Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector

Welcome to this week’s blog on sales and selling success.

No matter what your product or service you need a selling system or strategy. Some companies mandate a process others leave it up to the sales manager and her team. But make no mistake the best, most effective sales people work to a strategy to uncover the right prospect and their needs.

On the flip side those new to the industry are not always clear on the steps they should take, so here’s a few of the better-known methodologies.

• BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline)
• ANUM (Authority, Need, Urgency, and Money)
• SPIN Selling popularised by Neil Rackham (Situation, Problem, Implication and Need)
• NEAT developed by The Harris Consulting Group (Needs, Economic impact, Authority and Timeline)
• SNAP Selling created by Jill Konrath (keep it Simple, be iNvaluable, always Align and raise Priorities)

Plenty of acronyms there!

And you can add to the list The Challenger Sale, Customer Centric Selling, The Creative Led Sell and The Sandler System just to name a few more.

And?

Then of course there are the names to describe the selling process such as the Customer Needs Analysis, The Discovery (or Uncovery), Sales Conversation or The Diagnostic. I know one high end sales guy who uses SWOT Analysis as his main strategy.

But….

How about the next step? The close.

If you do your job right, by qualifying the prospective customer and asking the right questions to establish need then closing becomes a natural progression.

Having said that, the biggest reasons prospects don’t buy is simple – they’re never asked!

The best (and easiest) close question is simple, direct and powerful: “Is there any reason why we shouldn’t move forward with this?”

If they say “no” which means “yes,” the sale is closed.

If they’re not ready to buy they’ll tell you the reasons and you can then move back into your sales process.

Remember: “Yes” and “No” are equally good answers – it’s the “maybe” or “I don’t know” that kills you”. Don’t give up, keep moving forward.

This week investigate one of the sales processes I mentioned, find one that might work for you, talk to your sales manager plan a strategy to trial it, then monitor the results.

Meantime, no matter the process you use always ask a closing question!

Until next week good selling!
 

About the author 

Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.

He can be contacted at [email protected]