Surprisingly, the best price and best value is at the bottom of the customer’s priority list. See what’s at the top.
Why does a customer buy from one vendor rather than another? According to research recently conducted by The Rain Group (detailed report here), customers tend to buy from sellers who are superlative at the following tasks:
1. Bring New Perspectives and Ideas
If customers could diagnose their own problems and come up with workable solutions on their own, they would do so. The reason that they’re turning to you and your firm is that they’re stuck and need your help. Therefore, you must be able to bring something new to the table.
2. Be Willing to Collaborate
Customers absolutely do NOT want you to sell them something, even something that’s wonderful. They want you to work with them to achieve a mutual goal, by being responsive to the customer’s concerns and ways of doing business. Ideally, customers want you to become integral to their success.
3. Have Confidence In Your Ability to Achieve Results
Customers will not buy from you if you can’t persuade them that you, your firm, and your firms offerings will truly achieve the promised results. It is nearly impossible to persuade a customer to believe in these things unless you yourself believe in them. You must make your confidence contagious.
4. Listen, Really Listen, to the Customer
When they’re describing themselves and their needs, customers sense immediately when somebody is just waiting for a break in the conversation in order to launch into a sales pitch. In order to really listen, you must suppress your own inner-voice and forget your goals. It’s about the customer, not about you.
5. Understand ALL the Customer’s Needs
It’s not enough to “connect the dots” between customer needs and your company’s offering. You must also connect with the individuals who will be affected by your offering, and understand how buying from you will satisfy their personal needs, like career advancement and job security.
6. Help the Customer Avoid Potential Pitfalls
Here’s where many sellers fall flat. Customers know that every business decision entails risk but they also want your help to minimize that risk. They want to know what could go wrong and what has gone wrong in similar situations, and what steps you’re taking to make sure these problems won’t recur.
7. Craft a Compelling Solution
Solution selling is definitely not dead. Customers want and expect you to have the basic selling skill of defining and proposing a workable solution. What’s different now though is that the ability to do this is the “price of entry” and not enough, by itself, to win in a competitive sales situation.
8. Communicate the Purchasing Process
Customers hate it when sellers dance around issues like price, discounts, availability, total cost, add-on options, and so forth. They want you to be able to tell them, in plain and simple language, what’s involved in a purchase and how that purchase will take place. No surprises. No last minute upsells.
9. Connect Personally With the Customer
Ultimately, every selling situation involves making a connection between two individuals who like and trust each other. As a great sales guru once said: “All things being equal, most people would rather buy from somebody they like… and that’s true even when all things aren’t equal.”
10. Provide Value That’s Superior to Other Options
And here, finally, at the No. 10 spot (below everything else) comes the price and how that price compares to similar offerings. Unless you can prove that buying from you is the right business decision for the customer, the customer can and should buy elsewhere.
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Geoffrey James writes the Sales Source column on Inc.com, the world’s most visited sales-oriented blog. His newly published book is Business to Business Selling: Power Words and Strategies From the World’s Top Sales Experts. @Sales_Source
When Dolly Lenz, called the queen of U.S. real estate, speaks, people listen. And that’s what a select group of John L. Scott Real Estate high-end luxury real estate agents did when Lenz and real estate appraiser and consultant Alan Pope of Alan L. Pope and Associates spoke at a recent breakfast put on by John L. Scott for their top sellers.
You see, Casen was born with an extremely rare congenital vascular malformation called GVM Plaque Type. He is one of only 14 people in the world suffering from this condition – of which there are only two that present the same double hit deletion of the Glomulin Gene. Casen’s is very rare as i t covers his thoracic area, belly, arms, upper shoulders/back, and right thumb. It is unfortunately very extensive and very dangerous. The treatment he needs includes multiple surgeries and constant care – most of which will require travel and possible relocation to Belgium so that he can be seen the one and only doctor capable of treating his condition. On top of all of that, insurance doesn’t cover Casen’s treatment because of its classification as “experimental”. This is why we need your help. And we have a great way that the community can lend a hand and benefit the family directly by taking part in a special event. In an effort to raise money for Casen’s continued care, we have scheduled a 5K race to take place on June 15, 2013 in Edgewood, WA. The Race for Casen is being organized to benefit the family and 100% of the proceeds will go directly to the Buswell family. But we need help from donors, sponsors, and community organizations to make this a success. I’ve attached a sponsorship listing that includes what we as a fundraising race still need – as well as how we can pay it forward to all of our donors through advertising, shout-outs, and media mentions. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter and share our story with others in the community. By coming together in this way, we can give Casen’s family hope. And that is a priceless gift.
Since 2006, the Daylight Saving Time period has closed on the last Sunday of October, about a week before Election Day, which is held the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
John L Scott Northwest 