The 5 Foundational Steps to Sales Success – Part 2, by Tiffanie Lyon
October 9, 2008
Here are the first 3 foundational steps to sales success from the previous blog posting:
Step #1- Believe in your value: You provide a product or service of high value. Bring back the passion for what you do and share the benefit they receive by investing in you and your company.
Step #2- Fine-tune your USP (unique selling proposition): This is your elevator pitch. You might believe in the value you offer and have passion for it, but how do you convey this to others when they ask what you do?
Step #3- Build rapport, trust and relationships with people: People buy from people they like. Be real. Be genuine. Be approachable. Now let’s continue with the last two steps that are more tactical sales techniques. But don’t fear! They still will be in your nature and somewhat easy to implement:
Step #4- Communicate with strategic questioning and active listening: When you first begin a dialog with someone, especially if you’re trying to qualify them to see if they are a viable candidate to purchase your product or service, it’s beneficial to use open-ended questions (“how”, “what”, “why”). You want to be genuine and sincere and really try to understand them, before trying to be understood (from Stephen Covey’s book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). In the next feature article below, I go in more detail on this topic and provide actual examples and a downloadable form.
Strategic questioning is moot if you don’t use active listening to really absorb the information and process it. Active listening involves 1) you are listening with a purpose, 2) you give your un-divided attention to the person and 3) you verify your understanding. Verifying simply means you will use confirming statements to repeat back what you heard to make sure you understand. For example:
“Let me make sure I understand you correctly:”
“If I heard you correctly:”
“Let me confirm what I think I hear you saying:”
Step #5- Understanding the sales process for getting the results you want: Everybody has a sales process, but not everybody recognizes it. It’s important to understand your own sales process so you will know your next steps and ideally shorten the process to make sales faster.
Some people have a fast sales cycle (instant-3 days) and others may have much longer sales cycle (3 weeks- 12 months or more). Again, this is NOT high pressure selling; it’s just having a “system” that will get you results. If you’re following the first 4 “steps” and selling from within, the sales process will flow seamlessly. For you visual folks, the sales process is likened to a sales funnel-prospects go into the funnel and as they move through the funnel they are going through the steps of the sale and then ultimately come out the bottom as a new customer. An example of a sales process might be:
- Identifying a new opportunity
- Approach/begin a dialog
- Schedule appointment (face to face or telephone)
- Analysis Complete (this is your questioning)
- Proposal submitted (if appropriate)
- Contract signed (if used)
Keep these 5 foundational steps in mind and you WILL see that implementing sales techniques and selling your services is easier than you thought. Happy Selling! ☺
Tiffanie Lyon
Lyon Sales Institute
Sales is not a Dirty Word
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One Response to “The 5 Foundational Steps to Sales Success – Part 2, by Tiffanie Lyon”
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Hi Tiffanie,
I am a strong advocate of your point 3.
Rapport skills were foundational in my sales career.
Regards Greg