Selling to Consumers | Sales Training Blog by Skip Anderson

One More Question

One of our cars needed new tires, so I made a list of five tire retailers to call to get prices. As a sales trainer, I always enjoy seeing how various salespeople will handle these situations.

I made my first call and was given a price of $124 per tire. I made my second call and was given a price of $135 per tire (these tires had a longer warranty than the tires from the first dealership). As I'm sure many shoppers do, I thanked the salesperson and told him that I would continue checking around.

Then my salesperson did something that most salespeople would not do. He asked me a question. I know, that sounds simple, doesn't it? It was just a question. But most salespeople would have said something like, "My name is Rick, if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to call me" instead of asking a question.

Here's the question my salesperson asked me: "Do you have pricing from other dealers?"

"Yes, I have a price of $124 per tire," I responded.

Then my salesperson said, "How about if I save you time from having to continue calling to get pricing, and I just offer to beat the other price you have? I will sell you your tires for $120 per tire - do you want to do that?"

I agreed to his offer. And with that, a sale was consummated. I then scheduled an appointment for the following morning to have the new tires installed on our vehicle.

Now it may be true that not every tire salesperson has the authority to discount their prices, what I think was fantastic in this scenario is that the salesperson didn't just end the call, he hung in there and asked one more question. It was that one question that led to the completion of the sale.

In our B2C Sales Training, we train salespeople to ask more questions.

Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting firm. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips newsletter at www.SellingToConsumers.com

 

 

Altoid Breath

I had a salesperson visit me in my home. He was selling windows. He smelled like cigarette smoke. He smelled really bad.

Like many non-smokers, I don't care for the smell of smoke. It's hard to get past the putrid odor of smoke when you're trying to decide which salesperson you're going to reward with a $35,000 purchase.

Sales trainers don't often talk about smoking, but I'm going to do it. All the sales skills in the world will not work if you smell like an ashtray. Some salespeople I've hired who smoke didn't ever smell like smoke. One guy would go out of his way to pop an Altoid in his mouth to keep his breath fresh. And he only smoked outside, so the smoke smell never got into his clothes. I didn't care if he smoked. That's his personal choice. But I did care if he would offend our prospects with cigarette smoke odor, especially because he was selling in our customer's homes.

Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting firm. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips newsletter at www.SellingToConsumers.com

 

Ice Cream of the Future?

My daughter and I went to the Mall of America last week so we could ride the roller coaster. As is our custom after roller coaster rides, we stopped to get a cup of Dippin' Dots.

You may be familiar with Dippin' Dots. If not, they're tiny beads of ice cream about the size of BB shot, formed by what the company calls "cryogenic encapsulation." The beads are firm and take quite a while to melt, so their texture is unlike other ice cream until it hits your warm tongue when it melts into creamy splendor. They're available at fairs and amusement parks and other Dippin' Dots outlets. My daughter loves Dippin' Dots.

As we sat eating our Dots, I noticed the Dippin' Dots logo with their tag line on the vendor's cart: "Ice Cream of the Future."

What a great marketing concept! What other ice cream can say they're the ice cream of the future? This is a unique marketing identity. Marketing strategies that differentiate companies from their competitors are often successful.

But as I sat on the bench with my daughter eating their product I couldn't help but notice that nothing else in the company's presentation supported their tag line.

Notice the non-futuristic font of the Dippin' Dots logo. This font looks more like something you would see on a package of doll clothes than on the "ice cream of the future." And what is futuristic about a white cart with a teal canopy? Teal may have been a future-friendly corporate color at some point, but in 2007, it looks tired.

Here's a company with, in my opinion, a great tag line, and their product lives up to it. But nothing else lives up to their tag line. If Dippin' Dots really wants consumers to think of their ice cream as the "ice cream of the future," shouldn't their logo and its font, and their carts and their corporate color and the clothes their vendors wear and the way they fulfill your order when you go up to the vending cart also look futuristic?

Words are cheap. Creating a unique and memorable corporate identity goes beyond creating clever words, though.

I'd like to suggest that you take a look at your tag line and your marketing identity. Does your way of doing business support the identity you hold out to your market in your advertising and promotions, or are your slogans and advertising just gibberish without any real meat behind them? Do your salespeople, your advertising, your slogans, your everything interrelate so that you are really living who you say you are to your market? Or are your slogans and marketing writings nothing more than hollow words?

Identify who you want to be (this applies to companies and individual salespeople, too). Then focus your energies on being that entity. Look for inconsistencies between the message you present to your market and reality. Fix those inconsistencies and you have a shot at making your business walk your talk. Customers love it when companies (and salespeople) walk their talk.

Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting firm. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips newsletter at www.SellingToConsumers.com

 

Get Human

Prospects often fear (or at least have anxiety about) salespeople. To help alleviate this fear, help your prospects see you as a real and genuine human.

One way to accomplish this is to humanize your prospect interaction space. If you sell to your customers in your office, put pictures of your family there (what kind of human wouldn't do this anyway?). If you sell to your customers in their homes, put pictures of your pets (or family) in the back (or the front) of your presentation book. Years back, I put pictures of my two dogs in my presentation binder and I was impressed with how many people (usually dog lovers, but not always) commented on Tosca and Chloe.

Wouldn't a retail store with a wall display of photos of each salesperson with their pet(s) be a cool thing? Or with their kids? Or in in a sweatshirt from each of their alma maters? Or something else that is fun and human and appropriate and unexpected?

It's more difficult for a prospect to fear you when they see you as an entity with human qualities. A love of family and love of pets are two obvious human qualities we can share with our prospects, but there are others, too. Get creative! Be human!

Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting firm. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips newsletter at www.SellingToConsumers.com