Introduction

I’m doing this course in Udemy because sales is the area I’m the most green about and as a single-man company, even though I hate it, I need to learn to love it

He says it is all essential skills so we see, I would have honestly not bought this course if I knew beforehand it was only 3 hours.

I’m not completely green on salesmanship, I worked for Rentalcars in Manchester for a bit and continously was getting bonuses due to performance, leasing cars. So I must know a thing or two.

There’s one big difference though, I didn’t care whether I sold or not anything on Rentalcrs, I would still be paid my base salary which was quite decent. I did care about selling only because it made the job become a pastime. There was no stress. I wasn’t pressured.

But THIS, selling me, that’s pressure. There’s plenty of it. There’s no base salary I get while in-between jobs. This is why I want 5 clients.

What is “Salesmanship”

He defines it as “getting others to want to do what you want them to do”. In my context: hire me.

Features & Benefits.

Nobody wants your product

Forget about the product or service, you need to sell what the ultimate goal is. For a drilling machine, you want the hole.

The art of “which means” or “so what?”

Sell benefits, not features.

Exercise: write 5 benefits of your product or service. I think I already did this on the homepage with the section “Reasons” I might revisit it later.

feature “WHICH MEANS” benefit

Try that exercise, for each feature find an exercise. You should put this on your website. On the reasons, be more specific.

List every feature, then “which means”.

They need to become second nature, always think “which means”.

Memorise your services benefits, you’ll need them, don’t make them bullshit.

Anatomy of a sales call

Well, first I need to get one of those.

Find first the prospect unique needs before selling the benefits. Find the “hot buttons”. Identify them and target them as they are high impact.

I mean this is pretty basic but you can easily create a workflow of this whole course, so i’m glad I bought it. Process creates perfection.

It says something about a 2:1 ratio listening vs talking, listening doubel to what you talk but…I thinkt that’s pretty basic. If anything I can write it down as part of a checklist.

Questioning techniques

Nothing new, use open questions instead of yes/no, you already know this from the time you worked in Rentalcars

You don’t need a definition of what is an open question. This is basically teh same as the art of mantaining a conversation with a complete stranger on Tinder.

The advantage of open questions is to get opinions and feelings about whatever subject and recognize the extent of whatever problem you want to solve.

Are you happy with your current supplier?

Interesting bit is that another way to do this is to tell them something that makes THEM ask YOU open questions. Something intriguing to keep their attention so you can gather their feelings about it.

Simple open questions start with:

• Why?
• How?
• What?

You can even make this part of your website form but I wouldn’t recommend it as that puts friction.

Objection Handling

An objection is a buying signal because if people raise them they are still talking ot you, so there is interest. It’s a “please convince me” signal.

Reasons for objections:

• Just want info
• It’s expected from them.
• Price Resistance. This won’t ever happen to my area. But budget constrains exists.
• Peer Justification (FOMO/JOMO)
• Delaying tactic. They want to think it through or think you’re too fast.
• Fear or Laziness. Making decisions is costly.

Time and objections

They are like FAQs, with time you learn they are always the same ones and know how to respond to them instantly as you’ve done it before.

Do not celebrate or be overconfident because you answered it before, pretend you didn’t, be humble and acknowledge the question as being reasonable. <–This is probably where I fail mostly

Real vs fake objections

Sometimes they are smokescreen tactits to delay answering. Ask “suppose you completely satisfy X would you be satisfied”. Probably with not those words. The key word is “suppose –> would?”

Repeat until all smokescreen objections are erased.

This helps you figure also what is the real objection, sometimes people don’t even know themselves.

Time-honored structure to handle objections:

1. Listen
2. question
3. agree
4. answer
5. check back.

How to deal with “that’s expensive” ones:

1. People might not be aware of the cost.
2. People might not be aware of their budget. Ask them about their budget. Split a project in two…
3. Competitor. Figure the solutions the competitors give and see how you are adding value compare to those (benefits)

Techniques:

• Keep the questions relaxed
• Write down the objections. A simple CRM could help with this in the future.

Once you ahve them written group them into tops and rephras them into positive requirements….not sure what he means with the later.

Reasons to do this:

• Clarifies concerns
• Looks for underlying emotions
• Restates them in better light.
• Maintains empathy
• Seeks agreement.

Not sure how much of those 5 points is bullshit because of it being common sense.

Objection handling should never be confrontational.

Price objections

Never sell down to a price instead of up to a value (not that I needed to be told this)

Reminding the added value is simple as reminding the benefits. The price can be broken down to “it cost less than a coffee per day”.

It’s not about changing the cost but hte perception of it.

I think about it

is just to get rid of you.

ask again if there’s anything that can satisfy you if changed

#### The lost sale

when you come back to a sale that was closed and they tell you they’ll go with someone else.

Ask them who, what they offer that you do not. So you could improve.

Cement a good relationship, congratulate them and suggest them to come back to you if they need any other services. The person who is talking to you might be convinced but someone else made the decision, that person might be later the one making the decisions and might prefer you because you already have a relationship.

Ways to close a sale is the same as in Rentalcars, assume they want it and don’t accept a Yes/No question but a “would you like it with this or with that?”

## Psychology of buying

Think like a customer. Yet there are some points of rational anirrational reasons to buy

Rational:

• Improve profits (as you did with SUrvation)
• Reduce cost (same as above)
• Efficiency
• Dependability
• Low maintenance
• Utility
• Security
• Health&Safety

Irrational:

• Pride
• Fear
• Comfort
• Not wishing to look foolish
• Envy (FOMO)
• Laziness (not wanting to compare the market or waste more time)
• Approval
• Being like the others

Buying reasons are usually EMOTIONAL (irrational) but then the buyer rationalises it. It doesn’t matter B2B or retail.

Decisions are made emotionally…then justified rationally.

Think what is it that motivate people to say yes.

Needs vs Wants

This is gold.

If I need something but don’t particularly want it I’ll buy at the lowest cost.

If I really want something, even if I don’t need it, price becomes less of an issue.

Selling to needs alone will force you to lower price.

Think like a customer in what they search to find you “web developer” or “engineer” or “systems administrator”, or “cloud administrator”. Put this on the SEO of this site for example.

Closing

Closing is selling, a close is a sale.

FOrmal closing techniques

I suggest you do your own research past what he says here:

Assumptive close is the one assuming you’ve close it. Speak as though you’ve already been accepted.

Alternative close. Similar to the assumptive but gives a choice between yes and yes.

Not “would you buy it” but “would you pay with c.card or with cash”.

It’s like on top of the assumptive close.

The Puppy Dog Close. Suggest a test-drive. It’s called like this because is like in a pet shop someone puts a puppy on you and you can’t say no.

Buy now or Try now is an example

The Half Nelson. You’re close to a yest but have an objection that is easy to answer, instead NOT answer it …yet.

Instead make it a condition that if you resolve the question they say yes.

If we could..would you?

“Would you” invites more objections.

The Winston Churchill Close or The Balance Sheet Close. You’re trying to help the person to make up their mind. When the person is ngenuinely having difficulty making the decision.

Is drawing a sheet of pros and cons. It works on building trust.

Start with the cons. Don’t make any suggestions, keep quiet, they’re basicallly telling you all of their objections.

In the pros, just use the benefits. Since you’ve used them many times you alreayd know them.

Don’t rush.

Once it works is time for an assumptive close.

The Crap, OK, Perfect Close. Present three options, one that’s ok but you know that won’t work, then show a mediocre one that they like more, then show a third one that is the best one. The buyer believes he is too smart and has found some bargain.

Close early and close often.

The lost sale close

Selling off the page

Once you have a lead generation campaign.

White Paper or Survival Guides. Useful information to get people on your page and recognise you so they become leads later.

AIDA:

• Attention
• Interest
• DEsire
• Action

Attention, 5 seconds to claim their attention.

Once you have it you can develop interest and buys you time to arose desire for your product/service

Example, you sell a financial accounting software.

YOu make a whitepaper called “Evaluating FInancial Accounting Software”.

The action was a coupon at the end with a discount.

How it appealed emotions:

46 pages, of that paper created fear because it says you didn’t know enough about that.

It appealed to their laziness as it said “Use it to develop your sofwatere strategy”

Use it with yoru colleagues “self steem.

The objective of white papers is to make prospects identify themselves

A propspect is a potential buyer.

Done

I’m done

I shall reorder this blog post later.