One of the biggest questions I get from clients and in particular
sales people is…
How do I sell when no one is buying?
Which is a close cousin to “how do I compete when my customers are
undercutting me one price?”
Both are good questions and on first blush, look like
they could be quite significant “show stoppers”.
But like many things, once you dig a little deeper, you
begin to see some pretty significant opportunities
that are not being taken advantage of.
Ultimately, it’s about shifting the focus away from
product and price and onto value
Below I am going to outline 4 moves you can make to continue to
smash sales results even when people
aren’t buying or things are slower.
1.Provide Value First
One of the best things you can do if you are looking to bring on a
new client is to add value first.
Now there is a fine balance between working for free and providing
value up front.
In many cases it could simply be making them aware of things in their
business that they may not be aware of.
In the book The Challenger Sale, they highlight some study that
shows that HOW you sell actually is a better predictor your sales results more so than WHAT
you sell.
So how can we sell differently ?
2.Follow up (without being a stalker)
Follow up with older clients or clients who enquired but never went
ahead
There is gold in your existing client list and also the list of people
who have enquired but not gone ahead. Email them and ask if they are
still interested.
Just last week I had a client who called someone who had enquired about her service
5 months ago who she thought was a no. Turns out when she called and followed up this woman was suddenly a yes and became a paid client.
Things change – you just need to be top of mind when they do.
3.Help them dodge a Bullet
If you can identify a potential landmine that your client is likely
to step on or would have stepped on had they not spoken to you, that
can be a massive step toward in them choosing your product or service.
4.”Clean the Shades”
When I was the sales manager for Arnette sunglasses one of the
things that always allowed us to sell product to retailers in
slower markets was going into each store and re-arranging the
sunglass in the display and cleaning the eyewear on a regular basis.
This helped us achieve a number of strategic advantages
- It made the display look great which drew more people to the
sunglass area. - Customers would crowd around the cabinet and often you could
sell one or two pairs for the retailer which they always loved. - It allowed us to take an inventory of the stock and often find gaps that needed filling
In fact while I am on that, if you are a wholesale rep presentative
and you deal with retailers, “making their till ring” is one
of, if not the highest value thing you can do for a client.
Here’s a couple of examples of other things that I have personally done that has helped
me to win clients when things seemed pretty quiet.…
Mystery Shops
If I believe I can help someone, sometimes I will mystery
shop their sales process and give them feedback. I often
do this after they become a client but I have often done
it before as well as a value add up front
Education based marketing
Send them an article or a book that is topical for what they
are experiencing as a business or in their industry. We help our clients do this
with the shock and awe packs that we help clients put together.
These are full of information that is often really helpful to
prospective clients and help them avoid making bad decisions
or costly mistakes.
So what about you? What are some value adds that you can do ?
What are some past clients or enquiries that you can go back
to that could represent an opportunist because their situation
has changed?
Get to work; end some emails, make some calls, investigate
some businesses that you could add some value to just by
helping them to avoid making a mistake or adding value.
Once you start brainstorming you’ll find a stack of things
you can do to get things cranked up again.
If you’d like to have a more serious conversation about how
we can work together to increase your sales and double your current conversion
rates, head over to this link.
Please only apply if you are at a stage in your
business where you are prepared to make an investment in
time and resources to cause a long terms shift in your sales
results.
I look forward to chatting to you.
