Every month I receive a variety of questions from salespeople and their managers. These come from a variety of sources - my live seminars, the monthly phone seminars, questions that are sent into my newsletter, and issues that arise in the course of my consulting work. Out of all of these, I select those that I think have the most universal application, and respond to them here.
How do you know how far to push a sale without overstepping your bounds and threatening the sale and/or the relationship with the customer?
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First, understand that it is OK, every now and then, to overstep your bounds. That helps you understand where the boundaries are. If you never push it to the limit, you'll never know where the limit is.
Let me illustrate with an example from my selling career. At one time I sold surgical staplers. I would approach a surgeon in the surgeon's lounge of an operating room suite, demonstrate the staplers, and then ask to accompany the surgeon into surgery where I'd talk him through the application of the instruments. Getting into surgery was the absolute essential step to selling our stuff.
In one hospital, the chief of surgery decided that I was too aggressive in approaching his colleagues, and told the Operating Room Supervisor to keep me out. I was devastated.
When I commiserated with my boss, he said, "Don't feel bad. Now you know where the limits are. If you never step beyond them, you'll always wonder if you could have done more."
It's the same idea as losing some business because your price is too high. If you never do that, you'll never know if you could have gotten more. You have to lose some in order to establish the boundaries.
So, it is OK, every now and then, to overstep your bounds. But you don't want to do it too often.
With that as a preface, let's deal with your question. How do you know if you're pushing too much?
As a general rule, your customers will tell you. Now, they may not say it in so many words, but they will communicate to you via their body language, with what they say and what they don't say, that you are overstepping your bounds and going too far. You'll see them become uncomfortable and show it. You'll see them be a little irritated, and show that. You'll see them become personally affronted, and show that.
They key thing for you to do is be sensitive to the communication you receive from your customer. Consider the possibility that you may be pushing too much, and sensitize yourself to reading those messages from the customer.
Once again we come up against one of the foundational truths upon which effective, professional sales is built: It is far more important to be a good listener than it is to be a good talker. The best sales people are great listeners and are especially sensitive to the customer.
Probably a better question to ask is this: How can I prevent pushing too much?
And the simple answer to that question is "dialogue." Dialogue is, according to Webster's, "an open and frank discussion, as in seeking mutual understanding or harmony."
If you can regularly engage your customer in an "open and frank" discussion of where the customer is in the sales process, and how the customer views your solution, you'll be equipped to make thoughtful and sensitive decisions about your next step.
One of the best simple techniques to use to keep an ongoing dialogue going is to simply ask for an agreement following every conversation you have with the customer. That puts the issue on the table, gives you a continuous reading of where the customer is at, and ends every conversation with a mutual agreement. As long as the customer is agreeing to do something, you are not pushing too hard.
Hope this helps.
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If you have any comments or questions, email them to me. I do, of course, reserve the right to edit.
Here are a few articles by Dave
that you might be interested in reading:
- Developing Account Strategies... Our objective is to equip you with an understanding of the principles and processes you'll need in order to develop effective account strategies. First, let's define our terms. Strategy means a series of steps designed to bring your prospect or customer from where they are now to where you want them to be. It's the long-term view. Realistically, it's a planned series of sales calls in which each sales call has a distinctive set of purposes, a distinctive piece of education, a person or set of people to speak with, and a distinctive agreement that you'd like to attain. The purpose, the timing, the organization, and the sequence of that series of sales calls is the strategy. It's the long-term perspective, the big picture, of what you want to do and how you want to do it..... {Read More}
- Salespeople: Position Yourselves with Power... His eyes were narrow and bloodshot from staying out late and partying too heavily the previous night. A two-day old stubble framed his face. He was wearing a dark colored tee shirt, which he hadn't tucked in, a pair of jeans, and scuffed loafers which had probably never seen shoe polish. It was the second day of my Sales Academy seminar, and this participant in the program was complaining to the group that his customers were only interested in low price. I didn't say this, because I didn't want to embarrass him in front of the group, but I thought it none the less: "Do you think your appearance and demeanor have anything to do with your customers' reaction? Do you think that you may give them the idea that you are the lowest rung on the pricing scale? Is it possible that you have inadvertently positioned yourself as the Wal-Mart of the industry?" {Read More}
- How Do You Change the Behavior of an Experienced Salesperson?... Every client I deal with, in one way or another, eventually asks that question. The words may be different, but the question is the same. In this turn-of-the-century economic environment, it's a universal question. If you haven't confronted the issue yet, it's only a matter of time before you will. Here's the context in which this question surfaces. The company needs to make some change that impacts the sales force: A new compensation program, a new automation tool, a new sales process, a new way of working with inside salespeople -- a new something.... {Read More}
There are also many other action-packed articles for sales professionals that offer how-to solutions to every day sales problems that you can read online at www.davekahle.com/article.htm.
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