Watch the first video below on steps 2 and 3 - Who You Represent & Product 

The 5 Ingredients to a Sale (Part 2)

The first part of this article covered the first ingredient in detail, so this part will cover the remaining 4 - who you represent, your product, the price, and time.

Who You Represent

This ingredient is quite often missed, as we quite often assume (wrongly) that as we are talking to a particular customer, it must mean that the customer is happy with the company - why else would the customer be in contact with me?

In every business, there is competition, and with competition comes comparisons. Your customers will want to compare your company (who you represent) with other companies selling a like product or service. You need to be able to sell your company to your prospective client.

So how is this done?

Remember the main steps to a sale as outlined in the first part of this article? Which of these steps is the best one to highlight your company?

The answer is: Service and Parts Tour.

The best way to incorporate this vital element is to flow directly from the trial close. For example, if you have just completed a world class feature/function/benefit presentation of your product (or service), and asked a question like: "so, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is that you want to go ahead with this now, where are you? Your potential may answer: "well, subject to the price being right, it could well be a 10". So now you can follow up with: "before I get you some great numbers, allow me to share with you the most important reason so many people do business, and continue to do business with us here at World Class Business."

Then take them to your service and parts department. It is important to not only show the facilities, but your team of people who work there. In some industries, your clients know that it is not just a matter of if, it is a matter of when they will need to use your parts and service operation. They need to know that they will be looked after when this happened. They also need to know who will be looking after them, so introduce them to the team - edify them to your client. This will make both parties feel good about who they are dealing with.

After the tour and the introductions, you may something like this: "Mr. Customer, I don't know if that was important to you, but it sure would be important to me knowing that I have someone like (Jimmy) looking after the investment I was about to make."

This one step will set you apart from your competition. The reason - your competition is not doing this - they are all about selling the product and not the business!

So what do you do if your industry is such that you don't have the ability to do a service and parts tour? Maybe you go to where your clients are rather than them coming to you. Well, how about taking a "Why Buy Here" book with you? This is normally a 3 ring binder with plastic sleeves in, holding documentation about your services and business. It could contain copies of letters from satisfied customers - an "evidence manual" if you like. You could include photographs of the parts and service team - make it personal. If any of you would like help in putting something like this together, please contact me. You could take it a step further by filming your team and your facility and either play it or e-mail it to your client.

Product - As I said in part 1, this is probably the easiest of the 5 ingredients to master.

The reason I make that statement is that you will normally have the product you are trying to sell right in front of your customer. If you are in the service industry, you typically will have your presentations well rehearsed in order to either satisfy a concern or create a need and want to purchase.

The main steps to a sale for this ingredient are the interview, selecting the product or service, and the feature/function/benefit presentation.

If the interview is done correctly, you will know what your customer is looking for, his or her rough budget, and their "hot buttons". Hot buttons are benefits, and normally come in the form of safety, performance, appearance, comfort, economy and durability.

Once you find out these hot buttons, you can now tailor your presentation to match what the customer wants.

Remember this - customers will normally buy what they want - this may not necessarily be what they need.

Our job as salespeople/advisors/consultants is to help customers to buy. That is different from selling. Let them know about our product or service, give them options and allow them to make an informed decision.

Price.

The steps to use to sell the price of the product are:

All of them!

Why? Because very rarely is a sale about price. It is all about value. If a customer does not see particular value in your product or service, then in order for you to still make a sale, you will need to cut your price.

Where will customers see value? They need to see it in you first and foremost , so make sure you follow the guidelines I went through in part one. You need to make sure you select the right product or service to present to the customer - something to fit his budget, and more importantly, something to fit his wants and needs - this is where the interview and product selection come into play.

The feature/function/benefit presentation is hugely important in building value - remember that customers buy benefits, not features, so make sure you don't talk about a feature without talking about what that feature will do for your customer.

The service and parts tour, or your evidence manual will build value too - the more value you build, the less important the price becomes.

Once you have the value built to match the price - you have sold this vital ingredient.

Time.

Why is time an important ingredient?

You have to sell your customer that now is the best time to make this purchase. You do this by talking about any specials or sales you have going on at the moment. You need to create the sense of urgency - this could be done by explaining what could happen if your customer put off the purchase until a later time - how much could it potentially cost? Customers are more afraid losing something, so use this fact to create urgency.

I was in a car dealership a couple of weeks ago, and the dealer tried a different marketing campaign. While they didn't get the response out of the targeted campaign, they created a sale atmosphere - put balloons out, asked walk in customers during the meet and greet if they were here for the sale, and stressed the importance of making a decision during this event. The atmosphere created at least 6 sales that probably would not have been made otherwise. The customers were sold on this being the right time.

To recap - you need to sell yourself, the business you represent, the product itself, the price of that product and the fact that there will never be a better time than now to make this purchase.

If you miss the sale, look back to see which of these 5 ingredients is missing - it will be one or more of them.

Watch the video below on steps 4 & 5 - Price and Time