Sales

Are you a widget salesperson? Are products an important part of what you sell?

For anyone in the AV industry, widgets are a part of your life. Whether you specialize in permanent installation or live events, you use widgets all the time. Your customers may even call you specifically asking for a widget.

But widgets aren’t what sells.

Service sells.

Have you ever thought about why you give your clients valuable products and services for free?

Maybe you’re trying to strengthen the relationship with the client. Or, maybe you’re just trying to ensure you’ll win the project or make the sale.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with providing some extra value to a client, but we often give away the wrong add-ons in our proposals .

You will encounter gatekeepers.

Even people with top-notch marketing and business development strategies designed to target their ideal clients occasionally find themselves stuck in a gatekeeper cycle.

It happens to the best of us… and it’s not always your fault.

You’ve been asked dumb questions. The answers are so obvious, you’re annoyed you have to waste your breath answering.

You’ve also been asked questions that don’t fit the context of your conversation. You wonder, “Where did that come from?”

And yet, you’ve also been asked some great questions. You stop and think, “Wow! Thanks for asking that!” You know the person is really listening and they value your response.

We’ve all been in each of these situations — both on the asking and answering side of the conversation. As you meet with buyers, you want your conversation to set you apart. That means you need to ask really great questions — not the ones that leave them confused or annoyed.

Where do these kinds of questions come from?

Have you ever suspected some of your salespeople are just winging it?

If so, how would you know?

Maybe you’d look at the consistency of their sales numbers. Maybe you’d talk to clients that have worked with them. But how do can you tell if their success (or lack thereof) comes from a real understanding of your company’s value to customers and how much of their success is just smooth talking?

You don’t need a great salesperson to move your business to the next level. In fact, a salesperson may actually weaken your business model.

When you rely on a great salesperson to grow your business, you’re selling based on a single relationship — not based on the full business. And relationship selling is no way to grow your business. Here’s why:

There’s no such thing as losing a bid.

I have an almost visceral response when someone calls me and says they “lost” a job they bid on.

Usually, I reply with something snarky like, “Really? Did you win it first? Did the client sign the deal, write the check, and then snatch it away from you?” Of course not.

You didn’t lose the job. You just didn’t win it.

But you still have an opportunity! Here’s what I mean:

Don’t you hate it when customers ask questions you can’t seem to answer? You drew up a stellar proposal only to face complaints from the client about the cost, price-breakdown, or what they think is a mistake.

Sometimes these situations seem insurmountable. But they’re not. In fact, they may be simpler than you think. As I work with salespeople to help them navigate objections, I find most objections are “single-level” objections — an objection you can diffuse with as little as one word or one simple explanation.

These objections are often the buyer’s way of processing information, and the worst thing we can do is overreact to a single-level objection.

You don’t have to change your price or the way your company operates. Instead, just give the objection the brief response it requires.

Here’s how:

If you do what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always got.

At the end of every year I receive dozens of requests for sales training or some sort of sales team intervention.

“Tom, I love your blogs and webinars – do you ever do anything on Sales?”

Yikes!

Um, yes I think I may have something on that…

For all the sales managers and owners out there who want to conduct their own end of the year sales retreat, here is your required reading.