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Hi!
Here's the November 2010 issue of Psyche-Selling TM
eNewsletter, and the year is fast coming to an end yet again.
At this time of the year, you might be strategising how you
would want to generate sales so that you can achieve or
exceed your targets for 2011, especially when customers'
demands are getting higher than ever before.
As you might have known by now, there are some sales
communication tactics that gave you success previously
may not be working anymore when customers get smarter
and more knowledgeable.
You may need to
give a jolt of creativity to your
sales strategy instead.
Hence, this month's topics:
-
Using the Six Thinking Hats® to
Win More Sales and Get More Customers;
and
-
How to Make
Your Retail Customers to Buy More from You
This issue's main article is on "Using the Six Thinking Hats® to
Win More Sales and Get More Customers", and
it is about how you can organise your sales meeting so
that you get better results out of those meetings with
customers.
In brief:
-
While it is true that you can increase your chances of
winning by asking the right questions in a sales
meeting, not many sales people know how to structure
their sales conversations with customers to really
ensure you get the deal;
-
While most sales methodologies
emphasize how important it is to ask questions
before making any presentations, sharing essential
information and knowledge in the initial stages of
the sale can actually win customers' trust in your
capabilities;
-
While selling is about impressing the customer with the
benefits of your offerings, your customers will
always be suspicious about what you can offer no
matter how smooth you make your pitch,
unless you can soothe their concerns even before
they raise any objections. Read on... ...
To read the rest of this newsletter, pls.
click here (http://www.psycheselling.com/page4.html.
In the meantime,
I have been
certified to train the following programmes, thus
becoming one of a few trainers and consultants in
the world to have competencies in sales force
effectiveness, leadership
and creative thinking:
Using the Six Thinking Hats® to
Win More Sales and Get More Customers
by c.j. Ng
Certified Facilitator, Six Thinking Hats®
Jerry believes he had his client eating out of his
hand. After all, Jerry had done his research,
asked the critical questions and made a presentation
so smooth that the client was simply impressed
speechless.
In addition to Jerry's impressive pitching and
presentation skills, Jerry believed he had assembled
the perfect package that was customised to meet the
client's every need. It fit the client's
requirements to a perfect "T". The client
could not have gotten any deal better than the one
Jerry was pitching.
Jerry has every reason to feel confident that the
client will buy. All that the client needs to
do is to simply get the relevant approvals, and the
contract will be signed and confirmed in a few days'
time.
Well, the days turned to
weeks, and there still wasn't any clear reply from
the client yet. Eventually, the client
revealed that while Jerry's proposal was indeed
impressive, they have decided to stick to their
current vendor for the moment.
While Jerry fully understands that it is difficult to
lure away his competitor's key
account, and make them buy from him instead,
he is nevertheless disappointed at the outcome.
Now, Jerry is wondering what else he could have done
to make sure he wins the deal.
Undaunted, Jerry seeks turns
to the
Six Thinking Hats®
to help him cover all
aspects of what the client
is thinking, so as to win
his next sale.
Structuring
Your Sales Conversations According to the
Six Thinking Hats®
For the uninitiated, the Six Thinking Hats®
is a creative decision making tool that allows a
group of people to generate innovative ideas quickly
without individual emotions or personal egos getting in the way. In essence the
6 hats are:
-
Blue Hat - Setting
and managing the agenda and focus of the meeting
-
White Hat -
Information gathering and sharing
-
Yellow Hat -
Logical benefits and positive feedback
-
Black Hat - Logical
negative feedback, could be any potential risks,
costs or negative impact
-
Green Hat - Sharing
of creative ideas, alternatives, proposals,
interesting viewpoints, provocations, etc.
-
Red Hat -
Instinctive gut reaction or statements of
emotional feeling, without the need for giving
any justification
While the
Six Thinking Hats® are commonly used to solve
problems, generate innovative ideas, or mapping business
strategies, here's an illustration how you can use it to
win more sales and get more customers.
Before you start
any sales meeting, be sure that you plan out the
sequence of how you want to conduct that meeting.
At the start of any meeting or communication with a
customer, use the
Blue Hat
to set the agenda and focus of your meeting.
Since customers are busy people, they will want to know
what you would like to discuss with them, and for how
long. You may phrase the your
Blue Hat
statement as a
Valid Business Reason,
which simply is a clear, concise and complete statement
to help your customer accomplish, modify or avoid some
important business issues.
Alternatively, you can also use the
Blue Hat
to explore certain issues with the
customer, starting with "Would you be open to explore
something new to reduce costs while improving results?".
Besides setting the agenda and focus of the meeting,
you can also use the
Blue Hat to:
-
Drive the conversation between you and your
customer, so that all key issues are covered in
time;
-
Decide if you should adjust your meeting plan
according to the responses of the customer;
-
Suggest the next
steps, and get the customer's agreement on your next
steps
Winning the Customer to Your Way of Thinking
Once the agenda and
focus of your meeting with the customer is set, you can then
structure to find out what they need you to do, IF they are
going to buy from you at all. In short, here's a set
of suggested steps for your sales meeting:
-
White Hat:
-
If you had done some research about the client
and understand some of their current situation,
you may actually start by sharing what you know,
and get their validation if you got your facts
right
-
Ask questions to ascertain what kinds of
solution they are using currently, and what will
be their expectations if they were to change to
a new and better solution in the future
-
Yellow Hat
-
Black Hat
-
Ask them what are the areas that can be improved
for their current solution, and why are these
aspects so important to them
-
While this may seem positive, it is actually
getting the customer to state the negative
aspects of their current vendor in a positive
way!
-
Green Hat
-
Red Hat
-
Check the customer's immediate, instinctive
feedback.
-
Be sure NOT to argue or justify with the
customer at this stage
-
Blue Hat:
-
Check with the customer how they would like to
move forward, especially if you get a favourable
response from them
-
You can also then decide if you would like the
customer to put on the
Black Hat to state the shortcomings of
what you proposed, or even get them to put on
the Yellow Hat to
tell you what are your strengths
-
In any case, use this
Blue Hat
to lead the customer to your next meeting, or
setting the next-step actions
As
Sun Tzu says in the Art of War,
"The victorious army plans for victory before fighting, the vanquished army fights before planning for victory"
(胜兵先胜而后求战,败兵先战而后求胜), planning for your meetings with customers could be the key success
factor for your sales meeting. In fact, most sales
people don't plan before seeing customers, and that is
precisely why they could not improve their sales results
despite their best efforts.
As Dwight
Eisenhower aptly summarises, "In preparing for battle, I
have found plans are useless, but planning
indispensable", the usage of the Six Thinking Hats® is not to
stick to one fixed plan regardless of what are the
customers' responses. It is because you have
planned how you would like to lead your customer in your
conversations, that you know what are some of the
contingencies you can fall back on. It is entire
then up to you to be flexible about adjusting your plan.
Handling Customers' Objections Using the Six Thinking
Hats®
While
using the Six Thinking Hats®
to lead your sales conversations might reduce the number
objections from customers, it does not mean that customers
will not raise any objections at all.
Here's what you should know when faced with objections:
-
It does NOT mean that the more objections you overcome, you will get closer to the sale. You still have to do your best to avoid objections
-
Never ever get into an argument when
your customer raises objections, because you will
win the argument but lose the sale; and
-
It is usually the objections and
concerns that the customer did NOT raise that will
kill your sale. Hence, rather than waiting for
objections, take the initiative to soothe your
customer's concerns and win their trust and
confidence
So here's some
suggestions in using
the Six Thinking Hats® to handle objections:
-
Black Hat
-
Get the customer to talk about their concerns,
perceived potential risks and other issues that
they don't like.
-
Don't interrupt them while they state their
concerns and objections. Simply encourage
them to give all their objections until they
exhaust all negative ideas
-
Yellow Hat
-
Once the customer has exhausted all concerns and
objections, get them to tell you what they like
about you, especially if the above concerns
raised can be resolved
-
Encourage them to keep on telling you why they
like you. If they can state a lot more
positive aspects about you and your solution,
then the objections stated above will be a less
serious concern
-
Green Hat
-
Explore with the customer how they would like to
resolve their concerns. While you may have
great ideas to resolve those customers'
concerns, involving your customer to generate
solutions to resolve their own concerns is
likely to give you greater buy-in
-
If this is not possible (especially if it is a
price issue), get the customer to evaluate that
for the value that you are delivering, will they
be willing to compromise on their demands
-
Red Hat
-
Blue Hat:
Need help generating better ideas to win more sales and
get more customers? Simply e-mail
mary.song@debonochina.com or call
+86 21 58768009 for Mary to find out when is the next Six Thinking Hats®
working session in China.
Power Breakfast Hour: 14 December 2010
Using the Six Thinking Hats® to
Win More Sales and Get More Customers
Join International Sales Force Effectiveness consultant c.j. Ng
as well as Senior Consultant of de Bono China Mr. Phil
Law in this Power Breakfast Hour in Shanghai
where you will find out:
-
How to win more sales and get more customers by
structuring your sales conversations;
-
How to
win your customers to your way of thinking by
leading them through your sales conversations
-
How to pro-actively seek out out and resolve
customers' concerns and objections to win your sales
even if the customer had not raised them yet
VENUE: Crowne Plaza Shanghai • 400 Panyu Road (near
Fahuazhen Road) • 上海银星皇冠酒店 • 番禺路 400 号 (靠法华镇路)
DATE: Tuesday, 14 December 2010
TIME: 08:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. ;
PRICE: RMB 200 ONLY!
To make this a more conducive discussion, we are
expecting a small group of about 15 people only. The
room can only take in 18, so please register early to
avoid disappointments. Please e-mail your registrations
to sales@directions-consulting.com
You can also download c.j.'s Power Breakfast Hour video
on
Stop Hiring Under-Performing
Experienced Sales People, Start Developing Competent
Ones that Deliver Results.
Pls. check out our web sites
www.directions-consulting.com and
www.psycheselling.com/page4.htmll for more inspiration.
Need a Keynote Speaker for your
Major Sales Conference?
Whether you are holding a conference for your regional staff, resellers or
even customers, we have the right speaker who can help you deliver the
spirit of your conference, and effect positive changes to meet your goals.
The topics our speakers can speak on include:
-
Why Some Sales People
Succeed While Others Fail?;
-
How to
Lure Away Your Competitors' Key Accounts, and Make Them
Buy from You Instead?;
Simply e-mail your requests to
info@directions-consulting.com or call +86-21-6219 0021 for enquiries.
Sample video and audio recordings available upon requests.
How to
Make Your Retail Customers Buy MORE from You?
By c.j. Ng and Fran Tang
Now that the Shanghai Expo is finally over, things are
starting to return to normal.
To the retail and hospitality industries, what this means
could be a drastic drop in customers as compared to the 6
months during the Expo period. Facing with such a shortfall
of customers, some retail stores are beginning to resort to
giving discounts and special offers to draw crowds. At least
one international 5-star hotel in Shanghai is offering (the
Millennium Hongqiao) "Buy One Get One
Free" for some of their Food & Beverage packages.
These are but signs to show that business is slowing down.
Not only will there be fewer customers, they are also going
to buy less. And the number of competitors eyeing for each
other's business remains high as usual.
Based on research conducted by
Deloitte & Touche, in
2009 prospects can be converted into customers in the
following ways:
-
When the sales associate offers personal testimony,
the sales conversion is 75%
-
When the sales associate offers suggestions, the
sales conversion is 73%
-
When the sales associate asks open ended questions,
the sales conversion is 62%
-
When the sales associate is able to provide answers
to customers' questions, the sales conversion is 62%
In a research conducted by
Kore Research in China
in 2010, it is found that most customers would likely
buy based on the following factors:
-
48.5% of the buying decision is made based on
product designs
-
25.2% of the buying decision is made based on
product quality itself
-
24% of the buying decision is made after the
customer has tried on the product
-
11% of the buying decision is made based on price
Hence, reverting back to the premise that many companies
in the retail and hospitality industry usually resort to
price discounts to win more customers, we can see here
that price has got one of the smallest impacts on
customers' buying decisions.
In fact, there are cases where customers are not buying
when the price is too low! This is especially due to
concerns that low-priced products might be fakes or
counterfeits, and higher prices actually instill better
confidence.
This is not to say that customers will simply choose to
buy the higher priced items. Based on the studies,
customers need to be encouraged to touch and feel the
product. Having customers try on the product is crucial
when quality and other product values and benefits count
greatly in buying decision.
As such, developing the sales and service skills is not
merely the domain of the training department.
Sales associates, if able to ask the right questions and
build trust with customers, will be the strategic
"weapon" to win sales and make customers buy more.
The questions then are:
-
Do your sales associates know what they are supposed
to do to help generate more sales?
-
Do you know what they have been doing? and
-
Are their actions and behaviours effectively
engaging customers,
so that they buy more from you?
If you would like to get more and better ideas how you can
get your customers to buy more from you, you can e-mail
fran@kore-research.com or call
+86 21 5239 9668 and arrange for a discussion. All
information shall be kept in confidence .
About PsycheSelling.com
Sales... ...the
lifeblood of a company, a matter of "life and death", survival
or extinction. Indeed, something that needs to be studied,
applied and re-modified consistently.
Yet today,
-
many companies still don't have a coherent approach as to how they can
generate more sales and achieve better margins;
-
many sales people are still lying to their customers so that they can
meet their targets at the end of the month;
-
many customers are still waiting ethical and professional sales people
to help them find out their real needs, and provide solutions that work
Psyche-Selling TM
is set up so that companies and sales people can make healthy profits and
STILL provide genuine solutions to customers.
Psyche-Selling TM
would like to create an environment where customers can trust sales people
to give them what they want, and NOT be pushed with all kinds of products
and services. In return, customers will become loyal fans of these
ethical and professional sales people, and repay them many fold for the
long-term.
Psyche-Selling TM
will not rest, until the above is achieved. Not just in China. Not
just in Asia. But everywhere where buying and selling takes place.
Psyche-Selling TM
is a wholly-owned brand of
Directions Management Consulting Pte Ltd that specialises
in the field of improving sales performance by enhancing the performance of
the entire sales team. Apart from the regular "selling skills
training", Psyche-Selling TM
conducts pre- and post-training analysis, interviews, monitoring and
reviews, working closely with managers and even senior management, to
deliver real improvements in sales leadership and performance.
Hence, Psyche-Selling TM
would like to be known as the preferred choice of outstanding and remarkable
clients, and pride ourselves as such. We will also be continuing to
assist our clients achieve greater heights in 2009 and beyond.
Enquiries and suggestions,
pls. e-mail
info@psycheselling.com or visit
www.psycheselling.com
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