Decision Making

Quote:

Originally Posted by AZBroker

After hearing my response he looks me in the eye and tells me I can have them all for $3 each if I bought them right then. Without hesitation I say, "$3 each? Sold!"

So much for wresting with the decision to buy or not buy.

What did I tell my wife? I told her with enthusiasm how much money I "saved" us by purchasing the signs.

I'm sure there is a lesson in there somewhere.

Making the purchase decision easier for the buyer is part of a salesperson's job. *Giving away the farm to do this is another story.*

Since this story started with Best Buy let us continue with a story of Best Buy.
I was in search of a home owner copy machine. It was for experimental events I wanted to try.We went to several companies looking for what I wanted including Best Buy.
I did not make a decision at any of the places I shopped.Not because I could not make a decision I was not enticed to make a decision by any of the sales staff at any of the palces we visited.
After a few weeks of non action and deciding II needed to take action I went back to Best Buy.This time I was lucky enough to find a young kid who actually knew what types of questions to ask.These questions drove my want and need.The questions do you have a copier now? Do you have a scanner now?Do you have a fax machine now?Thats a lot of equipment don't you think?
Let me show you this machine.A better copier machine that included a fax machine,scanner.
I spent more than I wanted or expected. I saved room in my office for more important tiems such as my reearch books and papers.My office is not as messy as it once was.The copier prints great and my presentations are precise and intriguing.
Non decisions made by the client at that time can be due to the inability of the sales staff to perform at a high level and communication or lack of communcation skills create a void of non decision.
When I return to purchase a product the reason has been the lack of information at the time I originally became interested. This means I had to find the information on my own.When I go to a store of any type I have made a decision to own.Now I must find the right person I want to own from.
More complex sales that require a longer cycle are different than a home owners decision or that of a small business where a decision comes quicker.Such as the cycle Sharon Drew has expressed so eloquently

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sharon Drew Morgen

The reality is that the 'need' or Identified Problem, as i call it, is merely part of a much larger issue that sits within a 'system' (people, policies, rules, hidden agendas and feelings, relationships, budget and time issues, future wishes, etc). This system has been around, and operates well-enough, for it to remain the way it is without change. In fact, the system has already built into it a work-around for the Identified Problem (or it would have resolved the problem already).
sd

I agree with all of that to the point where, in my mind, Sharon Drew has stated the obvious. It is hard for me to fathom that anyone who has worked in sales for very long, and works with an awareness, would not have learned that incrementally. Long before anyone put a trademarked label to describe an excellent method for working with the realities that Sharon Drew describes, those same realities were being dealt with effectively.

The name of the game is Think. Although we can learn much from others, we can't expect others to think for us.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wonderboy

My understanding from checking the sales literature is that the toughest challenge is to get the prospect to make up his mind.

I can attest to this as being true. When I worked in Best Buy's tv department, the most frequent complaint I got was the customer had too many tvs to pick from. A Best Buy associate had advised me that customer's wanted to have their choices narrowed down so we had to ask lifestyle questions and find out what the customer was particularly interested in as we gathered information.

I was bedeviled by a problem: did the customer make up his or her mind on the spot or did he have to come back later? (I was selling an HDTV which ranged from $2,500 to $3,000). That same associate, when I asked him that question, responded that the prospects come back later to buy.

As I explained in another thread, I solved the problem of giving prospects consumer choice. What happened was two weeks before I ended my tour with Best Buy, me and an associate checked the inventory showing 10 HDTVs of that model in the warehouse. Then on my last day (an Easter Sunday), a couple bought the tv outright so me and another associate checked the inventory and...the warehouse was cleaned out! No more tvs left.

Since I worked only weekends, it's possible that people came back during weekdays to buy (I still get credit for the sale). The windup to this story is I came back over a month later to see what the tv department looked like (it was being renovated). The associate who had advised me, upon seeing me, exclaimed "He's the one who cleaned out the warehouse on the JVC" (there's a story behind this which I don't want to get into). That completes my story.

I attended sales training by Jim Ziegler a few years ago -- one of the wordtracks he used that impacted me was "A confused mind always says NO." As a salesperons one must always be careful not to provide too much information -- sensory or mental overload will quickly make a prospect start backing up, and you'll be hearing "we need to go home and think about it."

A good salesperson must always ak questions first to discover buying motives, wants, needs, etc....BUT....perhaps even more crucial is to direct the customer toward specific products once those things have been discovered. I caution strongly....don't overload your customer....listen, direct, guide, explain, get agreement, close!

Decision Making

Closing the Sale Forum