How often do you make the difference?

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?

When I first started out in the business I repeatedly faced resistance to the length of our listing contract. One day I got tired of the hassle and came up with a response that to this day resolves the issue 99.9% of the time.

I do absolutely nothing to over come objections or win business. When people say they want what I'm offering them and I ask if the details we'll talk about satisfies their questions what they'll and they say buy my product what remains is answering questions.

Obviously we talk about some personal things as we get to know each other a little better and some questions appear to be an objection but are really for clarity or information to know this or that.

I don't try to win a sale though - victory is often walking away.

MitchM

The most well researched Sales Training System that was ever marketed was developed after the single most profitable invention known to man prior to the micro-chip, that was the Xerox 914 copier.

Xerox knew they had the world by the tail when they bought Chester Carlson's invention, known as Xerography, so they got started and they interviewed thousands of top performers. Every salesperson they had that was a producer ... this research provided the background information for the basics of their Professional Sales Skills (PSS) training courses. Never before or since has such a research project in our profession been undertaken at that level. And, most of the well known sales courses being marketed today are just modified versions of PSS.

Through this extensive project they (some of the smartest people in sales) discovered that there are two main reasons for objections;

1) A Perceived Drawback, or;

2) A Misunderstanding.

And, there are very definitely techniques for understanding which one is interfering with your possibility to get the sale and, once understood, handling them to increase the chance of a successful sales call.

This (what was written above) is not my opinion. It is paraphrased by me, a coach who has spent his whole career training sales people, who knows the topic like the back of his hand from the Xerox PSSII and III days, dating back to 1977 (my personal experience). And I can tell you that if you do not understand how this is done you are loosing sales. If you do, how often did the technique work?

After all, there are some people whom you cannot get a sale from no matter how good you are, there are some who buy without raising an objection and then there are those who might buy, who the product/service is a right fit for, if only you are good at what you do.

Do you try to make the sale when an objection is raised? If so, how often did you make the difference? Or put another way, how often does it work?

Preface:

What's the value of PSS today I don't know - I don't know the system so I can't critique it. I do know that I've gone to many resources that have encouraged me to use their sales system or face sales loss - more sales loss. That's fairly common in the "selling to salespersonal" target marketing. I say this all objectively having as I say no specific opinion on something I know nothing about - it's a generic statement.

My personal observation concerning reasons for objections are:

1. I don't want IT.

2. I DON'T want it.

Obviously there are people who say, "I don't want it" when they don't know what they don't want. So some people in sales would attack that "don't want" to try and win a sales.

I also differ from some sales professionals in that I don't try to get a sale in the commonly understood sense of the cliche meaning: to over come objections, uncover the need, transfer the need into an emotional want, and exchange money for stuff. I just don't do that.
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"Do you try to make the sale when an objection is raised? If so, how often did you make the difference? Or put another way, how often does it work?" -- GC

No!

The best of the best to you.

MitchM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gold Calling

The most well researched Sales Training System that was ever marketed was developed after the single most profitable invention known to man prior to the micro-chip, that was the Xerox 914 copier.

Xerox knew they had the world by the tail when they bought Chester Carlson's invention, known as Xerography, so they got started and they interviewed thousands of top performers. Every salesperson they had that was a producer ... this research provided the background information for the basics of their Professional Sales Skills (PSS) training courses. Never before or since has such a research project in our profession been undertaken at that level. And, most of the well known sales courses being marketed today are just modified versions of PSS.

Through this extensive project they (some of the smartest people in sales) discovered that there are two main reasons for objections;

1) A Perceived Drawback, or;

2) A Misunderstanding.

And, there are very definitely techniques for understanding which one is interfering with your possibility to get the sale and, once understood, handling them to increase the chance of a successful sales call.

This (what was written above) is not my opinion. It is paraphrased by me, a coach who has spent his whole career training sales people, who knows the topic like the back of his hand from the Xerox PSSII and III days, dating back to 1977 (my personal experience). And I can tell you that if you do not understand how this is done you are loosing sales. If you do, how often did the technique work?

After all, there are some people whom you cannot get a sale from no matter how good you are, there are some who buy without raising an objection and then there are those who might buy, who the product/service is a right fit for, if only you are good at what you do.

Do you try to make the sale when an objection is raised? If so, how often did you make the difference? Or put another way, how often does it work?

Gold, since you're fairly new here, you should know that there seem to be quite a few participants in this forum that strongly believe:

- You sell by not selling

- You close by not closing

- You network by not networking

- You sell more by using less sales skills.

- It's good to be an amateur and bad to be a professional.

I encourage members of this forum who do not believe the four items above to speak up, join the fray, get involved in the forum, and let's all help each other:

- Sell more by selling better

- Close more sales by closing better

- Expand our valuable networks by doing better networking

- Sell more by improving our selling skills

- Being professional in every sense of the word

...and do all of this all while being moral, honest, helpful, upstanding citizens who happen to make a living being a sales professional and have a blast doing it.

Skip Anderson

Preface: Your post is a funny polorizing paradigm, Skip. And selling without selling - well, there's a long history of contradictions and paradoxes you miss in these distinctions, I believe. I may be wrong. These are not either or necessarily - they may be - nor are they opposites though they may be distinctively differentiated.
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Gold, since you're fairly new here, you should know that there seem to be quite a few participants in this forum that strongly believe:

- You sell by not selling

- You close by not closing

- You network by not networking

- You sell more by using less sales skills.

- It's good to be an amateur and bad to be a professional. -- Skip

I believe:
1. you sell to a buyer who wants what you sell
2. you mutually close the deal with the buyer
3. you build through good sales a network of buyers who often repeat
4. you sell more by using the best sales skills today
5. amateurs and professionals can be very successful

AND you do it all with confidence and the respect of the people you both sell to and don't sell to as well as your acquaintences in the sales business.

MitchM

Well stated, MitchM. An appropriate response to what I believe was a hugely inappropriate post that attempted to demean members of this forum who don't agree with Skip's viewpoints. The fact is that there happens to be serious professionals among that group, and, having read your contributions, I would count you among them.

Thanks for taking the lead in that matter.

Gold, I enjoyed your commentary on PSS. What you shared was an interesting perspective. Those posts enrich this forum, in my opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MitchM

I believe:
1. you sell to a buyer who wants what you sell
2. you mutually close the deal with the buyer
3. you build through good sales a network of buyers who often repeat
4. you sell more by using the best sales skills today
5. amateurs and professionals can be very successful
MitchM

MitchM, please share with the community what you think the best skills today are (as you referenced in #4 of your post).

Thanks.

How often do you make the difference?

Sales Resistance Forum