SELLING

Through effective advertising and marketing, you have brought customers to your store in a state ready to purchase from you. Many businesses loose the sale at this point, because they are not aware of the basic techniques of selling.

Humans are predisposed to avoid pain and receive pleasure and this drives everything we do. Customers buy products or services to give them pleasure or avoid pain. The reason they don't buy everything they can is because of some perceived pain they want to avoid in the buying process.

They are only happy if the purchase is worth the benefit. For these people to buy, the perceived pleasure must be greater than the perceived pain.

Salesmanship

Selling is about a relationship ? not the goods or the service.

It is about understanding the customer, developing emotion in the customer to buy. To do this you need to adapt and adjust your rate of speech and body language.

First sell yourself, the company, the product or service, then the price.

The better your marketing and advertising are, the easier it is to sell, as many of the steps required to sell have been covered.

The sales process should start with ?

- marketing and attracting interest and leads, then

- communicating with the prospect, then

- qualifying the prospect,

- addressing the needs of the prospect

- closing the sale and then

- asking for referrals

The goods or services offered by your business are constantly being evaluated by potential customers. Depending on your type of operation and location, you may be phoned or visited and asked just a question, or a series of in depth questions. Or your advertising or web page may be scrutinized for more information. It is how you handle these enquirers and information gatherers that will determine if you will sell to them.

88% of sales are based upon emotion not price ? but remember too high a price can trigger an emotion of fear or pain

Ask any store owner and I am sure they will tell you the most frustrating thing about dealing with the public, is that most walk in and if you ask them ?Can I help you at all?? and they say

?No thanks ? just looking? and leave shortly after without purchasing anything.

The other annoyance is having people call you for a price, only to get it and hang up and ring somewhere else looking for something cheaper.

In each instance, you have to engage the prospect in conversation, to establish some key points to take them to a level where they will buy from you, not because you are the cheapest, but because you built a relationship with them and showed them the value of the goods or services being offered and the value in buying from you.

What is the difference between a Lead and a prospect?

You need to know where this person stands in the buying cycle. Are they ?

A Lead ? a person whom you have reached through one of your marketing methods discussed in chapter 4. A lead has become interested enough to enquire more to see if what you are offering meets their need or solves their problem.

or

A prospect ? is a lead that believes what your business offers should meet his needs or solves his problems and he has the resources available to make a purchase.

Only through conversation can you establish which one of these you are dealing with and bring them to a level where they will buy. As with most everything else discussed in this book, this will require a system. One that any of your staff who deal with the public (face to face or over the phone) can use.

This system is to be used to determine what needs your leads and prospects have and to address those needs, BEFORE giving them a firm price on anything.

The 6 Steps to the selling System

Selling is a step by step process and if each of the steps is taken in that process, at the end of it, the customer has no reason not to buy from you.

The steps are ?

1. Establish report and build trust

2. Qualify ? listen and understand

3. Create desire for the solution to their problem or need

4. Build value in your solution

5. Overcome objections

6. Take the order.

Always think of your business from your customers point of view. This is best done by thinking What's in it for me? ? because that's what your customer is always thinking.

I can help you with this and every aspect of your business through my step by step, hand holding mentoring program. I can lay out far more detail on how to teh six steps to selling and how to convert that to an over 90% close rate.

At this site you can access over $2,000 of bonuses for FREE to help you and your business.

? Andrew Carter 2008 ? not to be reproduced without including the Authors Bio with the article.