Inga Lalić: How to Delight and Retain Customers with Your Sales Techniques?

At some point in your career, even if you are not a salesperson, you will have to sell something. Your idea, a service, or a product. So how can you improve your sales skills?

Sales, in general, has a bad reputation. Very few parents want their children to grow up to be salespeople. MBA students are no different. Many say that sales is something they never want to do in their careers. The resistance to sales stems from the outdated idea that salespeople push people to buy something they do not want, do not need, or cannot afford.

You have probably found yourself in that situation at least once. This happens because most salespeople are self-taught in sales; they have not undergone training or read a single book on sales to equip themselves or their teams to be more successful in sales.

—

— 

So many people dislike sales, yet every day they sell themselves, their ideas, and so on. Every day we sell something to our partners, children, colleagues, bosses, parents, and they to us. Every time you want to go to the cinema and manage to convince your partner to happily agree to watch the movie you want, you have sold them your story. Just as you sell to them and steer the water to your mill, the same thing happens in business, except you are not selling a movie you would like to watch but products or services.

Sales is fundamentally a very simple skill, only if you know a little about human psychology and the laws of sales. You cannot sell to everyone in the same way. You must first find out as much information as possible about the customers so that you can then sell them exactly what they want in a way that satisfies their needs. I like to joke and say that children are actually the best salespeople; they always get what they want. Sometimes we need to be like children, curious and without prejudice, and we just need to dare to ask and listen, rather than talk incessantly and not pay attention to the interlocutor.

Why Do Businesses Fail?

Today, there are many companies in the market that deal with training and education in sales and communication skills. Every kuna you invest in this will return to you multiple times. When I work with clients on increasing profits and expanding businesses, alongside consulting and coaching, a key part of the program includes sales and communication training for the employees of that company. Nothing is worth it if we create a great project, a business plan, and expansion strategies, and then there is no one to implement and sell it to the existing and new users or clients.

We are witnessing how many businesses fail or close from various sectors because the owners and their employees were not skilled in sales and did not know how to set up and build a team that will manage and lead the business. This is especially evident now, when customers have become picky and weigh every kuna they will spend.

The times of mass sales are passing; today, direct sales are increasingly coming to the forefront, which requires building relationships with existing customers, and this requires much more investment of time and effort to acquire and retain customers and clients. Today, when the market is saturated with various products and services, and when there is competition in almost everything, the only way to attract and retain a customer is the level of service you provide and how you treat them.

People continue to buy and spend their money, just maybe not with you, but they leave their money with the competition or somewhere else. Your task is to win them over to spend with you. And you can only do that if you become better and more skilled in selling and promoting your products and services.

What Do Customers Want?

One of the most common mistakes that salespeople make is offering customers their products or services by telling them everything they know about those products and services, giving great reasons and arguments for purchase, and the most common response they receive is that the customer will think about it or will inquire a bit more, etc.

Whenever you see a salesperson who talks a lot or meet with them, know that they are a bad salesperson. Remember one fact! Customers will not think about your product or service; they are just polite when they say they will. The moment they leave your office, business space, or store, they immediately forget what you told them. People do not buy for the reasons you impose on them; they are not interested in your reasons or arguments. Customers are interested in their reasons and buy for their reasons. And in 80 percent of cases, your reasons and theirs are not the same.

So, the most important part of the sales process is discovering the customer’s needs. You must find out what the needs of your potential customer are and take as much time as you need to ask as many questions as possible and carefully listen to what they tell you to discover the real reason why a particular customer needs to buy your product or service at that moment.

Why Is It Important to Build a Relationship with the Customer?

When you find that out, you have an argument to give them in sales. Today’s customers are very spoiled and demanding and will not buy from you until they are completely convinced that you are their friend and that you will do everything in their favor. They will only buy from those people they like. So, the first thing you must do during a sales conversation with a customer is to establish communication with them and build a relationship of trust. Align with them both verbally and non-verbally and win them over to your side by clearly showing them that you care about them and want to provide them with what is best for them.

If you start talking about your product or service before you have built a relationship, they will lose interest in buying from you. After all, if you do not truly care about the customer, why would they care about your product or service? Have you ever found yourself liking a certain product or service, but the salesperson was unlikable? In most such situations, you will not buy and will leave, even if the product, service, and price were ideal.

You must know the reasons why customers buy, what their motivations are. When you know that, you will find it much easier to discover and fulfill their desires and needs. Customers are not interested in the characteristics of your products and services; they are not interested in what your products are made of and their utility value. These are all rational reasons, and customers do not buy rationally but emotionally. They are only interested in what your product or service can do for them.

You sell a solution to a specific problem or the satisfaction of a certain real need. We make the purchasing decision one hundred percent emotionally, only that we then have to rationally explain that decision at the end to justify that purchase. Emotions and needs drive us to make a purchasing decision, and logic to actually buy. Only at the conclusion of the sale do the characteristics of your products and services come to the fore.

How Well Do You Know Your Customer?

• What is the greatest benefit or gain that the customer/client receives in collaboration with you?
• Why would they even buy your product or service?
• Why would they buy from you? And why specifically from your company?
• What benefits does your product offer?
• What does your customer gain by purchasing your product or service, and not from your competitor’s product?
• What is the area of excellence of your company or your product?

Value Determines the Price of the Product

When you design your sales presentation in advance and deliver it effectively, the question of price will only arise at the end, when the customer has already made a purchasing decision. If a potential customer asks you for the price before you have finished presenting your product or service, tell them that you will soon answer their question and continue with the presentation.

If you mention the price at the wrong moment, you can turn off the customer. If you say it too early, before the customer perceives all the benefits and value they will receive by purchasing, they will only think about the amount you mentioned. Always postpone the discussion about price until the end of the presentation, when the customer becomes aware and realizes all the advantages that your product or service will have for them, which greatly exceed the price they will pay for them.

Every person buys driven by different motivational factors. It is mostly related to personal values that make, from the customer’s perspective, your product or service seem like something of great value. Very often, salespeople try to convince the customer to buy their product because it is the most affordable on the market.

However, customers often care more about the name or brand that sells the product and are willing to pay more, especially those customers for whom status is high on the hierarchy of needs. People often expect that price is among the primary motivational drivers when making a purchasing decision. In reality, price is often at the bottom of the list of elements that people consider.

Customers are mostly willing to pay more if you offer them enough value for that higher price. This means that the price is not as important as the value that the customer receives. Value determines the price, not the other way around. Value is a very relative concept. Value represents what your customer wants and needs, and that is why it is so important to discover what that is.

What Is Your Blue Cow?

If your sales and marketing activities resemble those of other companies, then your potential customers cannot assess the true value you provide. Then your product or service turns into a mere commodity among a mass of other similar products and services. In the absence of information about value, the client will instinctively choose the cheapest product. Do not let that happen to you. You must find a quality way to be different from others and special. What is your “blue cow”? Do not compete in the market on price, as there will always be companies among your competitors that are willing to constantly lower prices.

If you provide better value than the competition and introduce that value to your potential clients, in that case, you can even raise the prices you charge for your product or service. Most clients are willing to pay a higher price if they understand the value they are receiving.

There are three price points for any product or service: the lowest, the highest, and the average price. The worst is the average price. No one knows who you are; you get lost in the crowd. The problem with the lowest prices is that there is always someone from the competition constantly lowering prices. To remain competitive in the race for the lowest price, you earn less and less, and that is not the philosophy of entrepreneurship. Therefore, fight in the market for the position of the highest prices. You need to find a way to reach your ideal clients. Be creative, not cheap. Low prices will not lead you to your ideal clients.

Closing Sales

Eighty percent of closed sales do not happen before the fifth meeting or sales attempt. After you ask a potential customer for the fifth time to make a purchasing decision, you achieve most of your sales. Remember that it usually takes 5 attempts to break the customer’s natural skepticism and resistance.

Most people who work in sales never attempt to close the sale. And when you have the opportunity to offer the customer your product or service, you tell them everything you know about it, give great reasons and arguments for purchase, and the most common response you get is that the customer will think about it, or that they will consult with their mom, dad, husband, sister, friend, they will inquire a bit more, etc.

If you give a potential customer the opportunity to leave and think about the product, it is very likely that they will gradually forget what attracted them in the first place or, worse, they will encounter another salesperson and buy from them, not you. If the customer says they need to think despite everything, ask them what exactly they need to think about? Their answer will give you further guidance on how you should conduct the sales conversation and move towards closing the sale.

A large number of sales closures are delayed for the simple reason that salespeople are insecure and hesitate to ask for the order or transaction. As soon as the customer shows interest, you close the sale immediately.

—

—

Inga Lalić participates in the Leader online academy “How to Increase Sales” with a lecture “Presentation Skills and Handling Objections” on May 21, 2020. More about it on Leader’s website.

{embed_digitalno_izdanje}{/embed_digitalno_izdanje}