There’s one question that has served me extremely well in over six years as a small business consultant. It’s the same question that heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers need to ask their customers and prospective customers. The most important question is, “Why?”
I’ve had salespeople and small business owners ask me about writing a script. I have used them successfully 18 years ago when it was a required part of the job. I didn’t like them then, and I really dislike them now. Other than to memorize an opening question to get you started so you can avoid being tongue-tied, scripts are designed to control the flow of questions so as to control the prospect. That’s a hard sell approach to sales because it only cares about one thing, getting the prospect’s money. After a short stint using scripts because a job required it, I returned to talking with prospects.
Heart-centered, soft sell sales and marketing focus first on the customer’s needs and wants. While people may quickly tell you what they think they want, it’s very important to dig deeper to understand why. Look for their real motivation then help your customers buy what will do the best job you can for [...]
Strange as it sounds, soft sell sales and marketing are, in some ways, tougher to do than hard sell because they require the self-discipline to focus on the concerns of others, and they require caring enough about others to delay your gratification of “closing” the sale. You must wait to describe how wonderful your products and services are until the customers are satisfied that you know and understand what their problems and/or desires are. When you have earned their trust by listening and by asking meaningful questions showing you want to understand better, they will be open and receptive to your advice. This is natural because now they feel you care about them, not just their wallets. Then, when they are ready, you can help your customers buy. [...]
For hundreds of year or longer, there were merchants who traveled from town to town, country to country. You’ve doubtless seen movies and TV shows of the Old West when a peddler came through a remote rural area with his wagon loaded with as much merchandise as he could carry. If you wanted something then, like a skillet, you bought what he had or did without. This gave rise to an expression in retail that I was taught when I first went to work for Radio Shack Computer Centers in 1981: sell what’s on the wagon.
I’m telling you, don’t sell your customers what’s on the wagon just to get the sale regardless of whether it’ right or wrong for them. Soft sell sales and marketing are about aligning with your customers. Get to know and understand their problems and desires, wants and needs. Then advise them with all the honesty and integrity you would want if you were the [...]
I was listening to one of the Soft Sell Marketers Association downloads from June in which Judith & Jim mentioned how they gave a relationship teleseminar on “The Promise of Conflict” because conflict is a part of life. It dawned on me that conflict is a natural part of sales though it is something that most of us soft sell salespeople would rather avoid. If you interact with people eventually there will be conflict. If you do sales calls, I can promise that you will eventually experience conflict.
The question frankly is how will you handle the conflict? The way to successfully handle the conflict is to ask questions so as to discover what the real issue is and to grasp the other person’s viewpoint. Listen to understand. Soft Sell Sales and Marketing are about the connection with other people where they come to know like and trust you. You can’t always avoid conflict but you can manage it by managing the way you respond. By treating your prospects and customers with respect when you find a difference of opinion, you will strengthen their feelings of trust toward you. This will lead to sales that are fun, fulfilling, and mutually [...]
I’m really excited about the changes I see in the business world. More and more businesses are realizing that the key to long term relationships is to act from a core belief that customers matter, not just their wallets. They seek to make an emotional connection with their customers, to give them a memorable experience.
Renee Miller and Bill Williams of The Miller Group put on a free webinar yesterday for the Los Angeles Region of the California SBDC. In their excellent presentation, “Connective Marketing: A Culture of Intimacy,” they presented both figures and stories to reinforce their message: marketing is changing radically. Whereas fads come and go quickly, this change will spread and become stronger because people want to make connections. They want the approach soft sell salespeople and marketers use, a way of doing business that respects prospects and involves them in developing solutions to fit them. For the soft sell salesperson, sales are fun, fulfilling and mutually [...]
I’m a big believer in walking the talk. Yesterday, however, I asked my client how I did. What he told me was eye opening, and my ego would have preferred to not have gotten the answer. Despite the soft sell sales training I do in which I stress using questions to understand before selling, I almost allowed my passion blind me to what my client wanted.
Actually, we’d had a great session. We were talking about sales and marketing activities he can take to grow their business in these tough times in one of the hardest hit industries in America: apparel. I was teaching him about the soft sell sales approach to selling: get to know the customer’s concerns and interests, her issues.
We also chatted about how difficult it is to get to the buyers these days. And that’s where my own passion overrode my listening skills. [...]
When I first experienced sales training, the trainers sometimes gave me the feeling that questions were a form of cattle prod designed to guide prospects down the chute to the slaughter house. For any soft sell salesperson, that is an unacceptable approach.
In soft sell sales and marketing, the role is that of a trusted advisor or consultant. We use questions to understand, not to control. It takes practice to use open-ended questions smoothly and comfortably. One tip is to develop an attitude of really wanting to know what your customer’s challenges are. You will more naturally move into a discussion, which helps to build trust. You help customers buy because you genuinely want to help. The result is more than a sale, it’s a connection, a relationship, that makes selling fun, fulfilling, and mutually [...]
Once you understand your best customers’ problems or desires, you next need to ask questions to get a deeper understanding. What do these problems or desires mean to them? What would their situation look like if they solved these challenges or achieved these dreams? What would their ideal situation look like? In other words, how will you know when you have gotten to their goal to either eliminate or minimize the problems from happening or to gain their wishes?
You must build a relationship of trust. Sometimes this can be done in a manner of minutes. Because you made an effort to understand their problems or goal, you can ask questions to see if what you think might be true applies to them. Next you listen to their answers. It’s in the listening that soft sell sales differs from hard sell. Hard sell people can hardly wait for the prospect to shut up so they can close. Soft sell listens to find out what is really important. Dig deeper until you understand what is really important to your prospect, then, provided you have a solution that really works, help customers buy. You’ll find you both enjoy the experience when the purchase is mutually beneficial. As one client said, “It’s a [...]
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