Another excerpt from my latest book, Simple Realities (The pathway to happiness and success), which is now available at Amazon.com and on Kindle.
There are as many theories about selling as there are salespeople, ranging all the way from incompetents like Willy Loman to the super-salesmen-TV-evangelists. The best selling job I ever witnessed was the sale of a brand new automobile to a farming couple, neither of whom could drive. I didn’t see this as a particularly offensive act because the couple could clearly afford the car and surely one of them would learn to drive it. However, when two years later the car still sat, unused, in their barn, I asked the salesman how he ever managed to make that sale, He told me he convinced the couple they shouldn’t sit by and have their hated neighbour be the first in the area to own that year’s model.
There may be many reasons why people don’t buy something, but usually there is one main reason why they do; and it’s whatever happens to be most important to them.
An effective sales presentation needs a strong beginning and a strong ending, which should be as close together as possible.
You’ll never close the sale if you aren’t talking to the right person.
No matter how much people may need something, they usually have to want it before they’ll buy it.
It’s hard to sell something you wouldn’t buy yourself.
What you really have to sell is how your service or product can solve a problem.
The most important thing is not what a salesperson says; it’s what the buyer believes.
People must buy you before they’ll buy what you’re selling.
The potential business from any sales effort has to be enough to justify your time and effort.
People don’t really buy products and services; they buy the satisfaction of using them.
Give your customers a little more than they pay for, and they’ll always come back.
You should sell your product on value, not price; one way to do this is by asking what will happen if the customer does nothing about the “problem” your product will solve.
You’re not apt to sell the coat until the customer tries it on.
A customer who constantly makes unreasonable demands may not be a customer worth keeping.
Customer service isn’t somebody’s job; it’s everybody’s job.
Keeping a customer costs a fraction of the cost of getting a new one.
Customers never lose arguments.