lose a customer, don’t just let it be. Investigate why. Your sales process is something you should always keep refining.
So how effective is your sales process? If you haven’t mastered these 10 steps, start practicing!
Get it done – today!
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
