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We have one word to describe most sales people’s presentations: CHAOS.
Every sale is different, every prospect is different, and every presentation and situation is different. The average sales person has a similar “talk” they use, but once the appointment starts, it’s all over the board. The minute the prospect asks a question, the average sales person loses complete control.
With our sales training, we teach a VERY distinct sales cycle that can be applied to ANY industry. It is an extremely solid foundation to base your presentation upon.
The Sales Cycle has seven parts. Each part is designed to accomplish specific goals. We recommend going through EVERY presentation using EVERY step to the cycle, and NOT allowing a prospect to make you go out of order. We also recommend “scripting” what words you use during each step of the cycle and committing your basic script to memory. (we’ll explain why in a minute.) You won’t believe how confident you’ll feel if YOU know EXACTLY where you’re supposed to be at EVERY stage of the sale and EXACTLY WHAT AND HOW are the BEST ways to say it!
Remember we talked about the four-stages of learning? You’ll be getting hit with a lot of new information here, so just remember, you’re going to go into the consciously-unknowledgeable phase soon. But don’t worry; with practice, this gets easier and easier!
Why have a Sales Cycle and Sales Talk?
Out of the hundreds of candidates we’ve interviewed for our sales team, we alway ask questions during the interview to attempt to determine the willingness (or unwillingness) for the candidate to utilize and believe in a scripted sales talk. And although we don’t attempt to make robots out of our sales team, we actually try to see if a candidate can see the benefit in being able to rely on a scripted, systematic sales cycle and sales talk.
If your company provides a sales script, be thankful about it!.’ If your company has no sales talk or inadequate sales training, don’t worry! We’ve provided the best cycle in the whole world for you to adapt to your current sales position!
Benefits to utilizing a Sales Cycle and Sales Script
Using a scripted sales talk in a monotone, robotic fashion can be one of the biggest mistakes you could make. When we refer to a scripted sales talk and sales cycle, we mean that you have a script you can or should memorize word for word, but that you can interject your own personality and verbage into (providing it doesn’t negatively impact the product demonstration.) Most sales organizations build their sales scripts from the experience of their current and past most productive sales reps. They find out what has worked for these people and scripted a presentation that leads a rookie through the process!
I can’t tell you how many times sales reps have come into our office to demo me or a manager in our company who are COMPLETELY unprepared! They honestly have know clue what to say or do during the presentation- and IT SHOWS!
Four Reasons to have and follow a script and system:
1) Allows you to spend your time focusing primarily on the prospect If you already know what you’re going to say, when you’re going to say it, how you’re going to say it, why you’re going to say it, you can keep your attention on the prospect. However, if you’re unprepared and don’t know what’s coming next, you have to be thinking most of the time which means your putting most of your attention on yourself, not the prospect!
2) Allows you to stay in control As any veteran salesperson will tell you, most of the time, your prospect will have questions or objections that they may bring up at any time. If you’re unprepared or don’t have a system to follow, you can be taken off-guard away from where you should be in the cycle. If the prospect asks a question, and you know your script or cycle, you can deflect the question or objection to a different part of the presentation, or you can answer the objection and jump right back to the correct part of the demo.
3) Promotes Consistency If you follow a system, chances are you’ll be less likely to ‘leave something out’ or tell a different or wrong story from demo to demo. If you sell along with a team, and your sales manager is smart enough to mandate a sales script and system, it will vastly improve the consistency of the team. We can always tell if our reps are deviating from the sales system as the product and services we offer usually have small deviations upon delivery.
4) Because we’re human and NOT PERFECT! This is the best reason to have a sales talk! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been under the weather or tired, out of it, whatever. But by being professional enough to know my sales talk and system, I had the comfort of knowing I could go on ‘auto-pilot’ and still pull-off a great presentation. You have to remember, each time your prospect sees your demo, it’s his/her first time. It may be your thousandth time, but you have to be professional enough to present your product or service with the same level of play that you did for your first ten prospects! JUST LIKE A BROADWAY SHOW! If you know your lines as well as the actors and actresses, having a cold, being tired, etc, will not impact you as greatly! You’ll find with experience that you’ll even be in control of your voice inflection and body movements at different points of the sale. I’ve had demos where I felt like following asleep but my body did it the right way so I got the sale!
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