It’s easy to lose control of the conversation when you’re trying to make a sale. There are habits you can fall into that will take the path of the conversation in directions you didn’t intend, and of course the customer has an interest in trying to steer you in directions you don’t want to go. There are actions that you can take as a salesperson, though, to make sure that you don’t stray far from the path.
Talk money early. One of the biggest issues in sales is that the majority of salespeople are afraid to talk about money and price, because we’re raised to think it’s impolite. So some salespeople can shy away from it and wait until the end of the process to talk money. By waiting to discuss price and money, though, we are playing right into the prospects’ hands – it’s easier to negotiate with more information, after all.
The best way to handle this is to move conversations about money, budgets, and price earlier in the conversation, so the prospect is forced to talk about it. The best time to have the conversation is somewhere shortly after we have found their compelling reasons to use us or buy from us, and before we tell them if and how we can help them. You must qualify that the prospect is both willing and able to spend money on you before you tell them how. If the “how” comes too early, they will pick it apart in an effort to reduce the price.
Create urgency. If you make the customer feel that he or she has an urgent need for your services or products, you add a new incentive to buy. Urgency comes from impending events, like deadlines, and thoughts of what could happen in the future if certain actions are not taken. To create urgency in the prospect’s mind, you must highlight or help them discover that one of these events exists. There may be deadlines that seem distant, but are really pretty close. There might be enough money being lost on a daily basis that stopping the loss makes things important.
What sales people aren’t typically good at is exposing that there is urgency when the prospect doesn’t think that there is. They ask the question, “What would make this urgent for you to act?” and the prospect doesn’t really know. More effective questions include, “Is it ok that you are losing about $1,000 an hour?” or “What would you do if while we were in this meeting, your machine broke down? How much would it cost per day to get a replacement?” To put together questions, think about conditions that would make acting urgent for your prospect and then ask questions about those conditions.
If you can retain control of the conversation with your customer, you can take it in the places you need to go to make the sale on your terms, rather than on theirs or not at all. If your salespeople master these techniques, they will be in much better positions to sell, and it will only help your bottom line.
