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People always ask, “Is the Change over? Can
we stop now?”
You’ve got to tell them, “No, it’s just begun.” --Jack Welch, CEO, General Electric
Are you looking to sell more and earn more than you did last year (without
necessarily working harder or working more)? If the answer is yes (and I hope it
is), then, by definition, you need to change the way you are doing things.
Let’s suppose your goal is to increase sales over last year by 10%. What
you’re doing now almost certainly won’t get you to that goal! If it could,
the odds are that you would have reached the level in question last year. To
attain your new goal, you will need to change your actions.
Your changes may include increasing your activity levels, changing the way you
sell to increase your closing ratio, hiring staff, or rethinking your target
markets. Whatever changes you decide to make, the bottom line is that change is
required for all of us if we are to grow and perform better, and it’s
certainly a central preoccupation of Titan salespeople.
Where do you need to start making changes in your selling style? Take the short
quiz below to find out.
Personal Change Assessment Exercise
Review the sentences below and place a check mark by the statements that
apply to you.
___ I have lost sales because my customers thought my prices were too high.
___ I feel that sometimes I may be talking too much during my interactions with
customers.
___ Customers perceive my products and services as being equal to the
competition’s.
___ I find it hard to get the time and attention I need from my customer to
present my case.
___ I feel my customer is not listening closely to what I am saying.
___ I feel frustrated that no matter what I do, my customer still doesn’t seem
to appreciate my
solution.
___ I have accounts where I should be doing more business, but for some reason,
I am having
trouble getting my customers to agree to expand the relationship with me.
___ I have customers who do not perceive that I am capable of providing
solutions other than
the ones they’re already buying.
___ I have customers who are reluctant to answer some of my questions, or who
offer
information that turns out to be inaccurate or incomplete.
___ I need to find more qualified prospects who can use my products and
services.
___ I need to find better ways to reach my prospects.
If you checked off any of the eleven sentences above, then you should know that
there are areas where your income potential is significantly limited by your
present skill gaps. Keep in mind you don’t have to feel as though you must
instantly overcome all of the hurdles you face!
A (very) little consistent change is enough to deliver dramatic positive
results. According to noted management consultant Alan Weiss, by practicing the
“1% solution,” virtually anyone can move a career into high gear. Weiss
argues that if you improve your skills in a given area by only 1% every day,
then you will be twice as good in 70 days as you were when you started out.
In other words, according to Weiss, you can double your sales effectiveness
in 70 days if you improve your sales skills by just 1% a day in the right areas.
Imagine the impact that could make on your career and your life! For salespeople
who are willing to commit themselves to a 1% per day improvement level, the
implications to Weiss’s theory are absolutely staggering.
It may not always be easy to bring about -- but change is worth the effort.
Sometimes the market may ask you to change the ways you were taught to interact
with your customers and prospects. In other situations, the market will be more
subtle and you will have to learn to monitor some indirect indicators your
contacts send your way. I know of many, many instances where providers of
professional services were taught, formally or through their peers’ examples,
to come across as the expert, no matter what. That strategy may have worked at
one time. But my experience is that, these days, people want to be heard; they
don’t want to be talked down to. They know professionals have expertise, but
they know that they themselves have expertise, too. They’re the only people
who know where they’re trying to go!
These days, customers are better educated than ever before. There probably
isn’t a single subject they can’t readily get information on and learn about
in short order -- especially with today’s easy access to the Internet.
In many situations, prospects and customers really don’t need salespeople solely
for their superior expertise. What people are looking for is someone who will
show that he or she cares about what they have to say, and is willing to take
their ideas, requests, and requirements -- and combine all that with existing
expertise to yield a solution that fits like a glove. In other words, they want
the doctor’s best evaluation of ‘their
little girl’ -- not the last thirty little girls who walked in with
similar symptoms.
Offer that evaluation -- listen as no other salesperson does, and only then show
how you would treat the prospect’s unique problem -- and your customers will
suddenly perceive you as being the only one who has the solution they need. When
they feel that way, they will want to buy from you.
THE PAIN OF CHANGE
Let’s face it -- to change any habit, you have to learn a new way of
doing things. And any meaningful change we make in life is associated, on some
level, with pain and uncertainty.
It takes a willingness to overcome certain types of pain. The first kind of pain
you will experience could be the pain of establishing greater self-discipline in
certain areas. Adopting new habits and new behaviors requires that you push
yourself day after day to act in a way that is (initially) uncomfortable for
you. The reason you’re uncomfortable? You’ve grown used to acting in a
different way; you’ve done something else for a long period of time. Once you
act in a different manner for a certain period of time, the new routine will
become comfortable and automatic for you.
Let’s go back to your Change Assessment Exercise. What items did you mark off?
Where have you identified a need to make positive change? Let’s take the issue
of talking too much as an example; it’s a common problem for many, many
salespeople.
If you feel that you may be speaking too much in the sales call (which most
salespeople do), then it is time to find a way to change your routine -- and
speak less during your interactions with customers. This may sound easy, but
trust me, it is excruciatingly difficult for the vast majority of the
salespeople I work with! For some reason, many of us equate the act of speaking
with the establishment of power in a relationship. If we are talking, we
believe, then we are in a powerful position, a position to influence the
customer. This is not necessarily true!
The truth is, we can build strength only by listening
to our customers. Their answers are going to point us in the right
direction; their answers are going to let us know what they’re looking for and
where they want to go.
Do you feel more comfortable when you speak at length than when you ask
questions? Do you feel you have more control of your destiny when you are
presenting your features and benefits than when you are asking questions? Based
on my experience in sales and in training sales professionals, the majority of
sales people have this perception. It’s simply not accurate -- and laboring
under this assumption will cost you money and time.
The bottom line is this: You are going to feel pain in one of two ways,
regardless of whether you change your routine or stay with what you’re doing.
The first kind of pain is the pain of positive change, the pain of making the
changes you need to make to reach your goals, the short-term pain of learning
new techniques and doing different things in a given area. The other kind of
pain does not involve changing …but results in a far greater amount of pain.
This is the pain of not achieving your goals, of not realizing your dreams in
life.
The choice is yours. Which do you prefer -- the pain of not moving in any
meaningful way toward your goals, or the pain of growth?
TITANS EMBRACE CHANGE, TITANS SELL
CHANGE
This probably won’t come as much of a surprise: Your prospects and
customers feel the same way about change when you sell to them as you do when
you try to change the way you operate!
You may be trying to get someone to change vendors' altogether and give you the
business. Or, you may be trying to change your customer’s position on how much
business she is willing to give you. (Remember, Titans just don’t look for new
customers, they continuously look for ways to increase the revenues from
existing customers.) Whatever it is that you’re proposing that’s new, it
amounts to a change in the way the prospect does business -- and sometimes
it’s a major challenge to come to terms with that kind of change.
Whatever new steps you are trying to convince your prospect or customer to take,
you are asking that person to deal with the pain of change. If you are aiming to
convince people to replace their existing vendor with you, you are asking them
to go through the pain of changing how they do business. They have to adapt to a
new relationship, a new way of looking at things, a new set of risks. They may
have to change how their organization uses your product in place of a
competitor’s, and, at the bare minimum, they have to change their purchasing
and accounts payable records to make sure you get the orders and checks. If you
are asking your customers to buy your products at higher prices than you were
charging before (or what your competition is offering), that means you are
asking them to deal with the pain of spending more money than they’re used to.
Yes -- selling change can be tough! The Change Formula -- the formula
used by countless Titan salespeople as they make appeals to their customers to
change the status quo for the better -- is as follows:
PV = CNC CC
Perceived Value = Cost of No Change minus
Cost of Change
This is a formula you can count on, a law as reliable as the basic principles of
physics. Here’s what it means: If you can convince your customer that the cost
of staying where he is will be more costly to him in the end than accepting your
proposed cost of change, then you will, repeat, will, succeed in selling change
to your customer. If you cannot make that case, then you won’t win commitment
for change.
The key phrase in this formula is Perceived
Value. For now, remember this: To sell like a Titan and increase your
business, it is essential to be willing to sell the concept of change -- to
embrace change, rather than flee from it. Understand and appreciate the changes
occurring in your industry, as well as the changes you need to make in your own
selling routine. Embrace positive change in your own life and your own career!
If we ourselves don’t really want to change, then no amount of lecturing or
philosophizing is going to make us change. We have to get motivated. We have to
find out what the cost of changing, versus the cost of failing to change,
amounts to.
Ask yourself: What’s going to happen if you don’t find a way to
incorporate positive change in your life? What, specifically, will it cost you
to continue operating on the same level you’re operating on right now? What
will the biggest negative be for you? Figure out what it is -- and look at it in
detail!
You stand at the crossroads, Take a moment now to look closely at both the
negative costs that lie down one road ... and the positive rewards that await
you down the other road. Then ask yourself: Is change worth it? I believe
‘yes, absolutely!’
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