Strategy. Execution. Achievement.
Do you feel like you’re working as hard as you possibly can to make more sales but somehow you never seem to “close" enough? Chances are you may have developed a few bad habits that you might not even be aware of.
Here are seven bad sales habits that you should drop now:
1. Guessing at what you think the customer wants.
There were a few eye-opening gems in a recent CIBC Survey (link) that checked-in with Canadians on their financial priorities, their opinion on how they were progressing on their goals and what kind of shape they felt they were in for retirement. The data points of particular note for me were:
Whenever we ask participants for course objectives in our training sessions inevitably someone asks if we are going to cover how you respond to a rate driven client. It’s a very common challenge that many struggle with. What do you do with the client that starts their conversation with you by focusing on rate?
It's RSP season again and for some reason, this is when sales people start to get lazy. They know they should be getting a client to acknowledge a problem first before they present a solution (i.e. a product) but for some reason, when it comes to selling RSP's at this time of year they resort back to a money grab by just asking if they have contributed yet. Oh, I know that is not their intention, but by just asking someone if they have contributed yet, that's essentially what they are doing.
There is a simple rule we advocate to help people avoid coming across as being pushy sales people: Don't present a solution (product) to a problem (need) that is not been acknowledged by the client. Generally speaking most people dislike having someone try to sell them a product that they don't need. By asking good questions you can get a client to acknowledge that they have a need which clears the path for you to comfortably present a solution.
Problem questions
Without clear objectives that guide us to craft a plan or structure to our interview, it can easily become a wasted opportunity.
Our first objective in Discovery is Getting Selection Right
We need to commit to interviewing the client with the intent of understanding “what are they trying to achieve?” instead of just “what they're asking for?”. Not just “what are they asking about?” but “why are they asking about it?”. Be sure that we understand before moving forward to presenting a solution.
• What motivated them to ask for this now?
Is your sales process haunted by the ghost of Christmas past?
A recurring theme we have seen all year long is that more and more clients are spending less time in the branch and conducting more of their business online or over the phone. What all of this means of course is we are having less opportunity to discuss financial matters with them in any real and meaningful way.
Many branches or individuals head into RSP season late and with no plan. They decide that they will get after it in late January when most of their clients start asking about RSP's and retirement planning. The successful individuals really start to prepare much sooner than that.
3 Things to Think About and Plan:
Establish goals.
We don't just mean result goals; also consider developing activity, or effort based goals. The clearer you are on what you have to accomplish, by when, the more likely it is to happen.
It seems that some questions are difficult to ask. They must be because we see people taking forever to develop that habit of asking their clients more detailed problem questions.
What are we trying to do?
Selling is not complicated. There are logical steps that we go through when we buy things:
1. We decide were not happy with our current state. Whatever it is we have, or do not have currently, we decide we are not satisfied with it. That dissatisfaction creates a “need”.
If we were to map out all of your product/service offerings alongside those of your
closest competitors it might be shocking how similar they look. Sure, there are some differences. Differences you can see fairly clearly because you live and breathe this stuff every day. But if they were left to figure it out on their own, would the person you are hoping to service with that product see those differences as clearly? Probably not.