Make sure you bond with the customer before you try to sell

There’s an old saying in sales – people buy from people first. If you don’t get a strong bond with the customer, you will find it incredibly hard to make a sale. Now, we’ve known each other for a long time now haven’t we? So I’ll take a risk and say something really sexist. This applies much more to women than it does to men.
 
Most men will still buy even if they don’t like the salesman, if they really need the product or service, and it is the best deal they can get. Most women, on the other hand, won’t buy, no matter what.
 
So, in any case, and especially if you are selling to women, make sure the customer likes and bonds with you before you start your sales presentation

Consider offering a loss leader
The idea of making an initial offer that actually costs us more than we make from it, at first sight, may seem to be bad business.
 
However, we would recommend doing this sometimes in order to win a new customer. The important consideration is the value of that customer over time. Winning new customers is the hardest thing to do in sales. In fact it is calculated to cost 6 times as much as keeping a customer once you have won them.
 
The supermarkets are very aware of this, and measure the value of a customer by calculating their average monthly spend, and multiplying that by the number of months a customer, on average, continues to shop with them.
 
The key point here is that the lifetime value of the customer is what really matters. When you take that in to account, it is usually worth losing a little money on the first order, in order to make money on all the subsequent ones.

Match your pricing to your promises

We've all had the hyped up presentations, where the salesman promises us the Earth. Then we find their pricing is lower than that of most competitors. How does that make us feel about the product?
Most of us will think, “There’s something wrong here, I’ve heard all about how wonderful the product is, and yet the price is so low. It can’t possibly be that good if it is so cheap.”
At the very least, we will investigate a lot more before we buy. At worst, we’ll decide to avoid the product in case it has something seriously wrong with it. Ultimately, most of us are sophisticated buyers – we know that things that have value come at a price.
In your sales presentation you are setting customer expectations about your product or service. You also set expectations when you set your prices. It is really important that those expectations match up – otherwise you will lose customers that otherwise would have bought from you.

Ask for referrals

We are all a bit shy when it comes to asking for referrals. The logic is undisputable. If a customer is really happy with your product or service it is only natural that he will want to share that happiness with other people.
 
Yet we don’t ask, do we? Most of the time we are just too shy. We don’t want to put the customer under pressure.
 
The funny thing is, when you put a relationship under a bit of strain it almost always comes out much stronger than before. The customer who recommends you will feel a much greater loyalty towards you. The one who said no will feel guilty later and will either change his mind, or try to do something to compensate.
 
In fact, when you ask for a referral from a satisfied customer you really can’t lose. The worst thing that can happen is that they want to give you more business. The best thing is that you get a new and profitable customer.
 
Go on – give it a try.

Focus on problems

We have talked before about the need to ask plenty of questions in order to establish what your customers are looking for. In the early stages of the call you need to ask about the customer’s situation, so you are getting simple factual information. Once you have that you need to find the needs that your product or service can satisfy. To do that you should have a list of pre-prepared questions that are designed to uncover the problems that your customer is facing – problems of course that you can solve.
                 
The best questions you can ask focus on how the customer feels about those problems. Remember that people buy for emotional reasons. The more your questions can remind them of how badly the problems affect them personally, the more likely the customer is to buy a solution from you.