by Tera Jewell | May 29, 2024 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Building trust in customer relationships is critical to a successful sales cycle. To establish trust you need to understand your client’s needs and always keep their welfare in mind. Your ability to enter their world and understand it requires that you have a genuine rapport with them. Without heartfelt rapport it is difficult to develop trust and influence. People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Listen
Listening is the fastest way to gain understanding of your customer’s background. If you are successful in encouraging your customer or prospect to talk about themselves for 20 minutes, they will bond with you. This requires strict adherence to the 80/20 listening rule. That is, the customer talks for no less than 80% of the time: you actively listen for 20% of the time.
Here is a series of questions to ask that will help you understand your customer’s background.
- How long have you worked here?
- What are your responsibilities?
- How long have you lived in this area?
- How do you get to work?
Note behavior
Another way to learn more about your customer is to note their behavioral mannerisms. You should mirror and match their body language, tonality, and words. Phrases like, “I see what you mean,” “I hear what you are saying,” or “How does that make you feel,” let your client know that you are emotionally engaged.
To be better prepared to understand your customers’ behavior, I recommend you take a DISC assessment (discprofile.com/what-is-disc). It will determine if you are a Dominant, Influencing, Steady, or Conscientious communicator. Along with learning your behavioral style, invest time in learning the characteristics of the other three styles. Your goal is to explore how to meet your customers halfway between your style and theirs.
Understand your customer’s needs
Once you have your customer’s trust and a good understanding of their background, you can identify their needs and propose solutions. Your sales cycle is on the success track!
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by Art Waskey | May 22, 2024 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Selling involves the transfer of trust, and a successful sales cycle revolves around establishing trust in customer relationships. The manner in which we develop those strong relationships evolves with the changes in the world around us. In my lifetime, the introduction of new technologies has radically changed how one approaches relationship building to succeed in sales.
Telephones and cars
Consider this. I became a salesman in 1972 at a time when the internet was still a research project. My first job title was Sales Engineer. I lived in North Texas and was tasked with calling on independent welding and gas distributors in Dallas, Fort Worth, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Sherman, Austin, and San Antonio. Also, my means of connecting with clients involved many telephone calls (on land lines) and driving just over 20,000 miles per year in my Ford Custom to meet prospects in person.
To achieve success in sales, it’s important to follow a 5-step sales cycle developed by IBM:
- Begin the call with small talk
- Investigate the customer’s needs
- Present the benefits of your product
- Address any objections
- Close the call using a variety of techniques.
Small talk
Being able to converse with your customers on their terms builds trust. The distributors I called on in the ‘70s were patient with my formulaic approach. Additionally, I quickly learned that “small talk” should involve the Dallas Cowboys, Houston Oilers, Texas Rangers, or Houston Astros. I enjoyed making connections with my clientele and I was able to develop a deep sense of trust with those Texas distributors. I still remember each of their names, their likes, and dislikes. Their work ethic and customer relationship experiences have been guiding principles in my career.
More avenues of communication
In conclusion, digitalization has changed how relationships are formed today. Smart phones and computers have opened up avenues of communication not even imaginable in 1972. Lastly, you can build relationships via mobile phones, text, email, and video chat. Digitalization can be effectively used to establishing trust in customer relationships, which are at the center of the successful sales cycle.
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by Art Waskey | May 1, 2024 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Having a consistent digital filing system that supports your business’s objectives is critical to success in the digital era. Here are 3 key actions to consider when building your permanent filing system:
- Save files by year. It is important to create new file storage each year. Annual filing prevents data clutter that can slow the search process. Referencing the year it was created, makes data easier to find. If you need to reference a file from a previous year multiple times. Simply copy and paste it into the current year for easier access.
- Create 5 to 10 main folders. Each year create new main folders that represent your focus areas. Moreover, my primary folders include Personal, ISD (business), Ministry (I’m an associate pastor), Art of Sales (for my books), Sales Articles (for regular publications), Seminars (I offer public speaking and training), Rockies (relating to season tickets for the Colorado Rockies), WeeklyReviews, and Planning Management.
Identify your core interests and obligations and create your folders accordingly. For example, as Senior Vice President of Sales for a distribution company, your folders might include Personal, Business, Competitors, Sales, Vendors, and Sales Managers/Reps.
Lastly, creating folders by key responsibilities annually enables you to find specific documents in less than 15 seconds.
- Use Archive folders. How many times have you updated a document only to find that you didn’t hit “save,” or deleted it by accident? The Archive folder is used to keep a historic record of files so you can recreate records if they are lost. Archiving saves endless hours of work and maybe even a client or a job!
The consistent filing system
In conclusion, by saving files by year, creating folders by key responsibilities, and archiving important documents, you can build a permanent filing system and a more efficient business.
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by Art Waskey | Apr 24, 2024 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
A full mailbox is a time sink. Many people assert that checking emails is the biggest time-waster among all management tools. This makes it difficult to find important ones that are waiting for a response. To better manage your email and keep clutter at bay, keep your mailboxes empty.
A radical idea
To those of us who check our email every time the phone pings an alert or the computer signals you’ve got mail, this will sound like a radical idea. To manage your time better and achieve an empty Inbox and Sent Box, I suggest that you open your email no more than twice per day. Review it once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Use one of these two times to clear your emails.
File, route, discard
To become more efficient and save considerable time, all new emails should be read with the aim of filing, routing, or discarding them.
- Filing an email signifies that after reading it, you would like to keep it, as the message might be valuable to access in the future.
- Routing is applied to an email that requires follow-up, or one that you need to read at a future time.
- Discard is used for emails that are irrelevant or require no future action.
The Sent Box too!
I consider an email processed only when the Inbox and Sent Box are empty since a copy of the sent emails appears in the Sent Box. Additionally, I recommend going directly to the Sent Box as soon as you send an email. File, route, or discard that email right away.
Careful Management
The careful management of emails can prove invaluable to making your business more efficient. In conclusion, a well-organized email system allows you to access information as you need it and eliminates the clutter that can slow that process down.
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by Art Waskey | Apr 17, 2024 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
The digital calendar
Today’s digital calendars offer highly effective calendar systems that greatly improve our ability to manage time. When properly used, a digital calendar serves as a planner, confirmed appointment implementer, and history tracker. Whether you use iCalendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook Calendar, their functionality is the same.
Secrets to success
Here are three ways to make your digital calendar more effective.
- Develop a consistent practice of setting appointments when interacting with people. Make it a habit to always set your next meeting before your current session ends. This ensures your business momentum continues. Setting appointments can be automated. For example, when a meeting ends, you can immediately set up the next meeting date and send a confirming email via your digital calendar app.
- Be sure to set aside time to work on your projects. Your appointments will not be productive if you are not prepared. It is important to allot time in your calendar to address your projects and proposals.
- Prioritize. With digital calendars, you also can note priorities. Digital calendar applications allow you to identify the importance of a meeting by a color code. When a client of mine introduced color coding to his calendar, he was able to recognize key meetings and found he became more efficient at planning future meetings.
The effective calendar
An effective calendar system is the underpinning of a well-managed business. Develop a consistent habit of setting appointments when interacting with people and be sure to set aside time in your calendar to work on projects.
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by Art Waskey | Apr 11, 2024 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Generating insights
As I age, I find myself taking more time with a friend or colleague over a cup of coffee. Gone are the “all business” meetings which allowed little time for reflection, contemplation — or even finishing that cup of coffee. The longer gatherings that I now enjoy often result in generating important insights into our world. Recently, an associate shared a meaningful 3-tiered word pyramid concept with me. The wide base of the pyramid is supported by integrity, the middle is filled with intensity, and at the top you find intelligence. This is an important structure on which to model your career.
Integrity
A successful career is built by establishing a foundation of personal integrity. I can recall people I knew early in my work experience who lacked trustworthiness. Over time, those individuals disappeared. Their reputation preceded their ability to stay employed in my trade. To be able to always act with integrity it is important to understand and address your weaknesses and blind spots as these can erode your foundation.
Intensity
With a reputation of trustworthiness as your base, you must demonstrate an intensity to work. Success comes to those who have a strong work ethic. You need to demonstrate a focus on achieving goals. First, determine what you want, then lay out a plan. Do not neglect other aspects of your life, like family responsibilities, in pursuit of your business goals. You could end up with millions of dollars, but you might also experience loneliness and end up divorced. While intensity is essential to success, misplaced it can lead you in the wrong direction.
Intelligence
Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. I once had a business colleague who had finished at the top of his class with an MBA in finance from Harvard. Moreover, I was excited to work alongside someone with such a pedigree. To my disappointment, his knowledge wasn’t indicative of his ability to apply his wisdom in our industry. Learn what is important to your industry and apply that knowledge intelligently to meet your goals.
The formula
The formula for a successful, satisfying life is having intelligence rooted in integrity and applied passionately with intensity. In conclusion, during your next coffee break, take the opportunity to share your intellectual journey with a colleague and relish the satisfaction of celebrating life’s accomplishments.
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