As a sales manager, you may often ask yourself what separates the rainmakers from the “leather chewers?” The winners from the “also rans?” Salespeople who consistently "bag the whale" and those who bring in the minnows?
Sales trainer, keynote speaker and “Heavy Hitter” author Steve W. Martin says that successful selling calls for capturing the hearts and minds of customers using a strategy that addresses both the reason to buy and the decision maker’s emotions.
As most sales people know, selling is about establishing a relationship with the customer. The decision to buy is often based on emotions, with logic and business judgment often taking a back seat. Martin notes that a customer he recently interviewed in a blind survey said it best: “We made it clear that we weren’t buying a brochure or data sheet. For that matter, we weren’t even buying a product. We were buying a long-term relationship with another company and, equally important, the team of people from that company who we would have to work with on a day-in, day-out basis.”
Martin insists that your overall selling strategy should include the indirect strategy of selling to human nature. Customers make the decision to buy because it makes them happier, adding to their esteem, power or wealth. Logic and facts are merely used to rationalize the buying decision. A customer’s reason to buy, for example, a new machine or process often goes beyond its efficiency or money-saving attributes and ultimately to impress the customer’s boss. Purchases are driven by four motivators, says Martin: physical well-being, pain avoidance, self-preservation, and self-gratification.
- Physical well-being. This is a big one. Customers need to know that by placing their trust in your hands, their jobs are secure. They need to feel that if they go with the other guy, their jobs are in jeopardy.
- Pain. A key motivator, it forces customers to act quickly to solve a nagging need or put out a fire. Controlling the timing of the sales cycle can often be used to exploit this pain. Martin suggests that assembling a “SWAT team” of personnel and demonstrating how you can solve a customer’s immediate problem can often be used to lock out the competition. On the other hand, slowing down the sales cycle can force your competitor to make mistake.
- Approval/recognition. It’s human nature to seek recognition for our unique talents. To win the approval of our peers and superiors. Customers make the decision to purchase a specific item or service to enhance their stature and protect their image in the group position. By the same taken, salespeople want to seen as rainmakers.
- Ego/self-gratification. Customers will be eager to purchase a product or service that enhances their self image and elevates them above others. Too often, salespeople sell to alleviate customer pain when they should be appealing to a customer’s ego and self-preservation—the motivators that drive large enterprise sales.
To survive and thrive in this economy, sales executives need to fully exploit the real sales motivators that move a customer to purchase, motivators based on emotions and driven by personal relationships.
Image courtesy of chanpipat/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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