Some small business owners are shy about going after customer sales. For others closing a sale is the only thought at the forefront of their mind. Both approaches can hurt product and service sales regardless of the industry or market your company operates in.
Developing Relationships with Sales Prospects
It bears repeating that the first step toward the call for action to close customer sales is to develop a relationship with the person you’re working to sell a product or service to. No. You don’t have to take the person out to lunch or dinner, but you should take the time to get to know more than the person’s name. To do this, ask the sales prospect questions. For example, if you are selling books you can ask the person what his favorite book genre is, the name of his favorite book and why he enjoys reading books so much.
Answers to each of these questions will give you ideas on features to highlight about your books, features the reader is looking for. Be open and forthright. The person you sell products and services to is an intelligent and insightful human being, just like you are. Furthermore, just as you may not share all your thoughts and impressions about your meeting with this person; she isn’t sharing all of her thoughts and impressions about your meeting, including ideas she has about your business products and services, with you either.
If you sense that the person is in a hurry, eager to make an appointment, etc. ask her if you can reach out to her via email or telephone at a later time. If she agrees, make sure you get her contact information. It goes without saying that you should respect each person you try to sale business products and services to and keep shared contact information private.
Continuing the Sales Discussion
Should the person infer that he has ample time to continue your discussion ask him if he has questions for you. Briefly tell him about your products and services, highlighting features, rewards and benefits. Avoid droning on about yourself, your creative business products or services. Throughout the entire discussion keep the person you are selling products and services to as the focus of the conversation. It’s one of the ways Sam Walton achieved retail success. He focused-focused-focused on the customer, offering price discounts, extended store hours, centralized store locations, etc., that made the customer’s life easier.
Before ending the conversation, ask the person to make a purchase, being certain to reiterate benefits, rewards and features of your business products or services. Specific call for action customer sales statements/questions you can use include:
- We offer a full 90-day money back guarantee on all of our products
- Our company would love to sign you up as our one millionth satisfied customer
- Call me at 1-800-XXX-XXXX to receive a free quote
- Try our free samples. Call me when you’re ready to order more of your favorite scents (e.g. perfume)
- Email me to sign up to receive our free monthly tips
- Visit this website to sign up to attend our free seminar
- Would you me to set you up on our monthly or quarterly payment plan
- Should I ship the products to your home address
- Here’s my business card. Feel free to call me should you have questions
- Take advantage of our limited discount offer
- Our deep discount sale ends at midnight tomorrow. Please place your order before then so you can save 45% on our top selling business products
Avoid pressuring the person to give you money in exchange for your products or services. If the person tells you she isn’t ready to make a purchase, ask her why not. Tell her the information (the reason she prefers not to make a purchase) will help you and your creative business better serve consumers (and it will).
At the end of the conversation, give the person your business card or other contact form. At a minimum your contact information should include your name, business street address, telephone number and email address.
More Creative Business Sales Tips
As an additional tip, another way you can approach a customer sale is to share a few personal tidbits about yourself (e.g. where you went to college, your favorite sports team, the last book you read). Then ask the person questions to get to know more about her. After you review your business products or services with her, ask if you can reach out to her later to tell her about the specific features, benefits and rewards associated with your products and services.
Follow-up with a telephone call at a time that’s convenient for both of you. You could also schedule a group follow-up sales meeting in-person or online, allowing other sales prospects you’ve spoken with over the last week to ask questions, make comments. During group follow-up sales meetings, as people start purchasing your products or services, you may notice that more people follow leaders and make purchases as well. After all, bestseller lists work for a reason. As much as we may not want to admit it, as humans we mimic behavior exhibited by others. In other words, as you develop brief relationships with people, give a call for action to close customer sales and follow-up, not only will your sales increase, you might set off a chain reaction and find yourself on an industry-wide bestseller list.
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This one’s easy to forget. You get so caught up in pitching the benefits of a product you can forget to ask for the sale. Experience will take care of this. In time, you’ll remember to ask give a call for action. Great article! Great reminder!
Remember to give a call for action!
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