Brad Huisken

Great salespeople aren't pushy!
July 23, 2007

The last thing that a salesperson wants is to be perceived as being pushy and aggressive. Therefore, I purposely don’t say words that most salespeople say. For example: I would never use the words referral, feature, benefit, if I could get it for less would you buy it today, Can I help you, etc. All these words do is remind the customer that you are a salesperson and your mission is to sell them something.

I think the very best salespeople are the ones that are the very best listeners. What I mean by that is that great salespeople listen and react to the words that the customer says. Far too often salespeople ignore vital information that the customer gives and just proceeds to show merchandise and try to close the sale.

A typical example would be a customer saying that they are looking for a computer for their son who is going to college, and the salesperson saying “Our computer department is right over here. What kind of computer did you have in mind?” or “Did you have anything in mind?”

In both of these situations I believe that a great salesperson would really hear what the customer is saying. What are they really saying? Our son is going college, we are excited for him and want to share in that emotional excitement with someone, talk to me about the emotional excitement behind the major event of buying a computer.

Spend two or three minutes discussing what is really important to the customer and suddenly you are perceived as being their friend as opposed to being perceived as just another salesperson. I know that people want to buy from their friends. Only you can make the friendship happen by listening to every word the customer says and sometimes even listening to what they didn’t say directly. Ask the right questions to find out the emotional reason behind the purchase, share in the reason and suddenly your sales will increase and relationships begin to be developed.

Contrary to popular belief I don’t think that every time a customer walks into a showroom, or contacts a business that the goal is to sell them. I think the real goal is to develop a relationship to the point where a sale and a friend is made, the customer will come back to you for all their future needs and will tell their friends about the experience that they had with you. In other words I think the real goal of a sales presentation is Personal Trade, Repeat Business and Referral Business.

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Posted by Brad Huisken on July 23, 2007 | Comments (0)