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Signs your sales skills need a little bit of polish and shine are:

• You talk with prospects about your offer, yet, many don’t buy (leaving you frustrated)
• Prospects don’t get excited or motivated to buy what you’re selling (causing your self-confidence to slip away)
• Anytime you must talk with a prospect in a “sales conversation” setting, butterflies seem to take flight in your stomach

If you experience any of these frustrating symptoms, I have three strategies to help you:

1. Increase your confidence selling

2. Become more successful communicating with prospects why they should invest in your products and services

3. Gain commitment and close more sales, thereby increasing sales and income

Sales Skill #1: Qualify Prospects Fast to Avoid Wasting Time

One resource that is not renewable is time.  Therefore, you want to make sure you’re not wasting time meeting…talking with…emailing…and creating proposals for unqualified prospects.

To quickly qualify prospects, you must create a list of criteria describing whom you will, and will not sell to.  Think about your target market’s demographics, such as age, gender, education, income level, etc. If you’re selling B2B, think about company size (revenue and employees), age of business, industry, etc.

Also, consider such criteria as:

• How they make buying decisions (fast, slow, who all is involved)
• Is there a budget (to solve the problem you have the solution for)
• Is there a sense of urgency to solve the problem

This may sound simple to do.

The truth is a lot of homework goes into creating your ‘Ideal Prospect Criteria.’  Creating this criteria allows you to size up a prospect fast, and help you make a decision quickly if this prospect is one you’re willing to invest time with, or refer elsewhere.

Sales Skill #2: Motivate Prospects to Buy

If you have a qualified prospect to sell to, now, you have to motivate them to want to buy from you.

Prospects don’t need your services until they discover they have a problem.  The timeframe from first discovering a problem, to seeking a solution, can take seconds, or years.  Once a prospect gets motivated enough to seek your help, it’s up to you to help them discover you can solve their problem better than anyone else can.

You accomplish this by asking them thoughtful questions that “bring their pain to light,” and having them voice to you in their own words how this problem is affecting them personally, and in their business.  Also, revealing how their problem affects them emotionally—how they feel— is a powerful and necessary step to motivate a prospect to say “yes” to your offer.

Sales Skill #3: Build Rapport

Having rapport with your prospect is an essential ingredient in a successful sales process.  Being in rapport with someone makes them feel comfortable to be with you, which makes them more open to sharing their problems, and what type of help they are seeking.

To build rapport you can mirror the other person’s behavior.  This includes matching:

• Speech patterns and rhythm
• Body position and movements
• Personality style, and current mood

For example, if you are having a sales conversation with a person with a direct, “get-to-the-point” personality, you will want to be the same way—direct—and not dilly-dally with lots of small talk, risking making them impatient, frustrated, and disinterested in what you have to say.

BONUS Sales Skill: Gain Incremental Commitments

Eliminate “cheesy” sales closing vocabulary from your repertoire.  What I’m talking about is “going in for the close” by asking questions such as, “Would you like that in purple or pink?” or “If I can show you how this will help you will you buy today?”

Lines like these are outdated, and are what make many people feel they’re being sold to, which is a turn-off, and a sure-fire way to lose a sale.

Learn how to ask for incremental commitments from the beginning of the sales cycle.  Always be asking your prospect during contacts with them if what you’re talking about interests them, and if they want to continue the conversation.  By doing so, you are continually asking your prospect’s permission to continue the conversation.  If you’ve ever been victim of enduring a sales conversation that was beginning to sour, you’ll understand how respectful of a behavior this is to do.

Constantly seek permission to continue a sales conversation, and get your prospects saying “Yes” to you incrementally along the way.  Then, when you ask if they’d like to invest in working with you and your services, they’ve already been primed to say, “Yes.”

Remember, prospects only care about how you can eliminate a problem they have, and help make their business or lives better.  Using these sales strategies will build your confidence, and improve your sales skills so you close more sales, increase your income, and become a sales star!

To learn how to increase your sales skills, how to raise your fees 20-40%, and get more clients to say “Yes” to your offers (as well as gain access to word-for-word templates, scripts, worksheets and tools) visit http://bonitarichter.com/raiseyourfees/

My daughter, Becky, is pictured here in her prom dress on prom day.  It is such a lovely picture of her, I had to share it with you.  It was such fun that day helping her get her nails and hair “done.”   

I unexpectedly had to do last-minute alterations while the dress was on her—with no time to spare— because the limo was on the way!  She had lost weight.  (We found out later she lost 30 pounds in just one month.  This past week she was diagnosed with Celiac, the cause of the sudden weight loss.)  

So, if you’ve been wondering “Where’s Bonita?”, you now know one of the reasons.  Plus, I’ve been focusing my time working with my private clients.  Look for their stories in coming issues.  Their businesses include—  

• Eco-friendly products retailer
• Gardening products retailer
• Gourmet catering
• Human Resources consulting
• Start-up/specialty candles to start, more to come

To learn more about how you, too, can become a Platinum coaching client to ACCELERATE business growth contact me http://bonitarichter.com/contact/.

Learn Secrets How to “Close the Deal”

You can market, market, market.  But, if you can’t get a prospect to sign on the …dotted line…, you won’t have a business for long.

I’ve created a *NEW* *HOT* workshop I’ll be leading in September.   In May, I ran a pilot of the program and it SOLD OUT with 1 email!  I’ll be releasing more details in coming weeks.   

Have a beautiful and prosperous week,

Bonita

Marketing attracts your ideal client to you.  But, once a prospective client shows interest, many small business entrepreneurs don’t know how to get through the sales process to get a prospective client to commit working with them.

Following are some simple sales tips to keep in mind when you are talking with a prospect, so that you identify their wants, goals, get them engaged with you—and you don’t spill your candy box by giving away your precious expertise free!

1. Shorter telephone calls are better than longer calls.

Keep sales calls no longer than fifteen minutes in length.  Any longer than this, and you risk giving away too much information, excitement and energy fades, and you’ll have a tendency to give away free coaching.  The result: the client talks herself out of needing you!

2. Prequalify candidates with a questionnaire.

I used to meet potential coaching clients for coffee, or even worse, lunch…spend an hour or two with them…only to walk away knowing this person was not a right client for me for any number of reasons.  The result: I wasted a lot of time finding out this person was not ready for my services.

A better approach to prequalify candidates is when someone sends you an inquiry expressing interest in your services, send them a prequalifying questionnaire they must complete and send back to you, before your speak with them.

By doing this, if a person is truly interested in working with you, they will take the time to send the questionnaire back to you.  Then, you can review their answers to the questions, prior to calling them for an interview.  You will also have an idea even before you speak with them if they are a qualified candidate for your services.  The result: you’ve saved yourself potentially thousands of dollars of wasted time.

3. Keep your candy in its box.

Save your knowledge and expertise, and don’t give away too much information too soon (this ties in with Tip #1.)  Use time you are speaking with a prospect (after you’ve received the questionnaire) to fact-find, understand their situation, problems they need solved, and goals and results they want to achieve.

You will also ‘spill your candy’ by rushing into sharing aspects of your services your potential client may have no interest in, or does not understand.  This moves them closer to saying “No” to your services, because they appear not to fit in with their needs.

4. Let your prospect do the talking.

Your prospect should be talking 70% of the time.  If you are doing all the talking, you’re not discovering their wants and problems, and they are not articulating them.  Let them discover how you can help them through the thought-provoking questions you’ll be asking them.

Also, don’t flaunt your expertise by using technical jargon or buzz words your prospective client may not understand.  It makes you seem smart, but makes them feel less so.which is another reason for them to say “no” to working with you.

5. Ask your client what solving the problem will mean to them.

Asking this question gets them emotionally engaged with you, and the problem they are trying to solve.  By tapping into the emotional reasons, you will hit a vein of gold when they discover how solving the problem they are experiencing will change their business, and their life for the better.

Keep these tips in mind during the next conversation you have with a potential client.  By doing this you will be more successful in getting them to communicate their wants and problems to you, and getting them to say “Yes” to working with you!