Category Archives for "Quick Sales Tips"

I was booked to speak at a client conference recently on the Vaal River, on the border of the Free State in South Africa. It was my first trip to the Vaal River, a very beautiful part of South Africa.

It’s always interesting when I work with clients that sell through Channel Partners, rather than selling direct to the end client themselves. Selling as a Channel Partner has some distinct differences than when you’re selling your own products and services.

So here are some tips on Selling as a Channel Partner.

(Note: These tips are based on you being the Channel Partner yourself – if you’re the Vendor interested in how I work with clients who ‘sell through the channel’, then please contact me here…)

Andy’s Sales Tip Number 1 – Don’t Be Afraid To Lean On The Vendor Where Possible!

This is the bit where most Channel Partners go wrong – right at the beginning! Don’t be afraid to lean on the Vendor if necessary! Most will be only too happy to help!

Most vendors will be only too happy to support their Channel Partners. Whether that’s with face-to-face joint visits, telephone or marketing support.

It’s often a good idea to ‘wheel in’ the vendor to face-to-face meetings, to add some ‘firepower’ and gravitas to your own organisation.It can also help when there are multiple people attending from the potential client, and there’s only one or two of you!

Plus, and documentation and marketing material is likely to be better produced by the vendor in most cases, and therefore gives a more favourable impression to the client, and increases your chance of winning the business! So don’t be afraid to lean on the vendor where you can!

Andy’s Sales Lesson Number 2 – Don’t Forget To Sell Yourself However!

Even though it’s a good idea to lean on the vendor when you can, that doesn’t mean you can forget about selling yourself!

You still need to get across to the prospect why they should work with YOU! Especially if you are pitching against other agents/channel partners for the same vendor as you! Or similar offerings from a different vendor/partner.

You need to establish YOUR credibility. Why they should choose you over the other people wanting the work. Your experience. Your expertise. Make yourself and what you’re offering irresistible (or as close as possible to!)

And the more potential suppliers the prospect is looking at, the more important this is!

Andy’s Sales Lesson Number 3 –Stay In Control

Staying in control isn’t easy in Sales. Especially when you’re a channel partner, and involving your vendor now has 3 parties involved in the sales situation!

You still need to take responsibility for taking control and guiding the sales process however. The vendor is there to assist you, not to replace you! They shouldn’t be taking over the sales process, you should still be leading and controlling it!

You need to control the sales process. Where you are at.
What the next step is. What you need to do to get there.
And gain commitment from the prospect to going there too.

Follow the tips above and start to sell like a Stand-Out Salesperson!

So, are you a Leader or a Follower when it comes to Selling?

This is an important distinction I often reference in my speeches, between a Standard salesperson, and a Stand Out Salesperson.

So How Do We Define The Two?

A Leader (Stand-Out-Salesperson) is someone who ‘leads’ the prospect – challenges their perceptions, gives new ideas, imposes themselves on the sales process, delivers and demonstrates value in the process, and gently ‘leads’ the client to the best solution. #proactive

A Follower (Standard salesperson) is someone who does what the prospect asks, follows their instructions and does what they are told. #reactive

Often you would find the Follower in Account Servicing roles (see my “Account Management Is Dead” blog here for more on this)

So Where Does This Have An Impact?

Here are just a few examples of where it can impact a salesperson….

• When the prospect asks ‘can you send me a proposal?’ – do you lead or follow?
• When you get an incoming lead with the specifications to quote – do you lead or follow?
• When the prospect at the meeting says ‘here is what I would like’ – do you lead or follow?
• When you get an ‘invitation to tender’ – do you lead or follow?
• When the prospect says ‘your competitors can do it at x price’ – do you lead or follow?
• When you get the chance to quote – do you lead or follow?
• When the prospects tells YOU the price they’re willing to pay – do you lead or follow?
• When you get told to ‘put everything in an email’ – do you lead or follow?
  

  So, when it comes to sales, are you and your team Leading or Following?

  Are you and your team standard salespeople? Or Stand-Out-Salespeople?

  If you and your team want to find out how to be Stand-Out-Salespeople (not standard salespeople), get in touch here  or
  call +44 161 401 0142 and we can talk about how we can get you and your team more like Stand-Out-Salespeople!

  I look forward to hearing about your future sales!

  This article is copyright Andy Preston 2004-2017. To copy or syndicate this or any part of this article, or to use Andy’s ideas, tactics and IP in your company, contact Andy Preston for guidelines.

This is something I talk about a lot in my Stand Out Selling Sales Training sessions.  And it’s unique to myself and the SOS methodology, so you won’t hear any other trainer or speaker talk about this (or if you do, let me know ;-))

Sales Landmines are things that will ‘blow up’ in your face if you don’t find out about them first, and ‘defuse’ them correctly.

The context for this is either on a telephone call (where you are moving through a lot of the sales process in one go) or on a video or face-to-face sales meeting, where you are about to ‘pitch’ the prospect on your product or service, or move them to the next step..

Most salespeople are guilty of moving too quickly towards pitching their product/service, when the prospect is still to see the value.  In other words, they still haven’t decided whether they need this product/service yet, and the salesperson is going into ‘this is my product/service and isn’t it great’ mode!

So What Happens If You Do That?

If you move too quickly towards ‘pitch’ mode, very often you’ll get hit by a ‘sales landmine’.

Let me give you an example here.  Let’s say that you are selling advertising (doesn’t matter whether it’s online or offline for this example).

You’re starting to pitch your advertising, and the prospect could ends up saying something like ‘yeah, but we’re not going to pay for advertising again’.

What this means is they paid for advertising in the past, got ‘burnt’ by another provider, and that made them determined not to pay for it again!

Traditional sales training will tell you that this is a ‘bad prospect’, other sales trainers will say they should have been ‘qualified out’.  They are wrong.

So What’s The Truth?

The truth is this is a ‘sales landmine’  You should have found out about their previous experience with advertising in the questioning phase of your meeting/call.  (You are following a defined sales method/process for your call or meeting aren’t you?  If not, message me here and we can talk about why that is essential for sales success).

Because you didn’t, it’s now ‘blown up’ in your face, and it will be almost impossible to turn this sales call/meeting around, and get them to invest with you.

That’s the salesperson’s fault for not finding it out earlier, and having a plan (or angle) to deal with it.

‘Stand Out’ Salespeople find out potential ‘landmines’ during the questioning phase of their call/meeting, create ‘angles’ to defuse and deal with them, and progress the call/meeting to the next stage, or close.

If you and your team want to find out how to do that better, get in touch here  or call +44 161 401 0142 and we can talk about how we can get you and your team better at overcoming ‘sales landmines’

I look forward to hearing about your future sales!

This article is copyright Andy Preston 2004-2017. To copy or syndicate this or any part of this article, or to use Andy’s ideas, tactics and IP in your company, contact Andy Preston for guidelines.

One of the most difficult (yet hardly talked about) objections to deal with in sales, is the ‘principled’ objection.

This is something I cover fully in my Stand Out Selling Objection Handling training, and it’s something unique to me and that system. So you won’t ever hear other sales trainers or speakers talk about this (although if you do, let me know because that would mean they’ve ‘stolen’ it from me, and I need to go and talk to them about it ;-))

So what do I mean by the ‘principled’ objection? And why is it an important part of objection handling?

The Oxford English dictionary defines principled as ‘(of a person or their behaviour) acting in accordance with morality and showing recognition of right and wrong’

What I mean in relation to this is when the product/service you’re trying to promote, the ‘angle’ you’re using or the package you’re trying to discuss is against their ‘principles’.

Let Me Give You An Example…….

Your objective in this situation is to tell the customer about the offers you have available, and sell this existing customer an additional product. A typical outbound sales call for some clients that I work with.

They already have a product with you on monthly subscription/contract, but your objective on this call is to sell them an additional one, or a complimentary product that is linked to the one they already own.

That means an increase in the monthly fee they are paying, or a separate contract for the new product that will increase the amount they are paying overall.

The problem is, early in the call, they tell you they are happy to hear about any offers, but they DO NOT want to increase the amount they are paying every month. Now that’s a fairly major problem, if your objective (and your commission) is based on increasing their payment, not reducing it!

Why Most Standard Sales Training Doesn’t Help Here…..

Now here’s what every other sales training company or programme will tell you what to do. They’ll tell you to either ignore it (and run the risk of irritating the other person that thinks you aren’t listening), or they’ll tell you to ‘objection handle’ it, and tell them all the benefits of increasing their monthly fee (which really runs the risk of putting their back up, ad it’s the opposite of what they just told you).

Neither of those work very well in my experience.

So What Do We Need To Do Differently?

The Stand Out Selling way of tackling the ‘Principled’ objection deals with this in a very different way.

In order to deal with the ‘principled’ objection, you HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE ‘PRINCIPLE’ FIRST!

In other words, you need to deal with the principle of ‘I don’t want to spend any more money on a monthly basis’ BEFORE you can suggest any increase, or talk about the benefits of what they could get by increasing their payment, or taking on an additional contract.

If you FAIL TO DO THIS, you will almost always come up against resistance.

However, once you overcome this part, dealing with the objection is far easier!

If you’re interested in learning more about dealing with the ‘principled’ objection for yourself or your sales team, or what to understand more about the Stand Out Selling methodology, get in touch here, or call us on +44 161 401 0142, and we’ll be happy to help!