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<\/a>buy your products and services.<\/p>\nHere\u2019s the number one problem most small business sales people and owners alike face in sales. The prospect talks to you and then they leave to go shop around \u2013 and they don\u2019t come back. Which means you lose the sale.<\/p>\n
This past Saturday was a perfect example of this failed selling strategy.<\/p>\n
With over 100,000 miles on our favorite German sedan, it\u2019s starting to give us problems. As my wife likes to say, \u201cIt\u2019s not aging well.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think she\u2019s talking about the car, not me.<\/strong><\/p>\n The car\u2019s check engine light is now permanently on. It\u2019s burning oil and the electrics seem to be playing games with us. So, my wife and I decided to go check out a couple of possible cars to buy.<\/p>\n At the first dealership, the sales person locked onto us like a super magnet and he told us that the car we were looking at was the number one seller in the country. It was selling so fast, they could hardly keep any in stock.<\/p>\n So what do you think happened at the second car dealership we went to?<\/strong><\/p>\n You guessed it!<\/p>\n The sales person (different car, different brand) gave us pretty much the same line. Best selling car, etc<\/p>\n And off we went to the third car showroom of the day where \u2013 guess what happened???<\/p>\n Yup! Same story again.<\/p>\n What\u2019s even funnier<\/strong> is that according to available news sources, not one of the cars we looked at was even in the list of the top ten selling cars.<\/p>\n Obviously, when you are trying to sell a car, your services, or for that matter \u2013 anything \u2013 if you use the same worn out bone tired sales pitch as your competition it\u2019s not going to work, and instead is just going to sound really stupid.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not even the worst selling mistake each of these sales people made that prompted us to walk out the door.<\/strong><\/p>\n Each one saw it as their job to SELL us, convince us that their cars were the best. Two out of three even spent a good portion of their pitch bad mouthing the competition. I heard stuff that was blatantly nonsense like how their 140hp engine was tuned to provide stronger acceleration than the competitions\u2019 211 horsepower engine. Right!<\/p>\n The problem with each of the sales people we encountered was they saw their role as trying to convince us to buy, instead of simply helping us get what we wanted. Big difference!<\/p>\n It was terrific entertainment \u2013 an hour and a half of old school selling that doesn\u2019t work. It made me want to order my car on Amazon instead of having to face more garbage from car sales people.<\/p>\n Now I\u2019m sure you\u2019d prefer not to scare your prospects away with this outdated approach to selling. Instead, I bet you want to know what actually works, to get prospects to talk to you and close the sale!<\/p>\n Right?<\/p>\n Here you are. Just use these three steps.<\/p>\n 1. Focus On Your Prospect\u2019s Interests<\/strong> Start by finding out what your prospects want with a few questions and then keep asking more questions to get them to tell you how your product or service is what they want. And you\u2019ll coast to the close with a lot less effort.<\/p>\n 2. Position Yourself as an Expert<\/strong> The truth is the best sales people act like experts. They give you information and help you make decisions, not make them for you. Do this and you\u2019ll outsell old school sales people ten to one.<\/p>\n 3. Differentiate Yourself From the Competition<\/strong> Think about what your clients like about your service that\u2019s unique. Or if that doesn\u2019t work, focus on yourself, your personality. One accountant differentiated himself as the funniest accountant (maybe the only one).<\/p>\n Three simple steps proven to generate a flood of sales!<\/p>\n Want to discover the fastest way to increase your sales by up to 500%?<\/p>\n
\nTrying to sell, or convince people to buy is like pedaling a bike (with your prospects on the back) straight up a steep hill instead of down hill with gravity helping.<\/p>\n
\nYou can either sell or advise. You can\u2019t do both. But before you decide which role you\u2019d like to play, ask yourself who you think more highly of, whose advice you\u2019d be more likely to seek out \u2013 a salesman or industry expert.<\/p>\n
\nYou may not remember but it used to be that chicken was\u2026 well chicken until Frank Perdue made it known that his chickens were better. And if he can differentiate his brand of chicken from the rest, which is not an easy task, you can differentiate your services from your competitors.<\/p>\n