Professional salespeople are so elegant; they "listen" people into buying. This not only means you effectively probe for needs and wants, but it also suggests you pay more attention to how the prospect reacts to what you say. Some of those reactions are cues from your prospect that they have heard enough and want you to move to the next stage of the process. Sometimes these cues indicate they want to buy.
Most sales are a complete accident. They occur because you happen by chance to stop talking, and the prospect coincidentally is ready to buy. If you know how to listen while also possessing some product knowledge. All you need is to stop talking.
As simple as this seems, 70 percent of your sales are lost because you don't know when to close. Knowing when is more important than knowing how. If you have done a good job of gaining your prospect's trust, he or she usually does the closing. Sometimes, you just have to be sharp enough to ask "What do you think?" and then listen. They often say, "Sounds great."
But if you try to talk your prospect into submission, you'll find yourself manipulating. When you do that, you gain short-term sales and long-term losses. Your customer will ask for a refund a few days later. Prospects will show you innocuous but obvious cues indicating when they want to buy. If you miss any one of those cues, you miss the sale.
Sign up for The Lead and get a new tip in your inbox every day!
More tips:
- The 50 best ways to generate leads
- 6 degrees of marketing strategy: Lessons from Kevin Bacon
- The most important step in asking for referrals
Kerry Johnson, MBA, Ph.D., is a best-selling author and frequent speaker at financial planning and insurance conferences around the world. Peak Performance Coaching, his one-on-one coaching program, promises to increase your business by 80 percent in eight weeks. To see if you are a candidate for this fast-track system, click on www.KerryJohnson.com/coaching and take a free evaluation test.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.