Ask The Master

Facing A Sales Challenge?

Put our Master to work, and enjoy Steve's Sales Mastery Solutions.

Steve is the founder of the NSA, Australia's leading sales and communication trainers and a successful entrepreneur.

1. I'm getting sick of getting objections. I know its part of sales but I seem to be getting the same objection over and over- 'I want to think about it'. Do others get this and what can I do?

Most sales professionals will tell you it is the number one most popular objection worldwide- so yes, I'm sure every sales professional out there can empathise. Personally I have the philosophy that prevention is better than a cure i.e. if you don't want to be out of shape- eat healthily and exercise regularly before you get to that stage. Similarly if you don't want to get an objection at the end of your presentation cover all of your bases and pre-empt them before they come up.

Lets relate this philosophy to the 'I want to think about it" objection; After finding out your client's needs and wants, and have a compelling reason to buy, the timing is now right to bring up the possible objection before they do. An example of this would be... "How long have you been thinking about getting started" followed by "I'm just curious, why have you been thinking about it for (timeframe)" then we look at eliminating the objection with..."Has that been long enough to have been thinking about it?" "Great, well I'm glad you stopped thinking about it and made the decision to get started." See the difference in your presentations when you're in control of bringing up objections instead of your customer and have some fun with eliminating them, reducing resistance when closing!

2. I have just spent the past 6 months systemising all areas of my business, with one exception being my sales team, who I realise the success of my company relies on. I thought that by hiring experienced sales staff and paying good commissions I would get the results but they all seem to be so up and down. Is there a way to systemise the sales team and if so, do you think it will get more consistent results for them?

It sounds like you have a team of what I call intuitive sales people. The ones that just happen to know what to say to build strong relationships and help their clients to buy. If you ask them, most of the time thay have no conscious idea what they did, it just "felt right at the time". These intuitive sales professionals tend to have mixed results and do achieve some good results a lot of the time, but when they are in a slump, they seem to have no idea how to fix it as they don't know what they were doing that made them successful in the first place! (I know, that used to be me!) The other type of sales professionals are those who are trained to follow a process as you mentioned.

Just like riding a bike, sales is a skill and skills can be taught (contrary to many beliefs, it's about being born with the gift of the gab). If you're looking for more control and consistency in your sales team (and their results), implementing a systemised sales process for your team to follow whilst being able to still add their own personality, the good times can be analysed and replicated and the not so good times can be managed (and turned around) before they become bad times and affect your revenue.

3. One of my New Years resolutions is to overcome my fear of networking and attend more events. I have done this in the past with limited success from the hundreds of business cards I give out. I know I'm going wrong somewhere but can't pinpoint it. Do you have any tips to get over my fear and get better leads at these events?

In my experience, the best way to get over a fear of something is to have a well rehearsed plan or strategy to follow. My number one pet hate about being a 'Sales person' is being seen/ seeing other people being pushy. The best networking tip I have been given is to create an introduction (or personal commercial) that stops people tuning out or having the 'Oh you're a sales guy hey?' reaction, and instead makes them want to know more. Now anyone interested in their professional development (that would be everyone reading this then) would have heard a tip like this before, but let me explain in a simple- go out and get great results today- way: Now ask yourself "what makes a great commercial?" Usually it's one that has made you want to find out more about the product/ service or company, so it stands to reason, that your introduction or personal commercial should do the same.

So ask yourself, does your current commercial tell people what you do, or does it share the benefits of what you do and how it helps people? I know which would make me tune out, and which would prompt me to ask 'how do you do that?! Heres an example.Do you sell financial planning advice or "help people build their financial future and own their own home sooner?" Do you sell houses or "take the stress out of worrying you will get the best possible price for your home."

4. I'm in charge of a team that sells various advertising in space of publications. The problem I'm having is that there doesn't seem to be any urgency for my prospective clients to get started and I find my team spending heaps of time following them up. Is this just a part of sales or is there a way to overcome this?

People buy emotionally and then justify their decisions logically. Think about the last time you bought that pair of expensive shoes or designer suit. A time when you had that "I HAVE to have it" feeling, where all logic went out of the window because you imagined how great you would feel in them, what your friends / colleagues would say, how great they would look on. These emotions make you buy them and then as you walk out of the shop you begin thinking how you will explain it to your partner / conscience or even accountant or bank manager. You then begin to justify your buying decision by running through all of the outfits you can wear them with, how much money you saved buying them in the sale, the amount of times you could wear them etc.

Amazingly, before you even get home, you have managed to convince even yourself that your buying decision was a great one! Here's how we can apply this to our sales process: Most sales people just tend to ask WHAT the client wants, then try to bombard them with a heap of answers to this. As a very smart man said to me some years ago. The 'WHAT' will give you squat, the 'WHY' will make them buy! And it's WHEN they want the Why, that will make them buy NOW!

Let me give you a possible scenario for your industry. Start by finding out with what they want and what their number one priority is. Then ask them why they want it and why they aren't happy with what they already have. It could be that they want to increase the number of enquiries that they get to their business because currently there are very few so revenue is down 60% on the same time last year, and they are having to consider staff cutbacks. Then go to when they want this situation fixed by. They will set a time goal such as "the end of June". Now watch the magic happen! You'll find that stirring up the emotion will massively reduce procrastination.

Email office@nationalsalesacademy.com.au with an outline of your challenge in less than 100 words and we'll get Steve to put you on the right track to finding a solution!