Let's face it, people buy from people, particularly people
they trust and like people who remind them of themselves.
People that they can trust. Therefore it is important for
you, as a sales professional, to be aware of and to
understand the universal needs of buyers.
The competencies of sales professionals are numerous but
boil down to human interaction, communication and
relationship building. You, as a sales professional, needs
to establish rapport and build trust, to communicate
effectively and to develop and maintain lasting
relationships, if you are to succeed in the sales
profession.
In order to build a long-term relationship, you as a sales
professional, must first establish rapport. You need to
know how to build rapport quickly so that you can gain the
trust that is needed to ask questions and get answers. You
need two basic communications skills the skill of asking
questions and listening to the responses.
What is the point of asking questions if you are too busy
thinking up other questions to ask and not listening?
At one time sales professionals were taught to follow the
golden rule "Do onto others as you would like to have done
onto yourself." That was a great rule to follow. Under the
golden rule, and it is right to say, that to yourself,you
are the most important person in the world and how your
treat yourself is how you should also treat others.
However, over the years the golden rule has been replaced
with the Platinum rule "Do onto others as they would like
to have done onto themselves." The platinum rule takes on a
different approach. What it is saying is that when you are
with another person, treat them the way they would like to
be treated, not the way you would want to be treated.
Therefore, we have had to change our sales approach.
As a salesperson, when we meet with a prospect or a client,
who is the most important person in the world? I hope you
said the opposite of the golden rule and said the prospect
or client. If so, great, because without a prospect or a
client, you have absolutely no chance of selling them
anything. Do you agree? I hope so.
So, if the prospect or client is the most important person
in the world when it comes to sales and we are to follow
the platinum rule, we best treat them the way they want to
be treated. So, sales professionals need to understand the
universal needs of buyers.
There are basically four universal needs that sales
professionals must address to satisfy buyers. The first one
is that buyers have a need to be understood. That means we
must listen to them and question them to better understand
them. The problem many sales people have is that they don't
listen and worst yet, they don't question the answers they
receive to get even more information. More to come on this
in another article on questioning skills.
The second universal need is that buyers need to feel
welcomed. How do you welcome people that come and visit
you at home? Do you welcome prospects and clients the same
way, even in their own premise? Buyers have the need to
feel important. How important do you make them feel in your
presence? Showing interest by asking questions and taking
notes is one way to do that.
They also have the need to feel comfortable. How can you
make them more comfortable?
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Bob Urichuck is an International Speaker, Trainer and
Best-Selling Author. Learn personally from Bob in the areas
of Sales, Motivation, Leadership and Team Skills. Bob
presents a series of great ideas and strategies with
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