Love Your Product

To be a successful salesperson, you must believe in love. Yes, you read that right. You must believe in love! If you have never fallen in love, you must do so now- with your product; else, you will not move up to the top league. You must fall in love. You must be in love. You must love. You must love your product! That is it.

You must love what you sell, so much that you transfer you positive feelings to the prospect. Selling has been referred to many times as the transfer of enthusiasm. You cannot transfer what you do not have, enthusiasm you do not have, love you do not have. You cannot give what you do not have.

There are prerequisites to loving your product- stages that you must first pass through before you can confidently say you love your product. Each of these stages are highly important for your sales success- they are non-negotiable. Without them, you cannot love what you sell, and without the love and confidence in your product, you cannot successfully convince anyone to buy.

These stages are:

1. Know Your Product
2. Trust Your Product
3. Love Your Product.

If you are not successful with any of the 3 stages, I've got an advice for you- whatever the product or service, do not sell it!

I will be dealing with each of these stages in subsequent posts.

Till then, have a successful sales week ahead.

Solutions, Not Features

Have you ever had a salesperson ask you to buy their product because of its great features, yet none of the features were of any use to you? I believe most of us have. At some point or the other, we have been faced with a salesperson who kept going on and on about the awesome features of their product, with no idea what our actual needs were.

One of the very important parts of selling is your ability to identify the needs of your prospect accurately. Brian Tracy refers to this as "the indispensable step upon which the whole sales process depends." He says if you fail to identify the prospect's needs accurately, the entire sales process will grind to a halt.

Professional selling begins with needs analysis. Customer's buy for their own personal satisfaction, not yours. You need to identify the needs of the customer. Realize that people don't always know what they need, sometimes they know some of their needs, sometimes they know all. It's your duty as a salesperson to help the prospect identify their needs, albeit unknowingly. The most important step in doing this is asking questions- the right questions.

Prepare the questions you will ask the prospect before the appointment. These are not necessarily the exact questions you will end up asking the prospect, but you have to write out a list of basic questions you will ask every prospect, then during the sales presentation, you tailor the questions to the specific prospect. You are ill-equipped to sell until you have asked sufficient, effective questions.

Ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions are questions that do not produce a yes/no answer. Steer clear of questions that will give a yes/no response from the prospect. Your questions should produce responses that make the prospect speak more, elaborate.

Ask questions that can be easily answered, not questions that leave the prospect groping for answers, feeling clueless and dumb. The prospects answers will reveal their needs, and wants. Listen attentively and effectively to the prospect's answers, this will help you understand the key needs of the prospect that your product can meet. Identify their key needs and present your product as a solution to these needs.

Successfully make the customer understand that he needs your product enough to overcome any buying resistance that can prevent him from buying. He must be convinced that to a very high degree, he is better off with your product or service, way more than he is without it. Convince him that he is better off with your product than he is with your competitor's product.

Present your product as a solution to the prospect's needs. Refrain from getting immersed, or carried away by the features of your product, instead, present the features as a solution to their needs. Remember no matter how great the features are, if they do not solve the prospects problems, or meet his key needs, you will not be successful at that sale.

Have you ever been on any end of a sales process where features were being presented instead of solutions? Where you the prospect or the salesperson, and what was the prospect's reaction, whether you were the prospect or salesperson? Please feel free to answer in the comment box, your feedback is highly appreciated.

Have a great day/evening.

Know Your Product

It was Children's day a few days ago, and I was out with the kids at a children's carnival. Yes, they had loads of fun, but no, I'm not here to talk about the children or the fun. Sometime, while we were having massive fun, a young man walked up to us, held a pack of something up to his face, and starts to implore us to buy. It was a packet of Vitamin C tablets and he was trying to sell that to us. He kept talking on and on, but didn't give any reason why we should be buying his product, so I asked him "the kids already have lots of Vitamin C tablets, why should we buy yours?" I turn my focus to the pack in his hands and I see a big picture of an apple right on it, I figure the tablets are apple-flavored and expect this salesman to tell me this, but to my disappointment, he doesn't! Instead, he begins to plead with us to buy "please just buy it, it's very good for the kids." At this point, I try to tell him about the apple flavor but he doesn't even listen to me. When he eventually stopped speaking, I told him about it, and he replies "Yes, there's the apple flavor, blah blah blah, yada yada yada, and mixed-fruit flavor." I again explain to him that this is a unique selling point for his product, and that I'd expected him to tell me about that- kid's love apple, that would've made me interested, and many other people as well. We eventually bought two packs and off he went, searching for his next 'victim'.

There were several things wrong with that young man's selling strategy, and that is what I want to write about today.

1. Dear Salesperson, you've got to know your product.

Study, study, and study your product. Read all the manuals on it, research it, run a google internet search for it, find out all the advantages and yes, disadvantages. Be an expert on your product. If that young salesman knew his product well enough, he'd have remembered to tell me it had various flavors. The prospect shouldn't be the one to tell you about your product, if that happens, then you'd be totally unconvincing, you'd be seen as one who was just selling to make a buck, not to help the customer meet their needs.

Know your product so well that if a prospect asks you any question about it, you can confidently answer without stuttering or pausing to think about your answer. Product knowledge is very important. If your product knowledge is limited, then you have no business selling that product.

2. Dear Salesperson, ask questions.
You've got to master the art of asking qualifying questions. You need to ask questions so you can understand the needs of the customer. When you understand the needs of the prospect, you will know the angle from which you should present your product.

3. Dear Salesperson, listen to your prospect.
Learn effective listening skills. You should listen to your prospect, not spend all the time talking about why your product is great! You must talk less, and listen more. Ask more questions, the person who asks more questions is in control of the conversation. Ask more, and you will know more. Know more, and you will present better. Present better, and you will sell better.

4. Dear Salesperson, never beg anyone to buy your product.
If your product is as beneficial to me as you'd want me to believe, why beg me to buy? People do not buy out of pity, they buy because your product/service can solve their problems. That's why you've got to understand your product, and understand your prospect so well that you know how your product/service will meet their needs and solve their problems. Realise that not everyone will buy your product, not every one is your customer. Develop a positive spirit so you can deal with rejection withoug letting it affect your selling motivation.