I sell memberships at the Chicago Botanic Garden. It’s a remarkably difficult job, and I’ve learned many lessons about how to sell, and the best ways to offer service to my customers. This is the start, the five most basic things you need to do in order to get the most sales, generate the most revenue, and earn the most money.
Sales Principle #1 – Believe in your Product
There are sales manuals and books all over that preach this one basic idea, but it is so very important that I cannot help but put it here. If you don’t believe that you are selling a good product, then you won’t convey the enthusiasm and sincerity that you need to get your message across to the customer.
Believing in your product means buying it, taking it home, and seeing what it can do to make your life better. If you sell multiple products, get them all. Use it on a regular basis, and sample the competition around the market. When customers ask you about it’s reliability, or alternative uses, you can answer their questions more honestly, compare it to the competition’s product, and give them the straightforward answer that they desire. When you’re able to tell about a product from personal experience, you no longer are a salesman, but an experienced owner, and that strikes a chord with buyers who are used to having products sold by salesmen who care nothing about their products and their well-being.
And, of course, believing in your product goes hand in hand with the second principle of good salesmanship as well.
Sales Principle #2 – Knowledge
Knowledge entails so many different things and covers so many different areas that it is terribly difficult to describe.
You need to know more than just your product when you’re selling. Know about your competitors, their pricing, and the advantages that your product is offering that their’s does not.
You need to keep up with technology and the latest trends involving everything even remotely related to your product. As a membership salesman at a Botanic Garden, I need to know about all the different advances being made in plant genetics (not necessarily something that I’m intimately acquainted with), because members will ask me about that. You are perceived initially as an expert in the field of whatever you’re selling, and if you show that you’re not on top of things, it erodes your credibility, and the trust that the customer has placed in you.
Another thing you need to do is to pick up a newspaper everyday and learn about what’s going on in the world. Some customers will start off the conversation with small talk, and it is important to be able to have an intelligent response. Again, you’re building trust, and with small talkers, it is necessary to prove that you’re friendly and trustworthy before they will completely give in to your advice.
Sales Principle #3 – Performance
They say that the world is a stage. If that’s true, then the salesman needs to perform the role of the actor.
While talking is your most powerful sales tool, most people are visual learners. Thus, instead of telling them about a certain feature, show them how it works, use a prop, or point. These kinds of things draw the customer’s focus, and almost force them to pay attention to you. And, as every good salesman knows, it is often the person doing the selling who has more influence on the purchase than the product itself.
If you do outside sales and presentations, bring visual aids, but more importantly, point them out and integrate their messages into your presentation! Many people bring visual aids and leave them off in a corner of the stage, forgotten, thus eliminating any effect the message could have on the audience. These visual aids also provide a mental break, both for the presenter and the audience, offering a change of pace, and renewed interest in what you are talking about. If you do a large number of sales presentations, consider getting a good performance book and reading up on additional techniques you can use to enhance your presentations.
Sales Principle #4 – The Pitch
Everyone develops a pitch. Maybe it was handed down to you from the person who trained you, or perhaps it came from a particularly successful sale, but you most likely have one particular sales pitch that really works for you.
I suggest that you recreate and refine your pitch to make it shorter, not longer. Shorter, more succinct pitches work well on those customers who are in a hurry or who just want the basics, and it allows the more careful shoppers to get an idea of what kinds of questions they want to ask you before they buy. Thus, it creates a shorter, more effective sale, and ensures that the customer knows everything they need and nothing more.
It can also help to break your sales pitch up into pieces. That way, if your customer wants more information, or is already up to date on the basics of a particular product, you aren’t left grasping for straws.
My membership sales pitch is broken down into five major parts: the introduction, the basic benefits, the more advanced benefits, the members-only events, and the pricing. It allows me to answer the five most common questions in a practiced and thought-out manner without giving too much information at once, and it gives me something to say while the customer is busy proclaiming how much they love the Botanic Garden.
Sales Principle #5 – Reading the Customer
Another thing which needs to be considered is the attitude of the customer. Reading their thought process, and knowing when to pounce, is the biggest key to turning your presentation into a sale.
There are some salespeople who do not believe in too much information. They think that the more you keep talking, the more likely the customer is to buy, however, I believe it is difficult to tell when a customer might hear something they don’t like. In addition, you could be wasting valuable time, both the customer’s and your own, while you continue pitching information when they just want to buy.
Thus, once I see a pattern of agreement, and that means both verbal agreement, and positive body language (like head nodding, increased eye contact, and increased interruption of my sales pitch), I try to close the sale. More often than not, they will go for it immediately.
It can take some time to get these signals down pat, and some customers give off natural agreement signals just as a habit. Knowing when to close the sale, however, requires practice, but is one of the most powerful sales techniques you can possibly master.
