Your competitors are out there right now trying to sell your customers and prospects. That's the bad news.
The good news is that, with the right selling strategy, it is easy to stand out from the competition. Here are eight tips to effectively stand out from and then dominate the sales competition:
1. Break the pattern: If most salespeople are doing the same thing (which they are), then you want to do the exact opposite. By doing the opposite of what a prospect expects the typical salesperson to do, you break the prospect's defense pattern and can engage in a more productive sales conversation.
2. No more enthusiasm: Old-school salespeople are over-the-top enthusiastic and not genuine. In order to be totally distinct, drop the fake enthusiasm. Instead be genuinely interested in your prospect's world. Remember that you are most interesting to someone by being interested in them.
3. Quit pitching: Prospects are trained to be wary of a canned pitch. The smooth sales pitch has been around for literally more than 100 years: National Cash Register (NCR) famously perfected it in the late 1800s. Still, these ineffective sales pitches are the go-to approach for most salespeople. Doing the same will make you seem sleazy.
4. Persuasion is cheesy: Persuasion tactics are not only predictable, but they also inherently assume that every prospect is a good fit for what you sell. This is not the case. In fact, at least 50 percent of the prospects you meet are not going to be a good fit for you, for a number of reasons. Rather than assume that you should persuade prospects, ask questions to determine whether there is a match between their challenges and your solutions.
5. Focus on them: Most salespeople spend most of their time in selling situations talking about themselves and their organizations. This is a "me"-focused approach to selling — and it turns prospects off. Instead, focus on the prospect's world in an effort to understand what is really going on with them and their businesses. Be prospect-focused.
6. It's about the prospects' challenges: You do not sell a product or service; you sell a solution to your prospects' challenges. By asking about a prospect's challenges, you earn his or her trust and gain a clear understanding of whether the prospect is qualified for the solution you have to offer.
7. Pressure is passé: Nothing turns off prospects more than high-pressure closing techniques. For more than 100 years, salespeople have been pre-preemptively sliding contracts across the table and eagerly asking, "So, are you ready to move forward?" Your prospects have been training their entire adult lives to sidestep this tactic.
8. Use a doctor's mindset: Stop thinking like a salesperson. Instead, think like a doctor. When a prospective patient walks into a doctor's office with a problem, does the doctor state her solution at the beginning of the visit? No way. Instead, the doctor spends time examining the problem, asking questions and then — only when she’s confident she has the right answers — offers a solution. Apply this same approach to your selling.
Now that you have the strategy to standing out from and then beat the competition, it's time to take action. Which of the eight tips will be most useful to you? Please share in the comments.
