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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE PERFECT SALES PROCESS

In this chapter, I want to briefly introduce you to what a successful sales process looks like. First, it would satisfy all parties involved and increase the effectiveness of the user.

For fifty years, there has been very little change in how people sell things. Most of the information is dated, with encouragement to control your customers and spend long periods of time with them, believing the longer you spend with them the more indebted they become. The reality is that people have changed over the past fifty years. Wives are making more of the decisions about what is bought and how money is spent; both husbands and wives are now more likely to be employed; people have less time; there is access to more information; and some studies suggest entire generational changes whereby the buyer doesn’t want to even engage a human being when making a purchase.

The perfect sales process then would have to be fast and easy for the buyer; easy and effective for the salesperson; provide credible information as easily as the buyer can access it himself; treat the buyer as an informed person, knowing he has access to knowledge; and ultimately satisfy the customer and the company by consummating a sale.

The first thing I would look at in any sales process is how to shorten and simplify it, just because of the amount of sensitivity buyers demonstrate to time. Whether filling up the car; checking out a gym membership; or shopping for an outfit, groceries, or technology, time is on your buyer’s mind. How long will I be here? How long will it take? Am I going to get stuck with a person I don’t want to spend time with?

Basically, the sales process is finding out the following about the buyer: Who are you? What do you want? Why do you want it? What do I have that will fulfill your wants and needs? How do I show it to you so that you can make sense of it; make an offer that can be funded; and then close, deliver, and follow up in the hope to repeat the process with you and others? Anything I can get rid of for the sake of speed and simplicity, I will.

The other thing is that the perfect sales process could be advertised. If you can’t advertise any part of what you are doing, then there is something not OK with it. The transparency of the process is a vital litmus test for how much integrity your process has in it. The old adage was control, deceive, and withhold information, all of which would fail the test of being able to advertise the process.

Much of what I have been taught over the past twenty-five years I could not tell the customer because there was always something not OK with it. This is why I believe there is a disdain for sales. But it doesn’t have to be like that. The best salespeople I know are straight shooters. They don’t play games, they tell it like it is, and they know how to get the job done without manipulations and tricks.

The best sales processes are shorter rather than longer. Ideally, the salesperson is sensitive to the client’s time, willing to spend as much time as necessary but never interested in wasting time. The buyer would be able to get in and out as quickly as necessary or spend as much time as needed to get comfortable enough to make a decision. Whether the buyer is coming to you or you are going to him, regardless of whether it is a very complex sale or very simple one, no matter the price or the terms, there are some things you must do and some you cannot avoid.

To determine if your current selling process could be problematic for your clients, ask these three questions: (1) Do you experience lower-than-average profits per transaction? (2) Is the length of time to contract the source of customer complaints? (3) Are you getting customers resisting your process?

Organizations are always looking for new salespeople, but what they should look at first is a new, shorter, more customer-friendly, matter-of-fact, information-focused, twenty-first-century sales process. Sales processes should be built to satisfy the following in this order: (1) Customer, (2) salesperson, (3) management (last).

Most selling programs were designed to satisfy what management wants, but in reality, management isn’t buying the product and in most cases isn’t selling it. An example of an old adage and belief in selling that would no longer apply today is, “The longer you spend with the customer, the better chances you have of selling him.” This is no longer reality, in fact, the longer you spend with them the more likely you are wasting everyone’s time.

If the process you are using cannot pass the first two hurdles of satisfying the customer and the salesperson, it won’t be effective for management no matter how much management wants it, because it will be resisted. It doesn’t matter how much I like my 750-pound Harley Davidson Road King or want my daughter to learn how to drive it, she can’t operate the bike because it’s too heavy for her. The point is that it doesn’t matter how much the owner or upper management wants something done a certain way; if it doesn’t work for the customer and the user is unable to execute, it will fail everyone!

The litmus test for a great sales process is the question, “Can we advertise to the public what we want our people to do?” If you can’t answer yes to that, there is something wrong with your selling process.

I have worked with sales organizations and individuals around the world, and the following is what I believe to be a very powerful and succinct selling process. While it must be customized for you depending on your product or service, the basic format of it will prove effective. These are the shortest number of steps in order to simplify the process, remove waste of time, and still focus on the most important things you want to accomplish. Many organizations have ten to twelve steps, most of which are skipped, and many of them are resisted. Here are the most crucial five steps that you must encounter in every sales situation, whether it be in person, on the phone, or over the Internet: Greet

Determine Wants and Needs

Select Product and Present/Build Value

Make Proposal

Close the Transaction or Buyer Exits

STEP ONE: GREET

The goal of the greeting is to introduce yourself, make a good impression, and put the buyer at ease. My goal here is to set the stage for the remaining steps. Say “Welcome” if they are coming to you and “Thanks for seeing me” if you are going to them. In both cases you should be interested in time. If you don’t yet have a relationship with the client, you don’t want to waste his time or yours trying to make a great impression of who you are and what you represent. If you do know the person, you don’t want to get caught up in small talk and never get around to business. It is impossible to get rid of this step. What we want to do is use it to open the door to the reason we are there: To move the prospect into a buyer.

Examples of Greetings

“Welcome. Thank you for coming here. What can I get you information on?” (Then transition into the remaining four steps.)

“Hello. Thanks for taking the time to see me today. Tell me, what homework have you done thus far so I don’t duplicate your efforts?”

“Great to see you today, and thanks for your time. What information can I provide you with to make the best use of your time?”

Each of these greetings gets to what people want to do. We save rapport building and buddy making for later in the process when and if the buyer elects to do so. (Call our office to get more information on customized greetings for you and your organization.) After each greeting, I immediately transition to step 2.

STEP TWO: DETERMINE WANTS AND NEEDS

Determine wants and needs and why. You can either do this by moving into fact finding or into a consultation stage. The fastest way to do this is to fact find on previous like purchases. The purpose of this step is twofold: (1) To know what product to show your client and (2) to know how to present the product in a manner that will build value in that presentation and cause the person to want to act.

Even things of equal value are not identical when the motivation for that thing changes. A glass of water is a glass of water, and on the surface would appear to be the same until you discover reason or motivation someone might want for the glass of water. Different reasons promote different values and urgencies, and those must be determined in step 2.

A glass of water just to finish the dinner table out has a different connotation than a glass of water that would be used to wash poison out of someone’s eye or one to be used to satisfy the thirst of someone who is dehydrated. Furthermore, a glass of water from the local water system holds different value than bottled water or an alkaline water that is used to reduce the acidity of someone’s body chemistry.

At Thanksgiving, the glass and aesthetic value of the presentation is more valuable than the water itself until one of the guests is choking on Grandma’s cornbread dressing; then the same water increases in value and the glass diminishes in value. Get it? Why do you want this? Why do you have interest now? What is your current situation? What problem are you trying to solve? What is important to you in your next purchase? Why? What similar experiences have you had? What does your current situation do for you that you like? What does it not do for you? How would you rate your current service on a scale from one to ten? What would make it a ten? Would you do that again? Was it worth the money you paid? What value would you place on it? What would have made it better?

When determining wants and needs, you are not selling; you are asking and listening. Because this is done in the early stages of the sales process, understand that you will be using this information to make sense of and close on your proposal.

Remember, all purchases or investments are trying to solve a problem of some sort. All of them. You don’t buy a drill because you want a drill. You buy a drill because you want a hole.

STEP THREE: SELECT PRODUCT AND PRESENT/BUILD VALUE

Select the product and present it. Select for your clients rather than allowing them to wander through your inventory and select for themselves. Whether your product is tangible or not does not matter; you have an inventory. If you’re selling insurance, based on what you found out in the first two steps, you would now be able to select and present a solution and how it will benefit the client. The same holds true with any other presentation, whether it be surgery, a piece of art, a car, furniture, a membership at the country club, or a gift for a charity event—or a simple glass of water.

You should present your product based on what your client told you was important. There is no reason to show the quality of the crystal or quality of the water to a choking man. If I buy a home from you, please show me what I want to see rather than what is in my budget. And when you show me a home, if you have done step 2 right, let me see the property before you show me the house. When I buy property, I am more interested in the grounds than I am in the house itself. But if you don’t take the time to find out in step 2 what is important, you will waste time in your presentation showing me things that just don’t matter.

On my show, Turnaround King, you saw me go to a gym where they presented their products to me without knowing what was of value to me. Had the owner of the company taken the time to collect the right information and then presented his product specifically to me, he would have been more effective. Once he found out that the wet part of the facility was most important to me, not the weights and socializing, then he could have spent his time targeting his demonstration to those things that most hit my hot buttons. The fact that I love to swim and believe that swimming in an Olympic pool would trim me out faster than any other workout, without causing damage to my body, would have allowed the presenter to target and confine his presentation to those things that would have created urgency and the most value, and it would have improved his chances of making a new member.

Just because your client calls you about a property you have listed that has an 11,000 square-foot house on five rolling acres doesn’t mean he needs to see all 11,000 square feet or under every leaf and blade of grass. In fact, you won’t know what to show the client until you ask. Then, in your presentation, focus on those things that are most important to that buyer. Shorten your demonstration process to laser focus what will make your product a must-have-now! What are those few things that will make sense of all the other things? What is the senior or dominant buying motive in how your buyer will justify and validate this product as the right thing to purchase? The demonstration of your product is where you build value, create urgency, and increase the desire for your buyer to give you money for the product you are offering.

Cut the demonstration short and you only reduce your chances of making a sale. Spend too much time during the demonstration on things that the buyer doesn’t find of value, and you not only waste time, but also reduce your chances at making a sale.

STEP FOUR: MAKE PROPOSAL

Make a proposal. I always make a proposal. Always. Even when people are not ready, I make an offer. Many people suggest not presenting all buyers with figures, but I believe that if you don’t present them, you can never come to an agreement. I am not suggesting that you make an offer before the presentation of the product, but I am suggesting that you aggressively do what you can to get to figures with every buyer in every situation.

Always position yourself to present a proposal. Our goal is to present to 100 percent of those we greet, and to do so within forty minutes of contact. People need information to make a decision. We recently did a mystery shop of over five hundred similar companies and only 37 percent of them provided the mystery shopper with a proposal. That means that 63 percent never had a chance at the business beyond the shopper walking in. By shortening the sales process and insisting on getting to figures, we have taken companies and increased their sales 35 percent in a thirty-day period. We did this recently with a retail group in Boston, whereby we provided online training daily and drove their sales team toward one objective—presenting a proposal. This alone resulted in $350,000 in gross profits in one month. See www.CardoneUniversity.com.

STEP FIVE: CLOSE THE DEAL OR EXIT

This is where we find out how much game you have. You have to check out two things that I created: Close the Sale app and my Closer’s Survival Guide book and audio program, which train salespeople to be masters at the close.

First, you must be prepared to CLOSE. Closing the transaction is a completely different art from selling. We were all born to sell, but you have to learn how to close. By survey, this is the one area in which professional salespeople demand help. This is where you must become a PRO-NINJA-MASTER CLOSER OF ALL SITUATIONS. A great closer needs hundreds of closes, not just a few. The pro needs a complete commitment to fresh and innovative ways to handle any closing situation that arises.

Stalls, money objections, price objections, budget considerations, better offers, and the like are only some of what you will hear from your clients. Becoming a pro at closing the transaction is critical not just because that is what it takes to get the job done, but also because it will create a confidence in your ability to handle objections, stalls, and problems, which will increase your confidence to do more selling. Salespeople who can’t close will start to avoid all the other vital necessities of selling, such as prospecting, following up, and even having a positive attitude. Basically, why sell if you can’t close? One hundred percent of your income results because of closed transactions. This is where you get paid. Approach this skill like you would if you were attempting to get a third-degree black belt. A couple of crazy closing programs are My Closers Survival book and audio, which I will be expanding from one volume to three. And my website www.CloseOrLose.com. These programs have hundreds of closing responses for EVERY objection you will ever hear in a negotiation.