How to Double Your Sales Appointments in Half the Time; Part 4

This is the fourth and final article in our series about how to double your sales appointments in half the time. In this article, we will be going into detail about how to double your appointment sell rate. The key to increasing your sales rate is having a clear understanding of what the customer wants, before they even know it. Here are some tips on how you can better understand customer wants:

1) Ask more questions than you answer. By asking more questions than you answer, you'll get a better understanding of the customer's concerns before they even realize it.

2) Learn how to create emotional connections. The two sales experts who created this book both felt that selling was about creating emotional connections with your clients in order for them to buy. If you aren't creating emotional connection with your prospects, then you're probably not going to be successful at selling them on anything at all.

3) Identify what makes your product or service unique and then communicate this information using emotion-provoking language. This will not only help you discover what your customers are looking for. It will also help you come up with solutions to their problems.

4) Study the behavior of the best salespeople in your industry and then find a way to emulate them through your own way of selling. This means that you'll have to actually pay attention to what the best salespeople do and then do the same thing yourself.

5) Listen more than you talk—which can be hard, considering that our culture is so based on talking. But it's worth trying as long as you aren't interrupting.

6) Control your desire to impress. The best salespeople in the world have no desire to impress anyone. They really just have a desire to help, and they are passionate about their work. If you don't have your customers best interests at heart, then you should probably go into another line of work all together because selling is a calling more than it is a job.

7) Stay true to who you are and what your company represents. Too many salespeople are trying to sell things that they don't believe in personally just for the money, and this will usually show through in the conversation with your client.

8) Talk about money and not features. If you want people to buy your product or service, you need to talk about the amount of money that they're going to save on their bill and not the features of the product or service.

9) Focus on buying from you because that's what your company does best. When you focus on the things that your company does better than anyone else in the market, your customers will automatically feel some sort of loyalty to you.

10) Care more about helping people than getting paid. If you care more about helping people solve their problems than getting paid for it, then other people will feel something similar toward you.

11) Have fun. It's not just your job. It's your passion.

12) Look for opportunities to show off your product or service and then make a big deal about it at first so that the person understands that you're truly passionate about what you do (and so is everyone else who works for you).

13) Do more than one kind of sales—you need to be able to mix things up so that you won't get bored with the same old thing all the time.

14) Don't sell until your customer is happy—and if they are having a problem, ask them how they would like to solve it instead of jumping right into solving the problem because "that's what I'm here to do. I'm here to solve your problem."

15) Give more than you take. Keep in mind—your customer's happiness is just as important as your own.

16) Show a sincere interest in what they have to say and include several follow-up questions in your conversation so that they know you're listening.

17) Make eye contact with the person you're talking with and keep that eye contact even if they are looking down at the ground or someplace else. It's okay if they want to look away every once in awhile because there isn't anything wrong with occasional distractions, but it is important if you want people to be able to trust you and your product or service.

18) Make sure that you are truthful, and if you can't be truthful, then just don't say anything at all.

19) You should never lie to the person you're trying to sell something to; the customers will eventually find out and they won't want to do business with a company that they can't trust.

20) Be yourself. That will help you relax around your customer and it will also ensure that they get a clear idea of who your company is based on how you are conducting yourself as a salesperson.

21) Never get discouraged by a rejection—there is always another day, and another opportunity if you keep working hard enough.

22) Never give up—it's the only way you'll succeed.

23) Follow-up and follow-up again—you really need to stay in touch with your customers because they won't always remember you, but if you follow up, then there's a better chance that they will.

24) Be prepared for anything and everything that could happen because everything happens for a reason and the most successful salespeople in the world are the ones who are ready to be flexible with the people that they meet.

25) Always, always, always ask for referrals. It's a lot easier to get a referral from someone you trust than from someone that you don't know at all.

26) Most successful salespeople have nothing to lose—so don't ever be afraid to try something new because most people are afraid of new things and they'll tell you to stay away from them.

27) You should take care of yourself and your health because when else will you be able to take care of your customers?

28) Perspective is everything—the customer's perspective is important, but so is yours.

Conclusion

Sales is an art, not a science. The higher that salespeople are paid, the harder it is for them to be successful. But what about those who are paid less? It's a tough break for them. Their success depends not only on their natural talents, but also on how their managers and coworkers treat them. Many salespeople understand this, but many do not. In order to become more successful in sales, one must first understand the business world and what it takes to be successful.