- October 30, 2018
- Blog
Can we? Of course! An advertisement does exactly what a sales person is expected to do. In fact, some of the best advertisements use time tested sales steps that work at the psychological level to unfailingly convince a buyer. Let’s visualize, for e.g., the popular TV ad of Colgate toothpaste:
A young mother looks dotingly at her playful child eating away chocolates. And she exclaims to her husband, “I am worried about cavities”. The scene cuts to a doctor who says “Such food can cause cavities. That is why you need Colgate. Its Calci-lock protector ensures strong teeth and no cavities.” Then the scene closes with the mother smothering her child with even more affection. All in just 30 seconds! Colgate toothpaste owns 58% market share.
Let us now deconstruct and also draw parallels for a successful F2F sale:
1. It all starts with a great positive mood: happiness, laughter, merry and so on
Several sales people fail to understand the importance of beginning well with a positive mood. Actually, positive mood is more important for a salesman than a buyer! A research by Jennifer George suggests that positive mood helps sales people see more opportunities and also find and deliver better quality solutions. When the buyers are eased into a positive mood by a salesman, it makes the buyers more communicative and receptive to solutions; leading to conversions.
Leave in comments below how you can create a positive mood in salespeople?
2. Buyer states a problem or need clearly and quickly – “I am worried about cavities”
Allow the buyer to talk first. One tactic that successful sales people use is to ask generally broad questions such as ‘what exactly are you looking for in our service?’, ‘can you elaborate more on what you need?’ and ‘what problems do you face?’ Such questions help customize one's solution. For e.g. imagine the ad in a F2F scene and consider we did not allow the mother to talk. Also, imagine she really wanted ‘fresh breath’? We would have ended up selling ‘strong teeth and no cavity’? See the issue? If we had allowed the mother to talk, we would have suggested Colgate Mouth Wash instead.
The famous lines of Theodore Levitt posits that we should sell holes and not drills; that means - we really need to know what customer wants to do; that means - we should allow customer to talk and we should, of course, listen.
3. Agree with the problem or the need – “Yes. Chocolates can cause cavity!”
Sometimes, a customer may not even know if the problem is really a problem and what causes it. If you can site an independent research that clearly demonstrates that what the customer is enduring is a real problem, the customer is hooked.
Also, restating the problem in your words also informs the customer that you have understood it clearly.
4. Propose a customized solution – “Colgate Toothpaste”
After listening to the customer needs or problems, propose a customized solution in a simple and clear manner. Parroting the product / tech details that the training team has stuffed into sales people brains would do no good. Just imagine a car salesman going through details of torque and displacement. Would you hear it?
5. State why the solution would work – The doctor says “Calcilock” the secret sauce
Creating credibility is the crux of sales. Without it the solution is just a salesman’s claim and it is only justified that the customer has some levels of disbelief. Credibility creation is usually done two ways: state the secret sauce and have it communicated through a credible and independent source. There are several example of secret sauces: Head-Shoulders’ Anti-dandruff Shampoo containing – “ZPTO” – did you ever know what it is? Or MPFI for fuel efficiency in a car. Usually exposing the secret sauce works. However, to buttress the claim, make a statement through credible and independent source – as in the Colgate ad through a doctor (or is it a dentist? who cares?)
There are several credible and independent sources: Independent body certification, public opinion (e.g. Ayurveda is good), a scientist’s or university’s endorsement, buyer’s reference, opinion leaders’ endorsement. Let me know in the comments what else you think will work?
6. State the emotional payoffs – Happy family
Even in a B2B sales situation, buyers need emotional payoffs from a purchase. It can be pride of owning a top end product or being a pioneer or wanting to be seen as a person who has taken the best cutting edge state of the art solution.
I recall a buyer of a complex CRM solution, who went ahead with a world renowned brand as opposed to a lesser known but equally competent brand. I was curious to know if there were functional and technical differences? The buyer replied in the negative. I asked if the price was an issue. The buyer replied in fact the well-known brand was twice as expensive. Surprised, I asked why then? His answer blew me off: “If at all anything goes wrong, I can at least say if it fails with this brand, nothing else can work!” And the well-known brands often use this to the hilt. That day I realized B2B buying was as irrational as B2C and emotions (both negative and positive) made a huge role in decision making.
----------
At this point, the ad has done its job of selling quite successfully. As you can see, an in-person sales follows almost the same steps and with almost same intensity. So there is much to learn from successful ads.
Why don’t you try taking your favorite TV ad and see if you can spot the above sales steps?
Post Script:
Just for the sake of completeness of sales steps, I am happy to detail here the other somewhat unique steps of applicable to F2F selling:
7. Trial Closure
Almost 95% of the ‘sale’ is done by step 6. So one can attempt a trial closure. It’s a test to determine if the buyer is ready to close. E.g. of such questions are: ‘So is the order coming this month or next?’ or ‘Do you prefer version A or B?’ or ‘It seems all departments like our offer. Is it true?”
If the sale is really through, the customer is moving to place an order. But, if not, there will be objections.
8. Handle Objections
Usually, customers start raising ‘concerns’ or ‘objections’ that a decent sales team has to handle. Most of these concerns would be those that the buyer needs to ‘file’ answers to; i.e. ensure the buyers knows them all and can tackle internal questions from Finance, IT, Purchase, etc.
8. Handle Objections
Usually, customers start raising ‘concerns’ or ‘objections’ that a decent sales team has to handle. Most of these concerns would be those that the buyer needs to ‘file’ answers to; i.e. ensure the buyers knows them all and can tackle internal questions from Finance, IT, Purchase, etc.
This blog post carries an exhaustive list of objections and how to respond to them.
9. Create Urgency
Even after tackling all the objections, and having a feeling that the sale is 99% done and yet there is no closure, try creating urgency. My most favorite is ‘If you place the order by this date, the price holds, else it goes up’.
10. Follow-up
The final law of sales is follow-up. Relentlessly.
Disagree? Why don’t you comment below?br>
