Photo credit-nascar.com
The last several weeks I’ve been noticing all over LinkedIn and Facebook, captioned posts of Spring Sales Kickoff meetings and events, showing smiling faces of excited salespeople in hotel ballrooms full of balloons and rah-rah posters with catchy slogans. It’s that time of year for blue collar sales organizations to gear up for their ‘high’ season. I’ve seen a buffet of companies such as HVAC, Pest Control & Termite, Home Security, Tire Retailers, Real Estate, Lawn Care, Replacement Window providers, Gutter Topper folks, Home Irrigation installers and Home Contractors of all sorts.
Since those businesses are “my people” I probably take notice of those type postings more than most. My focus today in the midst of all the excitement over the new selling season is to remind all the consultants, sales inspectors, account managers, and sales representatives of every flavor to slow their roll momentarily and think about all their potential customers. These prospects have your money in their pockets until you convince them to give it to you. The only way that will occur is if you invest the time to determine their needs through intelligent and caring questioning, and not simply yakking and yammering about yourself, your company, and your products and services.
Rather than selling to them, this year why don’t you concentrate on teaching them to buy. To help you do that take time to read, and maybe re-read the short poem below by Jill Konrath.
The Buyer’s Lament
Don’t waste my time, please go away.
I will not talk with you today.
You call me up, you want to sell.
But all you do is tell, tell, tell.
I do not want to hear your spiel.
I will not play let’s make a deal.
So listen up, take my advice.
Discover how you can entice.
If you aspire to earn my trust,
Research is an absolute must.
Know my goals, the issues I face.
Use them to build your business case.
What have you done for firms like mine?
How have you helped their bottom line?
Can you cut my costs or help me grow?
Now that’s the info I want to know.
If you can help me solve my plight,
I’m wide open to your fresh insight.
I always look for new perspectives
So I can reach my big objectives.
If you want me to remember your name,
Launch an account entry campaign.
When big opportunities are at stake,
Ten or more contacts is what it may take.
To get yourself past my no-entry zone,
Think of this before you email or phone.
Once you get your foot in the door,
I guarantee you’ll sell lots more!
Jill Konrath, Author
Photo credit-farmersalmanac.com
Welcome to the 2023 spring/summer selling season. I wish you great success and multitudes of new customers that are extremely happy with you and what you can do for them. In fact, I hope they are so satisfied that they provide you tons of referrals with introductions that allow you to sell by multiplication rather than by addition.
———–The Help You Need————
As you begin the new spring season, you will be much more successful if you read Doug’s book, Sell Is NOT a Four Letter Word. He writes about 116 topics over 274 pages that are critical to the selling process. You buy it from my website and I’ll ship it for FREE!
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