Your ability or inability to sell will affect every area of your life and business, and will determine how well you survive and thrive. [READ PART 1 HERE]
Selling should become like second nature to every enterprise or entrepreneur. Next to developing a solution for the market, is to effectively sell it to the end users.
The money in business isn’t in your product or service; it’s in the selling of your product or service. As we already established, businesses fail if their solutions are not sold quickly and in enough volume to their target market. What are you giving the market that would make them pay you happily?
4. Know your buyer’s psychology
Understanding your buyer’s psychology can be beneficial for effective sales. While it is not possible to directly read someone’s mind, you can gain insights into his or her inner make-up and sentiments, preferences, and interests. When you know your buyer’s decision-making processes and buying triggers, selling your solution to him or her becomes fun.
You should recognize the emotional factors that influence buying decisions, and align your sales messages to resonate with their emotions. Are they looking for a solution to a problem? Are they trying to improve their life in some way, or what?
A deeper insight into the buyer’s psychology shows that (s)he would rather pay more and make the right decision than pay less and make a mistake. When you understand what motivates your buyer, positioning your product to meet that aspiration will make you to sell-out.
5. Discover unspoken objections
Most sales are lost over unspoken objections. If people don’t buy from you, it’s about something you didn’t uncover, and never about the price of your product. Price is actually at the bottom of the list of reasons why people don’t buy.
Sadly, most salespeople are concerned about making sales but fail to take the time to listen to the prospect or find out what that person is looking for by what (s)he is not looking for. When the buyer objects to buying from you in any way, it could be what you are offering him or her does meet their expectation at that time.
Identify gaps in the areas where you can differentiate yourself by addressing objected concerns. Once you understand your buyers, you can start to tailor your sales messages to appeal to them, and hence create better products or services that meet and exceed their expectations.
6. Show interest in them
Selling is a process, and one of the critical elements in the process is to find out what interests your target customer. Take interest in your prospective buyer and not just be interested in selling to him or her. You find out who the buyer is, what (s)he wants, and why (s)he wants it.
If you are not sure what your customers’ problems are, ask them. You wouldn’t know what they want until you ask them. Ask a lot of intelligent questions that will make you understand the customers’ problems, and how your solution can address that.
The customers hardly hide their pains and concerns. It’s just that those they are talking to don’t care enough or aren’t paying attention. David L. Rogers said, ‘To cultivate the customer’s point of view, a business needs to institutionalize listening to its customers, particularly lead users. By taking a truly customer-centric attitude, a business can stay ahead of the curve of change.’
Until you demonstrate to the prospective buyer that your solution is what (s)he has been searching for, it’ll be difficult to have them part with their money.
…to be continued
About the Author:
Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the author of BUSINESS SENSE, and ON BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR. He maintains a personal blog, where he shares proven business ideas and principlesfor SMEs.
