Impulse Factors

Introduction
Presentation
Greed
Fear of Loss
Close the Sell and Rehash

First off, before law of averages can take place all the important impulse factors must be perfected by the salesperson, salesteam, or representative. Sales is a place where good attitude can be useful for both parties you rubbing it off on the customer. You must learn to be a great craftsman when challenges are met when law of averages are low. In other words, if sales are slow, you must maintain a positive attitude when doing face to face sales while going through your pitch smoothly. A salesperson should allow themselves enough time in the morning to prepare for the day.

When I was a salesperson, when nobody actually knew I was a salesperson, I learned that the law of average rule had no set time or place.  Either you can start your work day off hitting a large percentage of your average, or this juice could happen at midday or the evening.  To keep this basic, I will elaborate by using these numbers as your law of average.  If you talk to 100 people while performing an outside sales position, 10 of those potential customers according to law of average will buy whatever you are selling.  That comes out to 10% sales out of the number of people you speak with. To be credible, I received an award for most consisted salesperson for the wholesaler I worked for.

The first law of average is introduction.  This is extremely important!  This is the icebreaker; also, this sets the tone for you to make a sale.  Confidence is the key when approaching either regular subordinates or managers.  I said subordinates because you may have to ask someone other than a secretary for a manager.  Great eye contact, a decent hand shake and a quit “hey how are you today” is a good start.  If the manager is a guy, and he has on a baseball shirt on dress down Friday, make a comment about the last night’s game.  Even if you hate the game, the team and what pissed you off earlier remember you are doing business to business face to face sales.

Next, instantly say, “our company is doing a managers promotion today!”  This makes the manager feel as though this is all about him.  This type of introduction is not for the rigid person.  Remember this is only an example and feel free to create your own style using your own techniques and person to person experiences in the sales arena.  You must be fully prepared for this.

To become prepared, it is a good idea for the salesteam, or salesperson to do mock sales presentations.  Mock presentations should be done inside the employer’s office building during working hours preferable in the morning.  Mocks can be implemented by either someone who has been in the sales business for a while or by someone who is starting at the entry level.  Mock presentations are good because this allows you and the team to focus on developing persuasive communicating skills and dealing with negative customers.

Having a meeting and discussing what are the most consistent negative reactions does each salesperson encounter during a direct sales pitch is the best way to develop a fast come back during rocky introductions.  Earlier I mentioned rigid.  You can be serious and maybe have a few smiles and also have some nonverbal communication.  Good eye contact and good hand gestures can also help.  Try to pick up on what mood and feedback the potential customer gives you right away.  If the guy with the baseball shirt is somewhat irritated, you have to make the call whether to use the icebreaker mentioning last night’s game.

During an introduction it is so easy to be thrown off by the person you are pithing to.  The response you want to give will depend on what type of sales you are doing.  When I was a wholesale distributor doing business to business sales selling everything you can think of, I came in counter with all sorts of managers and people.  Items ranged differently but never over $20.00.  That price range gave me a lot of room to be flexible. At the beginning of your introduction using certain techniques may help, in our office, we took the negative and made it a positive.  When dealing with certain sarcastic individual while performing business to business or residential sales, sometimes a good comeback may change things quickly.  For instance, someone may ask you, “what are you peddling today?”  Your responds to that could be, “I actually drove here today?”  Brainstorming is up to you and your team to be creative as possible.

I became pretty damn good at my commission position that my boss decided to make me a trainer and start building my own crew.  Showing up at the office a half hour earlier than my normal time was required when I was promoted.  For a few moments every morning I would work with other trainers on my own pitch before I met with my team.  As trainers we assisted each other and gave feedback on each other’s introduction.  We would purposely threw out negatives at each other.  This is how we developed great quick come back skills during our introduction.  This technique also helped us get to the presentation stage.  For the most part without it we would have lost control of the sale.  Anyone can be taught to apply these steps you do not need a college education, but you do need confidence to communicate with all types of people in various places.  The trainer’s had responsibility to work with their crew and sometimes do individual analysis on entire sales pitch of that salesperson from start to finish every morning.

In our office, in the morning, we wanted to make everyone feel fresh, we actually made the atmosphere an upbeat one.  We had refreshments and music was played in the form of CD’s, this was an automatic part of our office culture.  The music consisted of upbeat dance, pop, rock, and rap. We had meetings conducted by our boss, being the whole staff present to watch them perform sales pitch; furthermore, give feedback on how we were doing as teams and individuals. 

Also, this was the time for trainer’s or team member’s to ask question.  To fully tweak and understand problem areas for certain employee’s,  we would perform mock pitches in groups.  Sometimes two trainers and two groups or maybe more would choose a meeting room to prepare in the morning.  Our goal was to get our team members comfortable, have the confidence to get to that presentation stage, and show a product.  The trainers were empowered to work with their team by themselves, but sometimes our bosses would watch or put themselves in the role of a customer while we pitch.  Of course, each customer can be different so therefore, sometimes our bosses would purposely throw negatives and positives during different stages of the person who is doing the pitching.

The main goal is to have the confidence and break the ice with the customer during the introduction.  Be quick to explain why you are there to see them, and try to remain comfortable, this will make them relax, hopefully.  Next, you want to apply the next step in the impulse factors.  After you began your introduction, this is a good indication that you could be on your way to a sale and possibly more which shall be explained later. As soon as you explain who you are, break the ice, and explain why you are there go straight into your presentation.

To be continued:

BraineMatter AKA Max
Max Pro Check Publishing®