Blog: Seven quintessential sales mantras
All of us know them, but we still need to hear it as often as possible
The other day I was talking to a colleague about utilizing her spare time in sales. The first thing that she told me was that she didn’t want to be ‘pushy and ask for sales’. I explained to her that all of us are born salesmen. For example, look at our children. They push and push us till we buckle in and give a positive response to whatever they want. On rare occasions when parents refuse and stand their ground, after a bit of crying or sulking they just go on with their day and life without any stress or without letting the rejection affect their minds.
When it comes to our spouses or partners too we learn something else that is important. We negotiate with them on where we want to eat and what we want to wear etc. Eventually we manage to reach a middle ground fairly acceptable to both of us.
What we learn while we deal with our families and do to achieve a happy personal life could help us immensely in our approach to sales too.
Sales are all about hyper personalization in planning and execution. Here are some sacrosanct sales mantras:
1. Relationship = sales
Sales is almost always not just about your product or service. There are many equally good offerings in the market. The eventual decision of the client comes down to trust. So if you have an open, warm and friendly relationship with your client with a commitment to offer a value proposition beneficial to him, while creating value for yourself too, consider the deal done. It is about relationship recall value. That leads to a sale. The client remembering is the first and most crucial point. An opportunity to create a relationship should never be ignored for a quick sale or a slightly better profit. You increase the lifetime value with a client when you build a relationship.
2. Giving sales training for non sales employees
Your employees even from other non-sale verticals of the business are your spokespersons in the market. They could have a large network that they interact with. They might not have direct customer interface but as an employee of your companies, many implicit opportunities come across for them to talk about their employer which would be effectively capitalized with a good sales training. Offering all employees sales training sales and sales commission is an effective and cost effective marketing strategy.
3. The biggest chunk of business comes from word of mouth
As per research reports from a Nielsen survey, 67 % people feel they are more likely to buy a product recommended by someone in their network. These numbers could vary business to business, but the significance of word of mouth on your sales numbers should not be underestimated. People trust the opinion and recommendation of people they know. We are not likely to give a wrong recommendation as that can affect the personal relationship too. For a business word of mouth sales is valuable as it comes free, it is repeatable and brings in scalable growth. Word of mouth sales is free advertisement for your business. People buy from people that they know, like and trust.
4. 80% of WOM sales are from referrals
Referral marketing can be considered a segment of word of mouth marketing. It targets a specific person while urging them to refer to their friends and acquaintances. The existing customers are incentivized in an appropriate manner for introducing their family or friends. The referral system can be through any channel. It could direct, through social media, mailers or mobiles. Referral marketing is a cost effective method of increasing market reach as well as achieving customer engagement. Instilling trust in customers through referrals is easier too. If you are willing to put in the initial effort involved in coming up with a good referral system and put it in place, referral marketing is a great way to automate your marketing program. The merits of positive incentivization can never be overestimated.
5. Sales are not logical but emotional
Most of us choose a product because of an emotional trigger and then later rationalize the buy to ourselves and others with logic. This is why, you go planning to buy a functional android smartphone, simply because your need is only so much; but come home with an iPhone13. The product simply touched an emotional chord in you – probably pride, joy or even vanity. A need became a want. Then you reason to yourself that the privacy settings and brand value of an iPhone are unmatched. When you create emotion, you simultaneously create value.
6. Being upfront with pricing
It is important to be upfront with your customers about pricing and have the courage of conviction to stick to it. This makes the customer trust your product and your commitment to add value to it. It is a common mistake to be apologetic about your pricing or be defensive. While thorough research is necessary before you finalize your pricing policy, once it is finalized, there should be a strict viable bracket only within which you are willing to negotiate. Focus should be on delivering the best quality for the quoted price and not on bringing down the price by diluting quality. Believe in your business and the value add you bring to them- not every client will be a perfect fit for you, instead be the perfect fit for the right client.
7. Marketing is important even if your product is the best available.
The feeling that the product would speak for itself is a notion that keeps business people from making sales and marketing efforts. They consider that it speaks low of them or of the product if you have to market it. What should be understood here is that, No one cares for your business more than you. It is important to set quantifiable sales targets. We always work harder and more systematically with a target on hand. And like children we should learn to not take rejection personally. Even if we face rejection initially negotiating to make some sale, any sale, even of an alternate low value offering, is a smart idea. Something is better than nothing. No shame needed!
As business owners we learn and evolve. We learn to benefit by synergizing both personal and professional lives. In every spectrum of life, value creation is very important. At the end of a deal, the customer should feel that the money they spent is absolutely worthwhile and that is the beginning of a long lasting relationship. Sales will follow!
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