The 4 Secrets Of Expert Salesmen
"This radio was purchased in 1926. It doesn’t work." So declared best window display I have ever encountered. Next to the antique radio was a well worn pair of brown wingtip shoes, ...

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The 4 Secrets Of Expert Salesmen

"This radio was purchased in 1926. It doesn’t work." So declared best window display I have ever encountered. Next to the antique radio was a well worn pair of brown wingtip shoes, with its own, carefully lettered, small announcement: "This pair of shoes was bought at Brophy’s in 1926. Still being worn."

More passers-by were attracted into the shoe store by that small, simple display than by any other combination of merchandise arranged in the window. Why? Because the owner of Brophy’s was a sales expert and employed the four secrets every sales expert knows:

What’s the next Yes?
Know the Customer’s Need
Keep it Simple
Create an Experience

What’s the next Yes?

Sales experts know what they’re selling. Sounds obvious, but most salesmen miss this entirely because they forget that sales is really a series of small "Yeses," only the last of which is the decision to fork over hard-earned dollars. In the shoe store example, what was the window display selling? Not shoes! The next Yes was getting prospects into the store.

Most sales calls cover a number of Yeses, from "Yes, I trust you enough to do business with you" to "Yes, I agree what you are saying is a benefit for me" and many others, each of which should be identified and carefully accounted for to have extraordinary sales results. What’s your next Yes?

Know Your Customer’s NeedA golden rule of effective selling: the only need which matters is your customer’s need. Unfortunately, our customers’ needs are rarely obvious or well articulated. What salespeople forget is that customers aren’t interested in their product—they are interested in the benefit it provides. The woman scouring the tool aisle doesn’t really need a ¼" drill bit; she needs a ¼" hole. Of course, that doesn’t totally describe the need either. The expert salesman knows the customer needs a ¼" hole in plywood in the next half hour with the minimum amount of cost and mess and, ideally, with a product that matches the rest of her drill set.

To be an expert salesperson you have to understand the customer’s situation and point of view. Nothing works as well for this as a detailed "day in the life" portrait of your prospective customers painted through direct observation. When you see all the background, the nuances and the external factors which are contributing to the stated need, offering a compelling benefit becomes obvious and easy.

In our shoe store, Brophy’s understood that men’s needs were not just for shoes—they could buy those in any number of places—but for an interesting, pleasant place to buy high-quality, long-lasting, timeless apparel.

Keep it SimpleExpert salesmen keep it simple by remembering the story isn’t about them. Everyone else falls into the over-explaining trap because they are fascinated by their own business, or because they are not confident in their offering and relate features ad nauseum in hopes that one will resonate and close the deal. Big mistake.

While the typical salesperson rattles on about her offering, the typical customer is thinking about the lunch menu. Experts stay on point, and the point is not establishing credibility or explaining features.

You may think a twenty-minute exposition on the customer’s situation demonstrates you’ve studied the customer’s situation, but the customer thinks you’re boring and not focused on her needs.

Brophy’s display window was the epitome of simple. One pair of shoes, one radio, and two small signs in a large retail display case. A more contemporary rule than KISS is: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Once you’ve relayed the benefit, if the customer doesn’t ask, then don’t tell. She doesn’t really care that much or else he would have inquired.

Create an ExperienceThe ultimate sales secret is creating an experience. This is the 10th degree black belt of sales because it is the most powerful approach and it is also the most difficult to master.

Sales experts know that people believe what they help create and no amount of our explaining takes the place them creating the realizations themselves. This is what leads to the "aha!" moment which creates the sale.

Twenty years of work and research in this area have highlighted five different methods of creating sales experiences depending on what you are selling and the feasibility of providing a trial. (the five methods is outside the scope of a short article, but all five are explained in a free white paper at the author’s website).

The super-effective shoe store display was actually a sampling method for a shopping experience. Exactly the experience needed to create the thought, "Aha! I want to step inside this store."

Your path to extraordinary sales success may not involve an 80 year-old pair of shoes and a broken radio, but I guarantee you that if you adopt the lessons taught by that small-town retailer you, too, will become a sales expert.

The 4 Secrets Of Expert Salesmen
"This radio was purchased in 1926. It doesn’t work." So declared best window display I have ever encountered. Next to the antique radio was a well worn pair of brown wingtip shoes, ...