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How to Beat the Recession.10 Sales tips and techniques

There may be a recession, but people still need products and organisations still need services. Who's going to get the order? Not those who wait. What's crucial for all of us? The ability to sell.

SELL, SELL, SELL

Start selling again, not just taking orders. Handle all the objections, especially price ones. Develop great accounts quickly and find quick wins. Negotiate to protect every bit of margin. You must revive the ancient art of selling, and sell your way out of this recession. Here's how.

1. Start selling again

Selling is something you do ; a proactive process. Order taking is easy when it is busy, but depressing and business-breaking in a recession. Get your sales team selling and get everyone in the organisation sales focused. Selling is about turning prospects (people who might buy) into customers (people who have bought); customers into clients (people who buy a lot from you); clients into accounts (people who buy a lot from you and are loyal) and accounts into advocates (people who rave about you and say how wonderful you are). And it is dead easy. Why do you want to do it? Because (as you know) the cost (financial and emotional) of getting customers is very, very high. But once you have got them, assuming you look after them, the cost of sale goes down and profitability goes up. And we love that.

2. What's special about you?

Identify what is special about what you're offering. If you don't have anything, create something. If there is nothing special about you, you are effectively the same as the competition, and if you are the same as the competition you can only distinguish yourself on price, which of course means lower price. You don't want to reduce prices in any business climate, but especially not in a recession. So create difference, create specialness. This can come from your company ('local'), your product ('available in red') or you and your people ('astonishingly helpful'). The one you can change most quickly is that last one, of course. If you have great differences, make sure they are well communicated in your literature; simply because you are familiar with them don't assume they are obvious to the customer.

3. Set sales goals carefully

Sales goals and targets are often simply revenue targets, generated by some spreadsheet in the bowels of the organisation. Difficulties arise when sales teams have the authority to discount - mix and margin projections fly out of the window. Consider seriously targeting the sales teams on margin and profit, or at the very least reward nondiscounting.

4. Don't talk price, talk value

There is no perfect price. Price is just a clue, shorthand that gives us guidance about value. This is an expensive car so it must be a great car; this is a cheap pen so I'm dubious about its quality. So don't talk price and let the customer get the wrong idea, talk value. Explain what it will do for them. Your product must have the answers to lots of their 'so what?' questions. In this coffee shop we recycle all the paper cups (so what?) so you know you are not damaging the environment. At this publisher we give you clear, bite-sized pieces of information (so what?) because we know you are keen to learn but also very busy. So get the sales team together and brainstorm the 'so what?' questions. Learn them and use them.

5. Don't waste time

If you are selling a small value commodity it is often just a numbers game. But where you are selling a solution, especially a high-price solution, don't waste your time. Qualify who you should be speaking to - you are looking for someone who could be a FAN of yours. In other words they have F unds, A uthority and a N eed for your product.

6. Ask for the business

Asking for the business is not pushy, it is making it easy for the person to buy. Would you like to take this shirt? Which colour do you prefer? So, does our proposal seem attractive? Would you like a cake with your sandwich? If you were to double your order we could offer free shipping. Ask for the business, and keep asking for the business.

7. Don't worry about customer concerns

When you ask people to buy, they naturally express concerns. Yes, buying double the volume would be useful but we have nowhere to store it. Isn't this a model which has been out for a while; won't it be replaced soon? I don't think we really need maintenance. These are concerns, but a concern is feedback; it tells you where to go next in the conversation. OK, let's think about how we can increase the volume and make it worthwhile to you even with your storage issue. Of course, there will undoubtedly be newer models, but this model now has an expansive range of support literature, which should be invaluable as you are new to photography. Get the team together and practise resolving these concerns.

8. You can't sell unless you know what they want

You certainly can't express your differences unless you know what they really want, so ask questions. Open questions such as, What are you trying to do here . Why did you choose that strategy? Encourage people to talk. Open questions are great for building rapport and getting background information. Closed questions such as, How much money do you have? tend to encourage yes, no or one word answers. They are great for essential information, for qualifying and of course for getting final decisions. Become more conscious of your sales conversations and use the complementary nature of the two kinds of question.

9. Learn how to make cold calls

The key thing to remember is that, although it's going to be unpleasant at times, you can handle that, because you are looking forward to the wins. The amazing thing about telephone cold calling is you can choose the company you deal with. Identify who you want to be doing business with and ring them; of course they will not be delighted to hear from you but as long as they are talking, explain what's special about you. Don't sell the product, sell a meeting. Go on, try it, because everybody else is too frightened.

10. Learn how to negotiate

You have found a company, asked questions, illustrated your uniqueness and done a pitch, and you are close to winning the business. But (surprise surprise) they want discount. Here are the essentials of negotiation:

Don't negotiate until you have sold.
Don't use discount as a route to selling.
Don't give anything unless you get something in return, e.g. I could give 3.5% but I would need a formal order, today.
Give small. If you have 15% up your sleeve, just give 3% then they will appreciate it when you eventually give 6%.
Give slowly - it's about appreciation.
Keep reminding them that whatever you agree rolls back to zero next financial year, otherwise they will start this year's agreement with last year's discount as their new base


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