Buying Training

Every morning at or before 6am Eastern time in the USA, I post an article to help us be better salespeople.

However, according to this classic piece from Steve Clark, maybe it should be called Buying Training:

Picture Perfect

May 18th, 2005 by Steve Clark

Suppose you are the CFO of a medium sized manufacturing firm and you have plans to meet with two agents from difference insurance agencies.

The agent from agency A sits down and does a few things to establish rapport. Then he starts telling you about his company, its reputation and commitment to quality service. Soon he goes into his presentation about their standards, number of markets and risk management philosophy and asks you for an opportunity to provide a competitive quote and see how they do.

The agent from agency B comes in, and after doing a few things to establish rapport, begins with a brief story to gain some credibility and then asks a few questions.

Producer: “Recently during a meeting with the executive of a manufacturing firm, the CFO told me his greatest concern was that all of the services available to him were poorly coordinated and because of that he didn’t feel he was getting all that he was paying for. What he said he wanted was a more defined annual service plan that was proactive in nature and would help him exercise maximum control to prevent and manage losses. We gave him that and as a result his cost of losses has decreased by over 37%. I don’t suppose that you are concerned with anything like that are you?”

Prospect: “That’s been a significant challenge. I don’t have the time to really manage all the aspects to make sure they happen.”

Producer: “Just out of curiosity, when your agent came out at renewal time to go through your service plan and laid out when he would deliver policies, review claims, review your mod worksheet, review payroll, and set up a renewal strategy so you wouldn’t waste your time or overpay for insurance, were you comfortable with how they laid everything out?”

Prospect: “It’s never been that formal a process.”

Producer: “Well, maybe it’s not that important because you’ve never had an unpaid claim or an extensive audit.”

Prospect: “Wait a minute - this is important. If we had been doing this last year we wouldn’t have had the surprise with….”

Which of these approaches best describes your selling style?

Remember that people like to buy but they don’t like to be sold. The only way they can do that is by selling you why they want to buy. Instead of trying to persuade, convince or pitch someone why they should buy your product or service, learn the Art of Negative Sell and let them sell you. You’ll make more sales and have a lot of fun doing so.

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