Please share this Christmas gift with your e-mail list. Happy Holidays!

On the fourth day of Christmas, Mesmerizzzed! gives to you - four sales methods, three pricing strategies, two engineered products and a focused target market.

Okay, a little truth in advertising. Today's gift isn't about four distinct sales methods. It's about mastering the four stages of any sales call.

The four stages are building trust, investigating needs, demonstrating capability and gaining commitment.

Building Trust

The old model of selling focused on building rapport. Selling today focuses on building trust. What's the difference?

Rapport is a surface relationship - a connection based on technique, sometimes even manipulation. Trust is a deeper test - a connection based on real behavior. Rapport is the foundation for an occasional sale. Trust is the foundation for a long-term relationship.

How do you build trust? It starts with caring about the other party. It starts with focusing on service rather than selling. It starts with listening. Each of these elements - caring, serving, listening - never ends.

Which method are you using on your sales calls - rapport or trust?

Investigating Needs

Let's start with a few famous quotes:

"Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care"

Zig Ziglar

"Telling isn't Selling"

Brian Tracy

"I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I knew)

They were what and why and when and how and where and who."

Rudyard Kipling

There is only one way to understand what your prospect needs - by asking open-ended questions. Open-ended questions always start with one of the six honest serving men - they can not be answered "yes" or "no."

Are you listening?

Demonstrating Capability

Do you speak features or benefits? Features do nothing - only benefits demonstrate capability.

Have you really isolated the benefits of your products or services?

Here's a test! Take the risk of asking your best customers why they purchased from you. Listen how they describe the experience. Do they talk about your features - or the results they experience using your products or services?

Follow the lead of your best customers. They know why they buy.

Gaining Commitment

In golf, you drive for show and putt for dough. In selling, you demonstrate capability for show and gain commitment for dough.

Are you asking for the order after you've built trust, investigated needs and demonstrated capability? Are you still facing objections when you do ask? Are you walking away while they think about it?

There are no objections - only questions, concerns and conditions. If your prospect has a question, answer it! If they have a concern, address it. If they have a condition, resolve it - or move on!

Changing Your Sales Results

What are you doing every day to improve your sales methods? Here's a prescription - work on improving one method each day:

Monday - work consciously on building trust

Tuesday - work consciously on investigating needs

Wednesday - work consciously on demonstrating capability

Thursday - work consciously on gaining commitment

Friday - see if you can put it all together

Repeat 52 weeks in a row and watch the impact on your sales results!

© 2006 Mesmerizzzed! All Rights Reserved.

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