I’d like to tell you about two sales people who started at a client company mind just about two years ago, Aaron, and Jill, both sales people make the same number of calls, they conduct essentially the same number of sales meetings. And they both work equally hard. Yet last year in 2014, Jill sold $1.3 million in sales. Aaron, on the other hand, only sold 700,000. That’s a difference of almost double. Now, what was the difference? And what I find is that it boiled down to a few key selling techniques that Jill use, and Aaron didn’t. In this chapter, I’m going to share with you three selling techniques that will transform your sales, check it out.
Number one, identify your value proposition, it’s time to stop thinking about features and benefits that you offer. Instead, focus on the real value that you offer to clients. Think about the results that you create or the outcomes that you’ve really created for them. Your clients don’t buy your product or service, what they’re really buying is that outcome. For example, I’ll share with you my personal value proposition. Now I serve as a trusted advisor to sales professionals to develop a strategy to dramatically increase sales. And when you break down that value proposition, it didn’t say anything about the features, or really even the benefits, what I’m focused on, are those outcomes those results? What is your value proposition?
Number two, become a trusted advisor to your clients. What I challenge you to do is to remove the words vendor or supplier from your vocabulary. This is really a mindset shift.
It’s a shift from, please Sir, I just have three minutes of your time to, George, I’d like to share with you some of the best practices that have helped my clients increase sales by over 25%. Could you feel the difference between those two approaches? One is about begging for time. One is about thinking about ourselves as a vendor as a supplier. The other is looking at ourselves as a critical, trusted advisor to our clients. Number three, challenge your prospects. Don’t be afraid to challenge your prospects when they’re wrong. In fact, what I have found is that most buyers don’t even necessarily know what they need. Wouldn’t you agree? It’s your job to question their assumptions and to lead them to where they really need to go, when we’re willing to challenge our prospects it’s amazing how much we suddenly stand out from that competition.