As a sales person you receive a certain amount of training that always highlights the main features of whatever you are selling, with your tele sales training/script you are also programmed into 'knowing' what your customer wants and how to give that to them. Reality Check! You don't and neither does your company.

These are the 3 major questions a customer will ask themselves, usually subliminally, before parting with their cash:

#1.  What are my feelings towards this person and the company but also how much trust do I have?

You’re representing the company so ensure everything is of the highest standard, ensure the customer is at ease and build a relationship that can produce a champion.

Always be straight and ensure you don’t hide any facts or mislead the customer. If something goes hazy then chances are the trust in the relationship will be ruined and no amount of deals will be able to fix that.

#2.  Do I want these products and services?

Nobody buys anything unless they need it, so bring up a common problem that gets solved with your product which then allows the customer to think for themselves and ponder all the solutions you could solve for them.

This is when you need to listen and be truthful about what you can actually do for them, not a fairy tale that doesn’t solve any problems and again hurts the relationship between customer and company.

#3.  Does the product's value meet my expectations and do I really need it?

This is the hardest part to sway the customer to a buying attitude. Countless times have I been in the same room where a customer expected a product to cost this much and in fact it costs more.

A lot of the time they will have heard a number and not actually looked further into it and this is when expectations can hurt the transaction. Be very clear about price and discounts and depending on what you’re offering, bring up any characteristics that should be expected but not worried about if they appear.

Related: The Only Sales Objection You Will Ever Need To Overcome

What should be taken away from this.

If you have read the book How to Win Friends & Influence People (if you haven’t it’s a must read) then you know there is a strong emphasis on the other party. It’s never I want this and me, me, me in fact you should rarely consider what you want. Listen to the customer and become fully engrossed in what they have to say. If you can then use the knowledge to educate the customer on how they can profit from your product then chances are they will buy into it.

Remember as much as we may like to think about what we want, we need to consider what the customer needs and desires. This is far more important unless you plan to buy enough of the product you’re selling to keep the company going.

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# 1. Questions, we hate lots of questions

 It’s a habit, to go loco with the questions to get you in the mindset that everything is fine with the client and it’s a constant reassurance, a sense of personal security if you will. However ask 20 questions and that client is bored and walking away, keep the questions awesome and get the client thinking. A run-down of the lame questions that we are guilty of asking and the awesome one’s we avoid can be found here, use them as you wish but remember keep it short and make sure you ask the ‘real’ questions.

# 2. Commercial Perspective

Commercially focused people will use the qualification checklist at the earliest stage possible to get an idea of the client’s needs but ultimately to have the client qualified. It’s important to drill down the 3 stages of questioning that will help you go through the checklist. Example questions would be; will you give me an order now? Why in 2 weeks? Is there anything that could stop this from happening? These are tough but a confident approach will make your client want to copy that confidence with a solid reply.

Related: The Only Sales Objection You Will Ever Need To Overcome

# 3. Qualification Checklist

Maybe you have a criteria you follow or maybe not, either way it’s essential you have one and a rather incredible one. Our criteria consist of;

• Need - How will this affect the business and would it work? Pointing this out generates a thought process on both parts and can really determine if the deal is worthwhile.
• Money – Can you really afford it right now? It’ll be a hard question to ask, but your knowledge of the product and a non-bias view will be straight and say what the actual cost will be in the short and long term. If there are no major issues they will gladly answer and back it all up, easing any worries that may be present.  
• Authority – The decision maker is who you have to qualify, if you are not talking to that person then call off the meeting. If a deal is to happen and not get lost in translation it is imperative you avoid the front desk staff so to speak, even though in time they may become an internal champion for your business, the decision maker will probably not have a clue who you and your service are.  
• Timing – It’s no good trying to qualify a customer that won’t require your product for over a year, if contracts are not signed then it’s a waste of time for both parties. Business situations can change quickly and your client may be interested to get an offer in now, but be straight with them and ask if the timing is right and ask them the likely hood of requirements changing. Looking out for the customer is important to build a good relationship, getting all of the possible time constraints out in the open will help with the final decision.
• Champion (the champion is explained here) – This can be anyone within another business so like mentioned above the front desk staff could be prime. These people will be your best way into the boardroom to have a meeting with the decision maker, if you arrange a meeting and no one with authority turns up, make sure that the person you do meet loves your offer and even becomes an expert in your company, this way if your service is required in the future you will be the first to pop up. It also helps that internally someone has experience with another company; less risk is involved that way.

Using this checklist (MNATC) look at your last 5 deals, won or lost and be extra critical on them then go through them again with MNATC. Chances are you will see that with MNATC 99% of those deals you would have had no choice but to close the deal sooner rather than later, however without the use of MNATC there is a strong chance you wouldn’t get that sale.

# 4. Process Centric Sales Techniques

Steps of the sale training can be very good but little emphasis is on qualifying an account early which needs to be much stronger than on closing the deal. If it’s done early it practically closes itself remember to ask the tough questions, again the sales script we pick up over time is generic and tedious the right questions however will get the account finalized.

# 5. Control

Use your sales model, stick to it and be sure to use it early. Ask the sales specific questions early and get the account going in the direction you want it to, leave it too long and it will go another direction which then completely ruins your sales process. Be careful not to get manipulative though as this is a huge no-no which can and will upset you clients, don’t grab the account by the horns and lead it down the unknown as this tends to leave more than just you red faced.

Related: How To Spot Prospects That Are Actually Worth Your Time And Effort

Conclusion - Make sure that on every account you qualify hard and it's done early. Skip the nursery questions and get into your big boy pants, asking the right things will get the sales mindset flowing for both parties. By all means remember to close just don’t search far and wide for the ‘guru’ and ‘ninja’ that everyone seems to love.

It’s really not that important to close!  

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I mention the tracking of our daily lifestyle because it’s become such a norm that we do it in our sub-conscience, anything you're curious about it can probably be tracked and a monthly graph with a rundown for improvement supplied. Question is why do so many people enter a boardroom or meeting and present everyone with a pie chart of something they are not entirely sure of? Then try to pass it by with meaningless numbers, explaining that Q2 targets were missed due to a ‘slow market’.

Metrics can peel back those layers and explain fully what we all want to know, where the company is going well and how improvements need to can be made.

Related: Use ‘Business Owner Snacks’ To Make Decisions Quickly

Applications

We use Salesforce religiously to monitor how the company is doing with the quarterly targets; it’s incredibly complex but offers full monitoring of all the metrics you set. The growing number of applications that can be added to the main package itself makes it all the more worthwhile, there’s a new metric to be monitored all the time or a certain aspect of your business which can generally be tracked fully with Salesforce. It does however come at a cost but the rise of other metric monitoring packages has really opened the doors to everyone and any type of business, which in the end means you can and need to know your numbers.

Determining the application/package you want is down to the level of monitoring you wish to have and also the size of your company, you do however need to consider the growth prospects of your team or business and consider viable products in the future.

Not understanding the results or not even knowing how to use the package would mean you may as well turn up to the board meeting with a unicorn and explain how that came about, it would be far easier. So it’s important to research, try trial editions and analyze your options before you commit to any package. It then comes down to the metrics you want tracked or more specifically the inputs and outputs to determine the actual productivity of your business.

WTF is this?!

This could potentially be your reaction when you receive the results from the latest quarter of metric monitoring. It can be a daunting time seeing these results and you then realize that the company is in fact doing nowhere near as well as you thought and the next meeting will actually be your trial. It could also be the other way around but chances are it’s bad, simply because the needed actions were not taken in time for damage limitation.

Related: How Healthy Is Your Business?

Choose Metrics to Track

So we now need to choose metrics to track, this I can’t help with due to the large scale of metrics to choose from but there is a general start with picking metrics. We need to start at the end goal and work backwards, with most of us the end goals consist of:

• Growth
• Profit (/Loss)
• Cash flow (Positive)

There are various ways we can go which lead to all of the above e.g. ROI (Return on Investment), CAC (total cost to acquire a customer) and so on but from a sales perspective we will look at a telesales view and determine some metrics we can in fact monitor.  These could be:

• Number of calls per team member.
• Number of outbound calls VS cold calls per team member.
• % of conversions on all calls combined per team member.
• Overall group performance i.e. deals size, total calls.
• Number of deals closed * average deal size.

These are all ideas but you would have to adjust accordingly to suit your company, your needs and what you want to monitor overall. As I said the scale of metrics to monitor are huge but it’s always imperative you avoid certain areas of tracking i.e. factors which cannot be changed or affected by yourself or the team. Just focus on the biggest metrics that can have the biggest effect on the business.

I’m going to monitor this drying paint

Metrics do sound tedious and boring, but the ability to fully understand the mechanics of your business will in the long run be incredibly beneficial and keep those headaches away. It’s as always down to setting targets and having them in place to drive profits, growth or anything else you wish to achieve when you know your metrics. Results drive the company but also drive employees, productivity needs to be pushed and realistic with time scaled targets which can be set in stone instead of promises and then forgotten about.

So I’ll ask you this, do you know your metrics?

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Costco

Consider Costco which is an American international wholesale company that reported earnings of $88 billion in 2011.

Never heard of them? That's because they don't spend a dollar on advertising. This already goes against the grain of many of its competitors and the majority of business lesson's.

• The company relies on the experience that it offers to its customers and employees to then advertise for them, it works wonders.
• The culture within the company means the employees are respected and customers have a wonderful experience.
• The employees receive various benefits and a wage that easily beats the competitors offerings.
• In return the company gets hard working and loyal individuals which has resulted in reports that the company has the lowest level of theft among employee's in its market.
• For the customer they get to play the guessing game on a weekly basis as Costco focuses on stocking exotic and different items to ensure customers always have a surprise every time they visit.

The fact they don't advertise anything results in more customer visits and even more spending simply because the customer fears they won't be able to purchase the item next week. If you personally visit the store consider how many times you have gone over your budget or sidetracked from your shopping list.

Related: How To Give Your Services The Product Factor

Change employee incentives

Making changes to incentives can result in employees becoming more productive.

Causing a little competition within the team can bring a lot of positive results.  A simple press up challenge could bring out a new drive or determination within your team.

Its also about changing frequently, press up competitions will get boring for many after a while so keep changing and keep everyone guessing.

Related: Managing To Get The Very Best From Your People

Excite customers

The same can be said for your customer whatever market you are in throwing in an offer or product which doesn't appear anywhere else other than in store can soon start a new wave of customers.

Word of mouth and the guessing game can bring a lot of curiosity and even more profits. Find a product within a niche that very few other's stock, the excitement itself will cause people to search your business for more offerings.

Related: Reviews: The Value Of Letting Customers Have Their Say

How do you differentiate your business from your competitors?

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