Plan For Turbulence When Selling
On a flight, when your plane takes off, the pilot tells all the passengers to stay in their seats with their seatbelts buckled. In many cases, the pilot will say, “We expect a certain amount of turbulence for the first part of the flight, so please stay buckled up.” When you start any new business or job in sales, you will experience turbulence as well.
Control Your Responses
Strong people expect to experience problems on their journey toward their goals and destinations. Weak people are surprised and dismayed when things don't work out the way they had expected. They become angry and lash out. They blame other people for their problems. Often they become depressed or irrational. Your success is largely determined by your ability to respond effectively to problems as they come up. Fortunately, you can learn a number of effective strategies practiced by successful people to deal with problems.
Problems Go with the Territory
First of all, expect to have problems, disappointments, and temporary failures. Don't be shocked, surprised, or angry when they occur. Instead, take a deep breath, relax, and say, “Solving problems is my job; problems are what I do.” Each time you solve a problem, you will become even more capable of solving even greater problems. The major reward you get for solving problems is the opportunity to solve even bigger problems.
Think in Terms of Solutions
Superior people are intensely solution oriented. They think about solutions and what can be done rather than the problems and who is to blame. They are future oriented and continually think in terms of the actions that they can take immediately to control the damage, minimize the problem, and move ahead. One of the best strategies you can use is to practice mental preparation with regard to problems. Resolve in advance that no matter what happens, you will remain calm and relaxed.
Ask Questions
When you deal with unexpected turbulence in your business or personal life, you can keep yourself calm, clear, and focused by asking questions rather than reacting or overreacting. First of all, get the facts. What exactly is the problem? How did it occur? Sometimes, the solution to the problem is contained within the problem itself. The very act of asking questions keep you calm and in control. Focus on the solution.
Accept Responsibility and Take Charge
Once you have clearly defined the problem (and confirmed that it actually is a problem) and you have thought about the various actions you can take to solve or minimize it, the next step is the either take responsibility for taking action or assign specific responsibility for taking action to someone else. Think always in terms of actions you can take. Just as a pilot facing unexpected turbulence keeps both hands on the wheel and his or her eyes on the gauges, when you experience problems, you must take command of your situation and ensure that you are flying in the right direction.
Action Exercise
You become a superb pilot of your own destiny by dealing effectively with the inevitable storms that occur in your work and personal life. Next time a situation occurs take a deep breath, and then begin to think of solutions to that situation.
Written by Brian Tracy and trained by Mark Garbelotto
The Invitational Close
The Invitational Close is simple, low-key, classy and powerful. You use it at the end of a sales conversation to conclude the transaction. It is preceded by a Trial Close such as: "Mr. Prospect, do you have any questions or concerns that I haven't covered up to now?" Or, "Mr. Prospect, does this make sense to you, so far?"
Probe for Lingering Objections
You ask these questions to be doubly sure that the prospect has no final objections lurking in the back of his mind that would block the closing of the sales process. You then invite the customer to make a buying decision by saying, "If you like what I've shown you, why don't you give it a try?"
Invite the Customer to Buy
Inviting the customer to buy is very powerful. This is a gentle way of nudging the customer into taking action. "Why don't you give it a try?" If you are selling services, you can ask, "Why don't you give us a try?" If you want to be more bold and direct, you can simply ask, "Why don't you take it?"
Change Your Wording
One of my seminar graduates doubled his sales by changing his words in the endgame of selling. After his sales presentation he would ask the prospect if he had any additional questions or concerns. If the prospect said "no," he would then ask, "Well, if you like it, why don't you take it?"
He was amazed to find that many prospects could not think of a good reason not to go ahead with his offering immediately. Both his closing ratio and his income soared.
Action Exercises
Here is something you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
The next time you complete your sales presentation, simply issue an invitation to the customer to make a decision. "Why don't you give it a try?"
You may be surprised at your success.
Written by Brian Tracy and trained by Mark Garbelotto
Your Begining To Sales Success…
On the 10th to the 13th of September 2010 I will be training over 120 people at the 9th Annual First Class Brands International Conference at the Marriott Hotel in Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia.
One of the reasons that I love to train so many business owners and sales professionals is that I can educate them on how to increase sales performance and become more successful in sales.
The sales material I teach are based on Mr. Brian Tracy’s principles that have been researched and proven over 30 years. One of Brian’s programs that I use for our Certificate III and IV in sales is base on over 50,000 interviews where the researchers video tape how the sales person tries to sell to a prospect and how the prospect either buys or rejects the sales person.
What most business owners and sales professionals don’t understand is that selling is profession.
YES that’s RIGHT!!!
To succeed in today’s market you must take a logical approach in selling.
You must learn the sequence of events used by the top sales professionals.
Focusing on resolving problems and customer concerns is critical.
You must answer all their questions before a sale can be made.
To sell at your best you must plan the parts and stages of the sale in advance.
You begin by asking yourself what does your service or product DO?
Most business owners and sales professionals talk about what their service or product IS.
Prospects don’t care what you product or service IS they only care what it will DO for them.
Next you must ask yourself what problems does your product or service SOLVE?
Prospects only buy solutions to PROBLEMS.
Your job is to position yourself as an expert / advisor and become a PROBLEM SEEKER.
This is the beginning to your success in sales.
Kind regards Mark Garbelotto – Master Brian Tracy International Trainer
