You know the problem. You've done everything right along the way. The client is easy to talk to. They're friendly. They like you're product. They're interested, and they like you. In other words, all the lights are green, when it comes to making the sale. Yet - when you move in for the close, the client squirms. Either they think what you're offering is too expensive, they need to talk to their manager, or the situation has changed and your...
All too often we forget what is actually our role when it comes to selling. This is especially true when we're in the business of selling services, because in essence we're selling our expertise, which by design is hard to communicate to a non-expert. Regardless of what we're selling however, it is not about our expertise. In fact, our expertise is what gets us a seat at the table. Once we've been let through the door, our role as advisors is...
Tell me if this sounds familiar. The salesperson walks into the meeting and it starts off pretty much like this: "Dear mr. Customer, let me start by telling you about our business. We were incorporated during the time of medieval feudalism in Europe, and we're the biggest and best company in our business. In fact, you should consider yourself lucky that we've taken time out of our busy schedule to be with you today." Then after the salesperson...
Too many advisors claim that they lose the sale on price. All too often that's not the case. You didn’t lose the sale on price - you lost it because your customer doesn’t trust you. So how do you get customers to trust you? The main pitfall when it comes to trust is self-orientation. Self-orientation is the tendency we all have to focus on our ourselves, and what we have to offer. It usually looks like walking into a meeting and presenting...
The failure rate for new businesses is extremely high. Depending on the source the numbers vary, but there's no arguing with the fact, that if you start your own business, the odds are stacked against you. Now, there are a multitude of good reasons why businesses fail, and starting a new business is extremely difficult. One of the most common reasons for failure however, is that most entrepreneurs don't sell their product aggressively enough....
Introverts can make great salespeople and sales managers. But most don't. That's why, when it comes to some of the fields that classically attracts a more introverts than it does extroverts such as engineering, law, accounting and to a certain degree consulting and banking, most of the people who are asked to sell their company's services hate it. What's ironic about that, is that most people who are asked to sell are asked to do so because...
One of the most common reasons I hear for why advisors didn't win the sale is because they were more expensive - or couldn't match - their competitor. There are two things to be aware of here - first and foremost, is the fact that this is usually what the client says, because they now it's the easiest one to get away with, and raises the least amount of objections - how can you argue with that right? The underlying issue though is something...
In the United States alone, almost 10 million people are employed in the professional services industry. What's more, the current total earnings in the industry has more than doubled over the last 10 years. The point here, is that the industry is on the rise, and more and more people are calling themselves advisors. Yet for all their know how and technical skill, only very few live up to the name - very few are able to guide their clients at...
Something that determines our success as advisors to a huge degree is the extent to which we're able to deal with other people - our social and emotional intelligence. Not only do we need to be able to inspire trust in others, but we also have to be easy to get along with, yet assertive enough so as to inspire confidence, that we know we're doing. Many of the advisors I coach have a hard time with this balancing act, and find that they sometimes...
One of the main pitfalls I see advisors falling in time and time again (and which - truth be told I might also have fallen into once or twice) is the tendency to present our proposal with the solution at the center. Almost as if assuming that the client should care about the solution just for the solution's sake, as if we'd just descended from Mount Sinai with the 10 commandments (to be fair I would think even Moses might have similar issues if...
