Why You Are Not Selling More – Your Key Reasons
You might be asking How do I Succeed in Sales? Why You fail in Selling? and What are the Best Tips to your Succesful Selling?
So, Why are you not selling more? What are the reasons and what can you do to change that?
I know where you are. You work hard, you send out plenty of offers but you are not making the sales (or the money) that you need. So what is the answer?
Based on my 40 plus years experience in sales the following tips will help you.
Your income is suffering as you fail to make sales or hit sales targets. This is more common than you might think. Sales can be a very lucrative career. Sales, after all, is the bedrock of any industry. It is a simple fact that if you don’t make enough sales you have no business, or income.
Sales is a simple process, but not always easy.
You work hard at selling. But, you are not achieving the results you need and you may even consider quitting. Before you do, check the list of points you can take.
Often one or two of the things are out of line, and fixing these could be the key for you to be successful in your sales career.
You want to hit that sales target. Make that commission, heck even be on the top rung of the sales leaderboard. However, despite the monthly slog you are off track. The self doubt and fear rises.
So, where do you start with fixing the problem and getting better at selling?
The answer breaks down into three key areas.
Preparation
Execution
Follow up
Your first task is to prepare.
You need to prepare in a couple of ways.
Firstly prepare who exactly you are going to sell your product or service to. This might seem obvious but you will be surprised at the number of salespeople who get this wrong.
Salespeople form a pre thought idea of who they think need their product. They then go on to approach, send information, and importantly waste time in trying to force something onto someone who doesn’t want or need it.
To fix this you need to spend some time researching your potential client. When you do, try to understand what their ‘pain points’ are.
Then ask yourself:
Is my product or service a good fit in providing a solution to their problem?
If you can answer ‘Yes’ then the first part of the preparation is done and you can prepare to pitch.
Secondly you need to make sure that you are pitching to the ‘Decision Maker’ Too many people will try to sell to the person that has no power to say yes. Again this is where you need to do your research.
Time spent on research is not wasted time. A phone call to the potential business, asking ‘Who’ deals with (your product or service) will pay dividends in your approach. You will now have a contact to direct your activity to, and not just be scattering your offer to all and sundry in the hope something sticks.
Execution:
It does not matter how you conduct your sales pitch. You might pitch face to face. You might pitch over the telephone. Whichever it is the most important three things you need to do are:
Ask Questions
Listen
Ask for the Business
Ask Questions:
The questions you ask the prospect will give you the answers to their problems and pain points. You need to know and understand what the prospect is facing so you can gear your pitch and responses to solving those.
You want to explain how your product or service moves the prospect away from the pain points they are facing.
Your questions will give you your answers.
Listen:
How many times have you had a conversation with someone and you could not get a word in? All they did was talk on and on about themselves. Sadly this is a common fault of salespeople.
They think they need to keep talking about their product, company, service, without actually listening to the prospect.
A wise person once said “ You have two ears and one mouth, use them in that ratio”
By listening (and provided that you asked the right questions) your prospect will give you the lead as to how you can position your offer to fix the issue for them.
For example, you sell a window cleaning service to retail shops.
You ask your prospect what are their biggest problems with having their windows cleaned?
They respond with; ‘current cleaners block the store during opening hours, put ladders up, leave mess and water at the store door meaning dirty water is trod in.’
You now have the basis for a solution pitch to their pain points.
“ Our service works early in the morning before a store opens. No obstruction to trading. Our service uses hi-reach systems meaning no need for ladders. Our water is reclaimed back into the tanks meaning no mess.” etc
Ask for the Business:
Obvious. But, you will be surprised at the number of salespeople who do not ask for the business. This comes down to the fear of rejection. No one likes to be rejected. However in sales you need to get used to it. Learn to live with it. Sales is a numbers game. Remember this,
You will not win every sale.
The same as in sport. You will not win every match. Make sure that you do not fall into the trap, after each presentation of saying
“Let me leave this with you and I will get back to you in a few days”
Too many times this happens. Instead just ask for the business. A simple “ are you happy to proceed” “ We can start on xxxxx” is all it can take to secure the sale.
If the prospect says no, this gives you the chance to ask further questions, uncover what you may have missed, and what are the prospects’ further concerns. But,
You will not close every sale on the first visit.
Depending on what you are selling you might not be able to close on the day. This is where the final piece of the jigsaw comes in
Follow Up
So many salespeople do not follow up after their presentation. This comes down to that fear of rejection. It is far more comfortable for you to walk away, leave everything nice and open with your prospect and not get the dreaded ‘No’
You fall into this trap and you are leaving a potential 30% plus of business on the table. This can be the difference between you making that commission, or not.
Again you will not close every sale on a follow up. It is easier for a client to say no over a telephone than face to face. However, following up with a key prospect can also take another way.
Keep in touch with your key prospect on a regular basis. Drop key (relevant) industry related snippets or articles to them. Just a few lines, saying that “you might find this useful… or interesting.”
It is keeping your name in the frame. Why is this important? Because it can take between five to seven times of a prospect seeing your message before they go ahead.
Keep yourself in the frame and the reward will come.
I hope the above has given you some insight into the common reasons you might not be making the sales you want to. You might need to fix one, some or all of the points or just up the activity in following up.
For FREE information on sales challenges and what you can do to sell more and increase your income, head over to my page, You are Missing Sales by Missing the Basics
Best of luck in your sales journey. If you have any questions or particular sales challenges do reach out to me. I may not have all the answers but with over 40 years there might just be something in the grey matter that can help you.