How often do you make the difference?

Originally Posted by MitchM As an amateur in the sales business, I'm fascinated by the idea of hot or no [indifferent] buttons. Are these buttons buttons we are supposed to find to push or uncover? MitchM

Hot buttons are nothing more than motivations to purchase. If you identify a hot button (or, if you prefer, a "motivation to spend money on something"), you have a higher likelihood of the prospect buying from you than if you are unaware of those purchase motivations.

The hottest hot buttons: (a) are specific, and (b) have a high level of emotional energy underlying them.

If a salesperson understands the buying motivations that live in the psyches of his prospects, he's got an opportunity to meet those purchase motivations (or "hot buttons" or "needs"). But if the salesperson is unaware of them, then there's a big piece of understanding that's likely missing from the salesperson's radar screen, and therefore out of his sphere of influence.

The thread started with a request for examples of having made a difference:
1. feet on the desk at 7:30 am reading in the Globe & Mail about Cara Foods (if I recall correctly) having a phenomenal year ... it's in my patch, so, I was at the door at 9:00 and I was out of there by mid-morning with a fairly impressive sale ... nothing to do with Xerox features/benefits but everything to do with hidding some of that fiscal performance as an office expense;
2. one of my SRs is gone for Christmas holidays so I went to one of her school boards with someone from our Admin Group, a spreadsheet (with Apple pricing) and an projection system ... the Board had gone on strike a couple of months before and had built-up a war-chest of unpaid teachers' salaries which we put in the top corner of the spreadsheet ... then we identified the Board's wish-list in terms of Apple product and walked out with a P.O. for over $2mil (which put Anne somewhat over-plan when the competition was avoiding the Board because of the strike);
3. one of the other sales reps was away and an "urgent call" came into the pit, "...mgmt is coming up this afternoon, the first SR to arrive with a non-cancellable contract and a photo-copier gets the business..." ... I was back in the office by noon with the paperwork (copier installed, lease signed, first payment, cheque certfied, etc.) ... even my manager tried to stop me from going on this call but Ray Lapoint loved it when I told him about the sale in his patch;
4. (this one might be in another thread) I was presenting a computer vision-based solution to a steel mill (the participants included mgmt, technology group, and union) ... about a third of the way into it, one of the union reps interrupted with an observation about a portion of the assumed savings coming from labour savings from the technology "... you needn't be concerned about a negative reaction from the union because we realize that someone will present this sort of technology to the competition and the resultant job losses will be more permanent..." (it's always a little easier when you're on the steep side of the adoption curve);

Does this stuff fit the bill?

Good luck & Good selling!
Pat

Originally Posted by OUTSource Sales The thread started with a request for examples of having made a difference: 1. feet on the desk at 7:30 am reading in the Globe & Mail about Cara Foods (if I recall correctly) having a phenomenal year ... it's in my patch, so, I was at the door at 9:00 and I was out of there by mid-morning with a fairly impressive sale ... nothing to do with Xerox features/benefits but everything to do with hidding some of that fiscal performance as an office expense; 2. one of my SRs is gone for Christmas holidays so I went to one of her school boards with someone from our Admin Group, a spreadsheet (with Apple pricing) and an projection system ... the Board had gone on strike a couple of months before and had built-up a war-chest of unpaid teachers' salaries which we put in the top corner of the spreadsheet ... then we identified the Board's wish-list in terms of Apple product and walked out with a P.O. for over $2mil (which put Anne somewhat over-plan when the competition was avoiding the Board because of the strike); 3. one of the other sales reps was away and an "urgent call" came into the pit, "...mgmt is coming up this afternoon, the first SR to arrive with a non-cancellable contract and a photo-copier gets the business..." ... I was back in the office by noon with the paperwork (copier installed, lease signed, first payment, cheque certfied, etc.) ... even my manager tried to stop me from going on this call but Ray Lapoint loved it when I told him about the sale in his patch; 4. (this one might be in another thread) I was presenting a computer vision-based solution to a steel mill (the participants included mgmt, technology group, and union) ... about a third of the way into it, one of the union reps interrupted with an observation about a portion of the assumed savings coming from labour savings from the technology "... you needn't be concerned about a negative reaction from the union because we realize that someone will present this sort of technology to the competition and the resultant job losses will be more permanent..." (it's always a little easier when you're on the steep side of the adoption curve); Does this stuff fit the bill? Good luck & Good selling! Pat

Thanks, Pat, for getting us back to the thread topic. We stray a lot, and I'm as guilty of it as anyone.

Originally Posted by Gold Calling Obviously, selling is a numbers game and doing the numbers allows for sales techniques we are learning or have learned to be practiced. Now let me post a question - when you come to that moment, after you have studied and learned the skills of how to deal with it, and that objection comes up, how often do you make a difference? In other words - in the past you lost the sale, applying what you've learned and mastered, in real numbers, how often does what you do actually end up with you dealing with this objection affectively and winning the business?

I can only talk about my business. Which is an impulse purchase. It is a one call close.

Let's see ....Today I talked to 15 people. Gave 15 Full Presentations, and I closed 4 out of those 15 presentations.

So today my closing ratio was 4 out of 15 or I closed 27% of the people I spoke with. Which actually is very good.

Out of those 4 sales, all 4 originally said no or gave me an objection ( A reason why they felt they could not purchase today)

So if I had just given up , when they said no...Guess how many sales I would have? You're right...0.

3 thought they didn't have the available credit on their card, turns out did.

1 I really had to close him. He was a toughie. Wanted to make sure he wouldn't lose his deposit if he couldn't travel. I gave him more bonuses and doubled the amount of time he could travel on the vacation.


I am really skeptical of anyone that is in B2C sales, and doesn't have answers to their prospects questions or concerns.

Originally Posted by MattyB I can only talk about my business. Which is an impulse purchase. It is a one call close. Let's see ....Today I talked to 15 people. Gave 15 Full Presentations, and I closed 4 out of those 15 presentations. So today my closing ratio was 4 out of 15 or I closed 27% of the people I spoke with. Which actually is very good. Out of those 4 sales, all 4 originally said no or gave me an objection ( A reason why they felt they could not purchase today) So if I had just given up , when they said no...Guess how many sales I would have? You're right...0. 3 thought they didn't have the available credit on their card, turns out did. 1 I really had to close him. He was a toughie. Wanted to make sure he wouldn't lose his deposit if he couldn't travel. I gave him more bonuses and doubled the amount of time he could travel on the vacation. I am really skeptical of anyone that is in B2C sales, and doesn't have answers to their prospects questions or concerns.

Matty, you accurately describe the reality for many/most of us face in retail selling, and other kinds of consumer selling. When we have an opportunity, we have to do our best with that opportunity, or it goes away.

"Doing our best" with an opportunity doesn't mean we don't have integrity, that we're not nice people, or that we take advantage of our prospects. It simply means we recognize that we make a living exchanging products/services in exchange for payment from our customers, and some of us are better at doing that than others. My mission is to help people do that more effectively.

Congrats on your 27% conversion rate yesterday!

Skip Anderson