You do not have to be pushy to be successful in sales, argues soft-selling advocate Richard White. Here, he outlines the principles of soft selling and how tactics such as story-telling can help build lasting relationships.

You do not have to be pushy to be successful in sales! The majority of the time, hard-selling actually destroys customer relationships resulting in a loss of sales.

The philosophy behind soft selling is that people do not like being sold to, but they do like to get help in solving their problems. Soft selling is a way of doing business where the buyer does not feel like they are being ‘sold’ to. Everything is done in a professional and adult manner where the long-term relationship is key.

Testosterone

The majority of normal testosterone-fuelled sales practices work against human nature. People tend not to trust pushy salespeople and trust is important when buying. Pushy sales people need lots more activity to get the same results as a soft seller.

The thing I discovered is that most top salespeople have a softer style and it’s not a case of learning a whole new way of selling. A few simple but significant changes can make a big difference to sales performance.

It is human nature to be cautious with pushy sales people. If we have a problem that they can fix, then we may speak to them but we are ultra cautious and may say things that are not always true just to keep them happy. It’s part of a game and even pushy sales people play this game with their suppliers!

Full story

The problem is that, as a pushy salesperson, you rarely get the full story and it becomes a guessing game. Rather than meeting you regularly to discuss their plans they will only ever call you when they need something and there will be little customer loyalty. They probably do not want to develop any type of relationship with you as they will be keeping you at arms-length.

So, if you find yourself chasing your prospects and clients then the chances are that softening your approach will work wonders. Below are a few of my top soft-selling tactics which aim to minimize resistance and maximize long-term relationships.

Storytelling

Storytelling is something I have seen in all top salespeople. When people like each other they trade stories so this is an excellent way to start and develop a relationship. They also get people listening to your key sales messages indirectly. The trick is to focus the story on the emotional drama your best clients were facing before you started working with them rather than telling people how good your products and services are.

Holding back

A mistake average sales people make is to launch into a sales pitch at the first sight of interest. In soft selling you do the opposite. You ask someone why they think they are interested. It gives you so much information and I have had salespeople turn a £100 order into a £10,000 order just by asking why! For example, if someone makes an enquiry the first thing you ask is why they think they need help in that area.

Here’s an example….

Buyer: ‘Hello, I am calling about your web design services.’

Seller: ‘That’s great – do you mind me asking why you think you need help?’

Trading places

A key soft-selling objection-handling tactic is seeing the world from the other person’s point of view and then telling them what you see.

For example: ‘If I were you I would be a little sceptical and that is why I recommend you speak to one or two of our existing clients before you decide to go ahead.’ When done properly this is not done as a trick because you have actually imagined what they are probably thinking.

Getting introduced

Imagine someone called you out of the blue asking for a meeting. The chances are you might be a little busy or sceptical. Even if you were to agree to meet, there is a good chance that things would be quite formal. 

Now imagine someone whose opinion you value calls you and recommends you meet someone. The chances are you would at least speak to the person. The whole experience would be different. Getting introduced speeds up relationships, which is why top sales people are always looking for referrals.

As well as getting introduced by referrals from existing customers, another important source of introductions is from advocates. These will be people who have a trusted relationship with your target customers.

For example, let’s say you are in the business of installing tennis courts. You may get referrals from clients but, if you work at the relationships, you may also get referrals from tennis coaches who may never buy one of your products.

The process of developing a relationship with such advocates is very similar to developing a relationship with customers. It takes effort but it is worth it. Stories about recent projects are great to build credibility and help the other person think about who they should be recommending you too.

Start small and grow

Breaking into larger organisations can be difficult and very competitive. It is much easier to win a small, low-risk sale and then pro-actively develop the relationship and the sales from there. Smaller opportunities are less likely to attract competition from the big names. Once you are tried, tested and trusted then you stand a much better chance against more formidable competition.

Ideally the first sale will be an unresolved problem area overlooked by competitors.

A proactive approach

To be successful using soft selling requires a pro-active approach to both relationship development and selling. You do not reduce the activity levels; you just focus on different activities. Soft selling is not for everyone, but if being a pushy and manipulative is a turn off then there is another way!

Being good at developing relationships quickly will always make selling easier. However there are some times when a softer approach is not so important, with low value items or where you have a buyer who knows what they want. A good example of this is for cash business with a short sales cycle, where you are unlikely to see the person again.

Most top salespeople I have met have a softer approach and people like to buy from them; that is the trick in my view and makes the selling process so much more fun!

Source : Modern Selling

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Pubs chain JD Wetherspoon said today that it would create 10,000 jobs over the next five years with the opening of 250 new pubs.

The business, which currently employs 21,000 people and has 743 pubs across the UK, is to invest £250m in the new outlets over the period.

It expects to open new pubs in locations including Sheffield, Livingston, Leominster, Otley, New Malden, Liverpool, Haverfordwest and Newcastle. The roles include management positions, as well as bar and kitchen staff.

Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin said: “Our pubs are extremely popular and we wish to build on their success by opening more. I am confident that the new pubs will be an asset to their respective towns and cities.”

Wetherspoon opened its first pub in December 1979. In September it hailed its best ever annual results after the company went back to basics to ride out the recession.

It reported underlying pre-tax profits up 13.6% to £66.2m and sales of £955.1m in the year to July 26.

The chain said it took lessons from the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s to combat tough trading conditions, “concentrating on the key ingredients of standard, service, staff training and incentives”.

Wetherspoon opened 39 pubs in the last financial year and said in September that it expected to open a similar number in the current financial year.

Source : The Guardian

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British house prices rose 0.5 per cent in November, at the same rate as in October, suggesting that a rapid rise over the spring and summer is beginning to moderate.

According to Nationwide, the mortgage lender, while month-on-month growth was 0.5 per cent, the rate measured over three months is beginning to decline — from 3.8 per cent in the quarter to September to 3.5 per cent in October and 2.8 per cent in the three months to November.

Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s chief economist, said: “This suggests that house prices are now rising at a more moderate pace than in the spring and summer months, when they experienced a very strong bounce from early 2009 lows.”

The average British property is now worth £162,764, roughly the same as in early 2006 but 2.7 per cent higher than 12 months ago.

Last month Nationwide reported the first 12-month rise in house prices since March 2008.

Mr Gahbauer added: “The outlook for the housing market remains crucially dependent on labour market conditions, and here recent developments have been somewhat more encouraging than might have been expected.”

The rise in unemployment has not been as rapid or pronounced as previously feared, he said, despite Britain suffering its longest and deepest recession since the Second World War.

He said this was because many employers have opted to reduce working hours and pay rather than make redundancies.

Mr Gahbauer warned that the trend may not be sustainable, particularly if public sector jobs start being lost when the Government makes cuts from next year onwards.

“Together with the fact that mortgage rates have fallen sharply as a result of base rate cuts, this has meant that far fewer borrowers have fallen into arrears than would normally be the case in such a deep recession,” Mr Gahbauer said.

“As such, the downward pressure on house prices from distressed sales has so far been significantly lower than expected.”

The percentage of borrowers in arrears has even edged down in the most recent quarterly figures, he said.

Follow the link to view the latest Estate Agency Jobs

Source : The Times

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Back in 1910, on 23 April a few months after the end of his term as 26th US president, Theodore Roosevelt was speaking in Paris. His words are as applicable to the military as they are to politics and, dare I say it, they’re also highly relevant to leadership in the business world and to selling today….

‘It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.’

Entrepreneurs, senior management and sales leaders would do well to bear these words in mind, for not only are they inspirational, they also hold a lot of truth.

Courtesy of CIM. Source : Modern Selling

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For many entrepreneurs, cold calling ranks up there with public speaking and death. But that needn’t be the case. Marcus Cauchi explains how to use it to massively benefit your business.

If Darwin were alive today, he would probably say that recession is Mother Economy’s way of weeding out those that cannot adapt. His advice; put yourself in danger of making some sales or face extinction. Nobody likes cold calling. The cold hard truth, if you don’t cultivate a positive prospecting culture in your organisation, you could go the way of the Dodo. 

• Do your calls in the morning
• ­Phone early to get around gate-keepers
• ­Give yourself a reward for making your calls
• ­Track what works

• Find out if the call has come at an inconvenient time
•  Appeal to the prospect’s nobler nature. Explain that you are as averse to making cold calls as they are to getting them
•  Ask permission to speak for 30 seconds and let the prospect know that they can end the call afterwards if they don’t find what you say of interest

• ­Deliver a 30-second commercial that highlights the problems that your product or service helps overcome
• ­If they see a fit, contract for 2 more minutes. Ask and get permission to talk further. Always ask for permission
• ­If they don’t, you are probably wasting your time and theirs. Move onto the next call
• ­Remember there are loads of sick puppies out there that need your help. Some will buy, some won’t buy, so what…onto the next!

• Ask great questions to help them discover the cause of their pain. The more painful the problems uncovered the quicker the close and the bigger the fee
• Challenge the prospect to explain why they need your help
• Do not commit to doing anything unless you know why you are doing it. Your time is precious. Do not get involved in pitches, proposals and tenders unless there is a clear positive future between you and the prospect
• All prospects lie. Find the truth. Remember prospects know that you can lie to a salesperson and still go to heaven
  

• Find out regularly if the prospect wants to continue the call
• ­When you get a meeting, give the prospect an opportunity to get out of it before the end of the call to eliminate cancellations and no shows. Some people agree to a meeting just to get you off the phone

Source : Marcus Cauchi is managing director of a London based Sandler Training franchise.

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