SELLING:  21 WAYS TO LEAVE A LOSER

By: Gary A. Clark

Selling is not a game; I don’t care what you heard.  Selling is a matter of helping people to buy.  It is not a matter of if you are a better closer, or the sharpest dresser, or the most liked.  Selling, when done properly is the highest form of communication, second only to a conversation between lovers.  However, that does not mean there will not be those who know better, and think selling is simply a matter of trick closings. 

The philosophy here is: In order to make more closes you have to play the odds and get in front of many people, therefore if you burn up a list of 100 qualified prospects and can manage to get in front of 2 or 3, you are doing good.  For the people who believe in this, then this article is for you 

For those of you who are serious about the “get in and get out” quick method of selling, I went back into my old sales records and pulled out the ideas I had heard, been told, or tried over 21 years of working with the public.  None of these worked for me, (nor for a whole lot of other people) but you are welcome to try them. 

1. Let us start with focus.  Forget it. It screws up your thinking. Think of a shotgun.  Close your eyes and shoot, you are sure to hit some target – someday.  Even a blind - one arm man - standing on one leg in a windstorm, can hit a target with a shotgun, so why not use it always. It sure beats messing around with target markets and a whole lot easier.  Get yourself one of those Bulk e-mailing disk and go to town.

2. Everyone is fair game.  Oh, I know you have heard that you should target your market, but hey – the people who suggest this methodology, probably never sold a thing in their life.

3.  When in a selling situation and the client is talking, focus on the words you are going to say next.  Focus on getting the order.  Overcome all objections, and close often.  Dazzle them with your brilliance; baffle them with your best closing lines. Lines like “I am sure you didn’t just come in here to think about it.  You’re here to buy and buy now – right?”

4. Fact-Fact-finding is a waste of time, if the client is not serious about buying.  You can always tell if they are ready, by pulling out an order form and start by asking their name.  If they balk, they are not ready. Keep talking or move on to the next “real” buyer.

5. Always ask closing questions and ignore the client’s objections – they are not real objections anyway. 

6.  When they walk through the door, assume they are there to buy.  Your job is to get them to the signing stage quickly. 

7. Any question on price, ignore.  They will soon forget they asked it anyway. 

8. When a client walks in with an ad, ignore it.  The ad did its job and got them in the door. Show them the more expensive model - immediately.

9. You can always come down, but you could leave money on the table. If you advertise a service, give them the $1000.00 pitch and come down only when they start to leave. 

10. Planning is a waste of time.  What are you planning for?  When the slow season comes about, take a vacation and forget about the company and your business.  Do not look back.  Live for the moment.  

11. The only good records of sales are those that closed.  Never look at the rest. And never track your sales. It only serves to depress you the following season.  If you were doing it wrong, someone would have pointed it by now.

12. Learn to socialize.  If the office staff drinks, you do too.  If they meet weekly at the local bar, don’t be a spoil sport.  Become one of the team.  All people in the office like team players if they also buy a round.  They forgive friends who show up late for sales meetings, and will be the first to support you after your butt kicking.  Buy them all a round later. 

13. If your marketing is not working, keep trying.  Remember you can only expect a 1% return so why waste your time trying for more.  Keep that old plug running.  Again, track nothing; it’s a waste of time for a 1% return.

14. If you take orders on your website, forget about what you hear about secure sites.  People do not check anyway.  They will fill out any form that they find, especially for your killer deal, so a secure site is not important.

15. Change your logo and headers on your e-mail so that they don’t match.  This way the customer will not associate you with the spam they receive from your marketing campaign. 

16. Use autoresponders extensively.  It serves no purpose to get directly involved and engage in a conversation with a prospect, until they are ready to part with the cash.  If they are ready to buy, they will call you.  Until then, let them have the information by auto-responder.

17. Your marketing budget should be directed to getting your site listed on the entire top search engines within the first 10 listings.  Forget what you hear about target marketing and visitors as opposed to hits.  That is for those who are actively marketing.  A website is supposed to be automatic marketing and when it is on the top, you will get all the hits you need.

18.  When you lose a sale, forget it.  They were losers anyways.  If they had stopped talking long enough to listen to your pitch, instead of asking questions when you were closing, they would have known your product was the best deal in town.  Have a drink, calm your nerves and tackle the next one.  Remember, drive for the close.

19. Communications.  Here is a big area so pay attention.  Have many phone, fax and pager numbers.  Make the customer find you.  Why you ask?  Because when they do, you know you have a serious buyer.  Publish all your phone numbers on your business card.  Make sure that the first number is the last number you could ever be found at. 

20. If you are selling real estate, make sure you have an extensive library of the 360 degree surround view pictures.  Who cares if the site is slow to load, the customer knows it will be worth it once it does.  They have patience.  Doesn't everyone have DSL now? 

21. The final tip to increase your sales is to make sure that the customer knows you are a busy person.  The following suggestions will speed the action up.

    When the show up at your office, learn from the school of medical practitioners. Make them wait a little past the appointed time –fifteen minutes should do it.  Then when you greet them, let them know that you had to take that last call from an important client who they will know by name, like the Mayor.

    When the client is talking – look at your watch, tap your pen on the desk, get up, fiddle with something on the shelf, and say – “go ahead, I am listening".  Better yet, take that phone call and ask them to wait a minute. Impress them.  

    When you ask a question, don’t wait for the answer.  Assume the answer is positive and go right on.

    Make sure that the client knows you are the offices top sales person, so that when they object, you can come back with the fact that of all your clients, they are the only one who feels that way.  That will serve to bring them down to their true worth and make it easier to close.

Now if you try these methods, please do not let me know.  Of course, these are not the right way to do business or to conduct sales.  But I bet you probably recognized every one of them as either something you read, heard or actually watched a salesperson do.  I hope that it was not you. 

If you can’t make 10 appointments off of a list of 50 qualified cold calls, and if you can’t close at lease 3 of those 10, or get the listings you need, doing it the right way, then I suggest changes need to be made in your methodologies.  Stick around.  I will be doing another series of articles on just how to achieve these numbers.

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