Tactics – Getting to 2nd Base (Prospects)

Last week I received many emails requesting help after my offer to send along scenarios where readers were “stumped”. This email should benefit most readers:

It’s one thing to get the order, the account or the deal but it’s totally another thing to beat the competition for the business. But seller beware. If your idea of beating the competition is producing a lower price, the only one getting beat is you.

On Friday evening my wife and I entered an art gallery and were followed around by a very young sales clerk. Each time we looked at a painting, she felt compelled to tell us who the artist was, where he lived, why the gallery displayed his art, what she liked about him, why people liked his work and how much the piece sells for.

Every salesperson wants to be more effective – unless of course they’re looking for early retirement. A salesperson made a call on me that serves as a good example of what most salespeople could do better.

Today’s Baseline Selling Tip is about the lost art of story telling in sales. I receive many compliments from readers of Baseline Selling about the stories in my book. The two most talked about stories are the Tennis Story on page 9 and the story on page 88 about selling knives to a girl and her mother.

Selling Power Magazine called last week, hoping to interview me about an article I wrote in my “Understanding the Sales Force Blog” back in January. I’ll give you the gist of it here:

In a recent training program we focused on closing. Each attendee was asked to identify an account they felt was “ready to close”. Not surprisingly when asked “what the compelling reason for action” was many were unable to clearly identify the real issue and it’s impact.

This week, in honor of Dan Seidman’s new book, “Sales Autopsy” – 50 Sales Horror Stories I’ll share my own sales horror story – my sales call gone bad – and the lessons that can be learned from it.

Many readers have emailed me about their products or services that are now being perceived as commodities. Baseline Selling has a very detailed section of the book devoted to commodities. I call the section Commodity Busters and those of you who find yourself in this situation should refer to that.

How often does this happen?  You ask your prospect a question, have a pretty good sense of what the answer should be, and their answer is not what you expected?  For most salespeople it happens a lot.  I have written a lot about questioning skills and listening skills but for this challenge, you’ll need listening skills and observation skills.