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 Hi!
My name is c.j., and
here's the December 2007 issue of Psyche-Selling
TM
eNewsletter, and Merry Christmas to you all!
There are 3
articles in this issue:
-
The Key to Good Sales Negotiation
is to Eliminate the Causes of Bad
Ones;
-
How Sales People Could
Handle Sexual Harassment from Customers; and -
The Worst and Best of
Customer Service in China
This issue's main article is on "The
Key to Good Sales Negotiation is to Eliminate the Causes of Bad
Ones",
and it deals with the most fundamental objection that sales people meet
all the time - price. Find out how you can pre-empt and
gain the upper hand when dealing with price and other sensitive issues
with customers.
In brief:
-
Sales people are
weak in prospecting qualified customers, and as a result they
end up with a bunch of price-oriented ones;
-
Sales people are
afraid to walk out on deals because they are weak in prospecting
for new, better customers;
-
While there are
many other causes of bad sales negotiation, and how you start
your sales process may just determine what you get in the end.
To read the rest of this
newsletter, pls. click
here (http://www.psycheselling.com/page4.html).
The
Key to Good Sales
Negotiation is to Eliminate the Causes of Bad Ones
by c.j. Ng
Probably the most often heard objection from customers centres around
the issue on price.
In my
Nov
2007 issue, I
mentioned that (apart from habitual bargaining) the main reason
customers want to hack down the price is that they don't see how the
value you provide justifies the (high) price they are paying.
However, justifying and
educating customers on the value of your offering to be worth more than
the price you are charging is just part of the answer to good sales
negotiation. If you want to emerge as a winner in the selling
game, you'd also have to eliminate the causes of bad negotiation too.
Are You Doing Enough Prospecting?
While most
sales training materials will focus on objection handling techniques
when it comes to handling price objections, it does not address the
fundamental issues of negotiations. When negotiating, you may want
to know what is your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA),
which in simple English, what will happen if you don't accept the
negotiation outcome placed on the table.
To sales people, the
options are:
- Close a deal, but at smaller
profits and smaller commissions;
- Close a deal at no profits and
no commissions, but still able to achieve sales quotas
- Close a deal at a loss, but
will make it up on the next deal, so that there will be profits for
the account in aggregate
As you can see, this
is a slippery slope for sales people who may just bend over
backwards and give anything away just to make the sale. Now,
what will be the root cause of such behaviour in sales people?
It is NOT
because they have high sales targets to achieve, or that the sales
person does not know how to apply objection handling techniques.
The reason is that the sales person is not prospecting enough, and
does not have enough prospects in the pipeline.
In the
Nov
2007 issue,
I mentioned that customers buy because "the pain of not buying is
greater than the pain of giving the money to the sales person and
buy". Similarly, sales people are unable to stand up against
price pressures can also be largely due to the pain of not closing
and losing the business is greater than the pain of sustaining
losses in order to close the deal.
And what causes
the sales person to feel a greater pain to lose a business?
Burgeoning sales targets may be the reason, but a bigger reason is
that there aren't many leads in the pipeline to follow through, and
hence the need to "close something, anything" will be greater than
the need to deliver profits.
In fact in most
companies, sales people may be fired immediately if sales targets
are not reached, but may only be reprimanded if the sales generated
are loss-making ones. Strange, but true.
Are You Prospecting for the Right Kinds of Customers?
While some
sales people may be masters in the art of handling objections, no
amount of objections handling expertise can save the deal if the
customer wants nothing but lower prices.
While it is
true that most customers are cost conscious, they too will have to
accept that there are differences between the price of a product vs.
the cost of purchasing. However, there are also customers that
refuse to make distinctions in either, and will just buy the
cheapest priced offer.
If most of your
customers in your pipeline belong to this category, then you'd
probably need to do better qualifying and filtering in your
prospecting process. This is not to say we will find customers
who will buy our products and services at any prices we dictate.
I believe we aren't naive enough to wish for that.
What we need to look for are
prospects who are at least willing to listen to us, just as we are
willing to listen to them. This means that more work is
required when prospecting for new customers.
Unfortunately, most sales
people love to interact with customers, but simply HATE to prospect.
Hence, the sales team who can make the discipline to prospect more,
and prospect better, is going beat their competitors hands down.
Eliminating the Causes of Bad Sales
Negotiation
While there are many other causes of bad sales negotiation, and how
you start your sales process may just determine what you get in the
end.
In addition to
poor prospecting, the causes of bad negotiation include:
-
Poor questioning techniques that upset
customers;
-
Not knowing what customers want;
-
Not knowing your customers' BATNA;
-
Poor understanding of the values that
customers want (and need) from you;
-
Poor articulation of what you can do
for your customer;
-
Following through with customers with
low influence on the decision making;
-
Not know what each influencer in the buying
process wants to get out of the deal; etc.
The list
goes on, but it starts with the beginning, that is have you got enough
qualified prospects in your pipeline?
If you
would like to find out how you can prospect better
and eliminate other causes of bad sales negotiations, simply
e-mail
info@psycheselling.com
or call +86-13671902505 or Skype:
cydj001 and
arrange to buy me coffee.
All information shall be kept in confidence
Practical Tips:
How Sales People
Could Handle Sexual Harassment from Customers
by c.j. Ng
Sexual harassment from
customers isn't new. It's just a topic that most would just shun
from discussing.
I
would suggest that for sales people (esp. for ladies) who have been
solicited favors or have been subjected to crude behaviour, tell their
customers to stop immediately (in polite ways if possible, and in very
firm ways if need be).
While some of sales people may have concerns that if they reject such
customers' advances, they will lose the business, I beg to differ. Simply put:
-
Those who solicit sexual
favours (of any kind) from sales people and got it, may just end up NOT
buying;
-
Those who DIDN'T get any
favours from our staff at all may still end up buying
In fact, there are various
possibilities when our staff rejected a customers' advances:
-
The customer felt
embarrassed and ashamed, and will never bring the issue up again;
-
The customer came to terms that they are asking the wrong favours from
the wrong people, and changed the topic;
-
The customer felt upset, but still buys from us due to business reasons;
-
The customer felt upset and chooses not to do business with us again
Customers may be the people the people who pay our
bills, but they aren't necessarily always right. Customers are
important to us, but as sales people, we expect ourselves to be treated
with respect and dignity as well.
As such, the chances are we will still get the business in most cases
by standing firm. As for those "customers" who will not do business until
he gets a sexual favour, we can always refer them to do business with
our competitors!
If you think you need help, with
handling harassing customers in ways that it won't hurt your sales
targets, just e-mail
info@psycheselling.com and
I'll help whenever I can.
Real Case:
The Worst and Best of
Customer Service in China
by c.j. Ng
A business
traveler to Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China left his luggage in the
boot of the taxi he took from the airport to the hotel.
Fortunately for him, he kept he receipt of the cab fare, and asked the
hotel front desk staff to contact the cab driver via the taxi
station
and see if the luggage can be tracked and retrieved.
Unfortunately, the cab driver's response was he didn't see anything.
By then, the
traveler had given up hopes of retrieval. Undaunted, the front
office staff rang the taxi
station again and see if
the boot can be opened and checked when the current driver changed
shifts. The taxi
station staff agreed to
do so.
Hours later, after hearing no reply
from the taxi
station, the front office
staff called again. The taxi company staff replied that the shift
had been changed, and no one in the company checked the boot, since
everyone was "just so busy".
Undaunted still, the front office staff got hold of the new driver's
mobile number, and contacted him. This new driver did see the
luggage in the boot, but was unwilling to send the luggage to the hotel
as he needed to make his rounds. He asked the front office staff
to meet him at the taxi station when his shift was over.
The front office staff then hired a taxi to the station at the agreed
upon time. By then, her own shift was over, and she was trying to
retrieve the luggage outside of her working hours. When she
finally hooked up with the taxi driver, the driver asked for some
rewards for handling the "lost and found" luggage. Fortunately,
the front office staff had come prepared with a carton of "Zhong Hua"
brand (the most coverted brand with the Chinese) cigarettes.
When the luggage was finally delivered, late at night, to the hands of
the traveler, he had long given up hope of seeing it again. Till
this date, however, he still hadn't know the trouble it took the front
office staff to get the luggage back.
China may have its fair share of customer service nightmares, and
fortunately, the service provided by cab drivers here are improving,
though with a lot of room for more improvement. However, if you
are looking for service staff that really go for the extra mile and
beyond for customers, you'll be glad that such service exists,
especially at the Holiday Inn (Zhengzhou) where this story took place.
About PsycheSelling.com
As you might have heard of them,
the most common
challenges faced by sales people in any country, and across
nearly every industry, are as follow:
-
Unable to qualify for the right customers;
-
Unable to generate interest through the telephone;
-
Unable to get to the right people (who may or may not be whom
you think);
-
Unable to define the decision making structure of customers;
-
Unable to get customers interested and excited about what you
have to offer;
-
Unable to sustain customers’ interest through the sales cycle;
-
Unable to get past clients’ objections and close the sale
-
Spending too much time with proposals that seem to go nowhere
-
Unable to sell deeper to the same customers
Having these concerns in mind,
the Psyche-Selling
TM
is created
as a result of 1-to-1 coaching with sales people from a variety of
industries across 13 cities in Asia.
Psyche-Selling TM
is currently a co-affiliate of the
HR Chally Group, together with
Shi Bisset & Associates,
to help you identify gaps in your current sales force, and then
formulate ways to help you get better results.
The HR Chally Group is a talent management, leadership
development, and sales improvement corporation providing personnel
assessment and research services for over 33 years. Chally is
recognised as an international technology leader in scientific
assessment and prediction for selection, job alignment and leadership
development, and for management assessment. For more information
about implementing Total Quality Sales Management in your company, pls.
log on to
http://www.psycheselling.com/TQSM-ExecBrief_email.pdf to get more
insights.
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