In classic sales training which has been entrenched for over 60 years, we learn that there are five simple steps to selling. If you followed the steps, you get the sale.
Open the Call Investigate needs Give benefits Handle Objectives Close the Sale
But as small business owners have been vocal about, they need to grow their business, yet they aren't getting the sales using this approach. So what's happening? If you are selling a big ticket item, like a year-long support contract, an infrastructure installation, or a long-term training program for a corporate management team, your selling cycle doesn't fit the traditional model any more.
What am I supposed to do instead?
The selling cycle for larger/longer products/programs/services has four characteristics that make traditional selling techniques ineffective.
1. Length of Selling Cycle
The selling cycle may require many calls or connections over a period of months. Multiple sales calls have a completely different psychology from a simple product sale that you close on the first appointment or their first visit to your website.
2. Size of Customer Commitment
Large purchases involve bigger decisions. This alters the strategy of the sale. As the size of the sale increases, successful salespeople must build the perceived value of the service.
3. Relationships
Most large sales involve an ongoing relationship with the customer. This is where multiple offerings that represent different pricing levels, what some call your 'marketing funnel,' come in. Why? They must get to know, trust and respect you before they will invest greater time and money in your offer.
To the customer, the larger the decision, the harder it becomes to separate the seller and the product. So it is important to keep in mind, that as the sale grows larger, the customer puts more emphasis on the salesperson/service provider (you) as a factor in the decision to do business with you.
4. Risk/Return/Resistance
In small sales, customers can afford to take more risks and try something new on the spot, like your e-book or tele-class, for less than $50 on your Web site. The consequence of that risk is relatively low.
Each larger purchase represents a bigger decision and more significant risk. The perceived value of a $250 program package and the pain it will solve must be more explicit. It must be targeted and it must promise greater results. When you expand that to a $999 package or a retainer of $5,000 or $10,000, the customer becomes more cautious with each increase in the size of the decision you are asking them to make.
You Need Different Selling Skills For These Major Sales
There are four distinct stages of a sales call when dealing with the large sale. Neil Rackham developed this model in the book SPIN Selling: Preliminaries --> Investigating --> Demonstrating Capability --> Obtaining Commitment
Preliminaries
In large sales, preliminaries do NOT have the influence on success that they do in small sales. The more senior the people you sell your services to, the more they feel their time is at a premium. So your objective in the preliminaries is simply to get the customer's permission to move to the next stage of the call. That means your traditional questions and comments to build rapport around personal interests do not apply.
Investigating
Investigating involves asking lots of questions, collecting data, uncovering needs, and understanding the customer and their organization. In fact, for higher value selling, investigating is the most important of all selling skills and can increase the overall sales volume by more than 20%.
Success in larger sales, be it personnel placement, commercial development or technology installation, depends on how you handle this stage. Successful calls entail asking a lot more questions than we were trained to ask in traditional selling. Uncovering implicit and explicit needs is the sole objective of the Investigating stage of the call. This is where you build the relationship before the sale is made.
Demonstrating Capability
There is no surprise here – you must demonstrate to each prospect that you have something worthwhile to offer. You must prove that your solution will address each customer's unique problems. Selling a solution is not the same as rattling off a list of features and benefits. You must connect with their pain and offer a solution that makes you exceptionally qualified to meet their need.
Obtaining Commitment
Obtaining commitment is not the same as your classic closing script. Remember, the bigger the decision and the more sophisticated the buyer, the more negatively they generally react to pressure and closing techniques.
In larger sales, there may be a whole range of other commitments and other decision makers, you must obtain before you reach the order stage for your program or service. In seeking the next step, your call objective may be to get the customer's agreement to attend a seminar, or to identify the next decision maker. Larger sales always contain a number of intermediate steps – advancing the customer's commitment toward the final decision.
Next Steps to Get it Right
These steps are only theory until you put them into practice. Here are four rules for learning any new sales skills:
1. Practice Only One Behavior at a Time - Focus on one new thing at a time.
2. Try the New Behavior at Least Three Times – Don't knock it, until you try it.
3. Quantity before Quality - Use it often enough and the quality will look after itself.
4. Practice in Safe Situations – not on your biggest client
If you apply these distinctive strategies to approach major sales in your market, you will see more doors open and more clients moving deeper into your marketing funnel. The more they engage with you and the more you build the relationship, the easier and more successful will be the sale and delivery of your offering.
Writer, speaker, business coach Kerri Salls MBA, Breakthrough Business School founder/CEO inspires business leaders who are ready to initiate change. Her program of training, consulting and coaching helps CEOs and entrepreneurs develop business-building strategic solutions to create more profit in less time. She publishes Breakthrough Success a free weekly ezine delivering leadership tips, tools and ideas you can use now. You can reach Kerri at http://www.breakthrough-business-school.com
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