BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FOR SMES
Selling WE DO IT ALL THE TIME
Arguably the most fundamental aspect of all business,
Aside from the commercial aspect of selling, we all sell day in day out of our lives: we sell to our friends when inviting them to meet up with us for a drink or a meal: we sell to our partners when we want them to do something for us, whatever that may be! We sell to our colleagues when setting projects and objectives.
without which there would be no business! But what does it actual mean and entail?
In simple terms, selling is “Motivating Customer Commitment” – the process of helping people make a decision in your favour. In psychological terms, it’s the art of influence and persuasion.
THE PROCESS OF SELLING
If we look specifically at commercial selling of goods and/or services, then sales is nothing more than a process, albeit quite a complicated and deep one. For the purpose of this brief article I’ll focus on a few key steps in personal selling.
1 People buy people before they buy products! – I learnt early in my career that selling is all about relationships and more so, about building rapport and/or affinity to create a connection between buyer and seller. People buy from people they like, people buy from people like them, people buy from people who like them. So it follows that the most successful sellers are those that are truly interested in people and have chameleon like qualities to build relationships with pretty much anyone.
2 USPs – Aside from the relationship, a product or service must have a clear positioning in the market that serves to differentiate it from competitors. The positioning should articulate with clarity, a unique feature of the offering that is of value to the customer – often called a unique selling point (USP).
3. Objections – In any sales process, you can expect potential buyers to offer you reasons why they don’t currently favour your product and these are often referred to as objections. Acquiring competence in the mastery of objections handling is an extremely powerful way of driving sales success. I’m always amazed at just how under-developed this skill is in the sales people I meet.
4 Closing – The final step in the process is to close the sale, to ask for the order. Sounds obvious doesn’t it so why do so many sellers fall at this hurdle? There are many ways to close a sale and a Google search on the subject returns 2.8 million hits. Why not have a look at some of them to help improve your own sales success.
So that’s my 5-minute take on the most fundamental aspect of all business. It doesn’t matter what your next sales opportunity is, be it a £1million tender, that critical project for your team, or an aspired “night in” with your partner, create a connection, position your offering, handle objections and close the deal!
Paul Luen Martek Marine
www.martek-marine.com www.windenergynetwork.co.uk 25
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