Ask Questions

Discover and Verify

In an earlier message, I said that the first step to pumping up your sales is to find people with money and a need.

And then, you also need a medium or a way to reach them.

The next step is to discover and verify.

What does that mean?

When you’re selling big-ticket items, such as office equipment or real estate, you want to find out what the buyer wants.

What are their criteria?

What are their problems that those items will help solve?

A great way to know this is to create a questionnaire, like when we do a training interview for a company.

We have a list of about 50 questions we ask them – about their teams, salespeople, selling cycles, those things. Next, we ask them to rate themselves on a scale from one to ten.

That’s how we can show them where they’re weak and where they’re strong.

The same scenario applies here.

It’s helpful to let the customer do a self-assessment when you do the discovery. That’s because it helps them understand their problems. They may think that they need more money, but in reality, there’s a reason they don’t have it.

Nobody ever became overweight because they ate one piece of chocolate cake, right? There’s something going on with their eating pattern that’s making them gain the weight, not that single piece of cake.

So, you need to list those problems.

An online questionnaire works well for this purpose. It’s a great way to get an appointment. Offer them a free assessment to see if you can help.

If there’s chemistry, you can continue to work together. If not, you can move on.

How easy is that?

Just be honest and don’t try to sell too soon.

People suffer what I call premature closing syndrome. When you’re so eager to make the sale, they can smell it on you and put up their guard.

That’s why you should show that you have a genuine interest in your customer. Build good rapport and find a way to add value. Help them find solutions to the problems found in the discovery before you make the offer.

That’s the whole deal.

Through asking lots of questions, you discover the issues. After that, you verify their answers and help them connect the dots.

 

Be Awesome,

Blair

 

If you’d like to master discovering the right clients which will catapult your business sales, click here>>

Call to Action

Have you ever seen Glengarry Glen Ross?

You might remember what the sales manager, played by Alec Baldwin said in the movie:

“ABC – Always Be Closing.”

Business owners usually struggle with closing the deal. When it’s time for this part of the sales cycle, many of them don’t know the best way forward.

If this is the case with you, I’m here to help.

I’d like to talk about a particular mistake that I often come across:

Forgetting to include a call to action.

When you present your offer, how do you finish the presentation?

It doesn’t matter whether you’re presenting live, via chat, or through your website. All sales presentations must end with a clear call to action.

Why?

Let’s say you got everything right to this point. You’ve researched your audience, found their problems, and shown them what you can do to fix them.

You’re talking about your program and ending it with how much it costs.

What do you expect to happen in this situation?

In most cases, you’ll hear crickets.

If someone decides to buy, it would be because they’re already warmed up enough. However, this wouldn’t be the case for the majority of your prospects.

What they need is a nudge in the right direction.

And your call to action is that nudge.

You must tell people to sign up, contact you, or do whatever else it takes to start working with you.

It makes no sense to invest so much time and effort in sales if you don’t tell people exactly what the next step should be.

If you remember my past messages, you know I mentioned that you need to connect all the dots for the prospect. And a clear call to action is among the most important in this regard.

Make sure that yours is clear and effective enough to motivate people to buy.

Be Awesome,

Blair

If you’d like to master the presenting your call to action which will catapult your business sales, click here>>

Asking the Right Questions

Many people don’t know this but selling is more about listening than talking.

Bombarding your prospect with how amazing your offer is won’t turn a “no” into “yes.”

On the other hand, you’ll have a much better shot at it by listening closely.

Like I explained, the way to handle objections is to acknowledge and ask questions. After you’ve confirmed that a prospect dislikes your offer for some reason, the first thing you need to do is to find out why.

If someone tells you that your offer is too expensive, ask why they think so. Do they genuinely not have enough money for it? Or, are they comparing it to something else that seems to offer more value for the price? Maybe it’s neither and the prospect just wants to negotiate a lower price.

In any case, there’s no way to find out what’s wrong unless you ask.

Remember that the answer is “no” by default if you don’t ask.

In my experience, a big reason why people can’t sell is that they don’t ask enough of these questions. And it’s because they freeze as soon as the prospect declines.

You’ll fix this problem by acknowledging the objection and asking questions. It will also make you feel calmer and more rational during a sales meeting or presentation, which is vital to closing the deal.

The more emotional you get, the less intelligent you become.

This is true for just about anything in life, including sales. The prospect will have all the power if you allow emotions to overwhelm you.

To prevent this, ask the right questions and listen closely to the answer. You’re bound to find something that you can use to change a prospect’s mind at some point.

Best of all, this is something that gets better with practice. Even if you have no idea how to handle objections the right way, it shouldn’t take you a lot of time to learn.

Be Awesome,

Blair

If you want know the secrets to asking the right questions, online or offline so they trust, love, and respect you within minutes, I’d like to invite you to click here >>

Different Ways to Generate More Leads

In all the years I’ve travelled the world and spoken on stage, audiences ask me the same question:

Blair, how do I find people with money and a need?

Those are the leads that you want. But, it may be a struggle for you to pinpoint which way works best.

I can take you through different ways to generate more leads.

Pick out the one that works best for you and your target audience:

  1. Serving First
    I’ve used this method in every business I’ve ever been with.It works like this…I find a customer or a few customers that I could work for. I do it for free if it’s a service or at cost if it was a product. This helped me get established and also get a testimonial.This is a powerful strategy to use to get yourself started. You get a testimonial, referrals, and that free customer could be a better paying customer later.
  2. Cold Calling
    I have friends in the business that still maintain that cold calling is the most efficient way to generate leads, in terms of time and money.There are a few caveats to make this work, though.You need to:

      • Organize
      • Know what you’re doing
      • Practice what to say
      • Understand your selling cycle

      Also, remember that the purpose of cold calling isn’t necessarily to sell. It’s to get an appointment if your business lends itself to that.

  3. Poodle Strategy
    You may be familiar with our SalesDog personalities. If you are, you know that the poodle type schmoozes and networks.Just remember that introductions from someone else lend more credibility. So, get someone you know to introduce you to the other person.
  4. Retriever Approach
    Following the dog selling personalities, another strategy you can take is the golden retriever. With this strategy, you find leads by association. That means your network, any group you belong to, whether it’s a parent-teacher group or the Chamber of Commerce.

    Also, you can join groups associated with big international business networking organizations. These groups are there specifically to network with other professionals.

    There are a variety of ways to approach lead generation. The key is to choose the one that works best for your business and your target audience.

    #blairsinger #salesdogs #TeamCodeofHonor #RichDadAdvisors #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #Sales #PersonalDevelopment #Management

How to Get the Money You need when I Close?

I’ve been on countless stages and one question I hear a lot is:

Blair, how do I get the money I need when I close?

The answer is simple if you’ve followed my techniques so far.

You got through the basic elements to close a deal. Now it’s time to deliver.

If you asked trial close questions throughout your conversations, your client may already be on board. But, now you need to arrange the delivery and payment part.

First, you’re going to talk about pricing. Especially if you haven’t worked out a deal beforehand.

Your business or product costs money. And, this is where a lot of salespeople get hung up.

I always bring up two prices when closing a deal. The first price is your competitor’s pricing or pricing that’s not yours. Choose a price that’s more expensive than yours and bring it up first.

For example, I did a deal with an airline company a few years back for some team development training and a little bit of sales training. I knew that they used a very big global consulting firm at the time.

The firm was very good and very professional. And they were also very expensive.

So, when I got around to pricing, I broached the $100,000 per month they were paying for the firm’s consulting service. I also brought up the value of my training, but I wasn’t charging $100,000 per month.

When I mentioned my pricing, it looked cheaper in comparison.

What happens if you just throw a number out there without the comparison?

Many people don’t understand the value of what you have in a monetary sense. So, it’s a good idea to offer a comparison price before you tell them what your prices are. Otherwise, your pricing looks expensive without the comparison.

Sometimes you may have a third price or discounted price. If you have the ability to give a discounted price, offer it last. Don’t say it upfront, though.

Talk about the discounted price at the very end once they’re already sold on the whole deal.

Also, give a limitation on the deal by quantity or by time. If you don’t put limitations on it, the deal has no validity. Plus, it sounds like you’re just trying to schmooze people.

Remember, it’s all about how you frame it.

#blairsinger #salesdogs #TeamCodeofHonor #RichDadAdvisors #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #Sales #PersonalDevelopment #Management

Build Confidence and Ask Questions

You know that I’m a big advocate for quieting that little voice in your head. It stands in the way of so many things in life.

And, that includes your sales deals.

So, I have two words for you: role play.

You need to role-play. One of the ways to get over it, is through it.

I’ve worked with seasoned veterans. I got them to role-play handling the toughest objections until they have it down cold.

And, then I watched their conversions go up by 30% to 40%.

Why?

Not because they had snappy answers, because it’s not about the answers. It’s because their confidence level was so high, the person at the other end had a level of confidence in them as well.

Nobody’s going to give you $100,000 if they think you’re a shaky individual. So, you need to build up that confidence with role-playing.

It’s essential that you cover these components in your role-play:

  • Build Confidence

First, the old rule of thumb is, the person who asks the question is always in control. So, when you hear the objection, the first thing you do is acknowledge it.

“Thank you. I appreciate what you’re saying.”

Do this to create a point of agreement before you handle the objection.

  • Ask Questions

Next, it’s time for you to ask a question:

“Why do you think it’s too expensive?”

“What are you comparing it to?”

Of course, you can ask any question you want. But, the point is to ask a series of intelligent questions to get to the truth. Many times, the first objection is not the real objection.

It’s a bit like the first volley to get you out of the way or put you off. Practice countering it with your own questions.

  • Bring the Little Voice in Your Head Down and Confidence Up

Lastly, when role-playing, focus on getting past that little voice between your ears. When faced with an objection, you can’t falter. If you do, stop the role-play and start again.

Why isn’t it okay to hesitate? We hesitate in real life, right?

But remember, this drill isn’t about you handling a prospect. It’s about you killing that damaging, debilitating little voice. So, you need to learn to override it.