For the Business of Apparel Decorating
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14 | PRINTWEAR M A RC H 20 1 5 Selling Smart BY JEFFREY GITOMER Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction Is Worthless Customer Loyalty Is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connec - tions, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Get- ting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com. | | | | W hen a customer says, "I want to think about it," or, "I need some time to think it over," it's one of the most frustrating expressions a salesperson can hear. You feel helpless, or if you've been poorly trained, you lapse into some manipulative dialogue that proves you're both a bad salesperson and only there for the money. There's a better way. I'm about to give you the ultimate response to "I want to think about it,"—one of the oldest sales stalls known to mankind. SELL YOUR EXPERTISE The paradox of "I want to think about it" has always been that the salesperson wants to make the sale right away, and the customer has not yet seen the value or the reduced risk in doing business with the salesperson. Often, the customer has already made up his or her mind but does not want to share that with you, the salesperson. The salesperson gets frustrated and blames the customer for his or her inability to decide rather than taking responsibility for a lack of sales ability and preparation. The reality is you have to stop blaming. Start taking responsibility. Be prepared for the objection before you get to the sales call. When met with this stall, try this tactic. Say, "I'm an expert at what I do. You're an expert at what you do. Let me share with you the questions you need to ask yourself and ask of others as you think about it." These are questions beyond, "How much is it?" and, "When do I really want to start?" Hand over a list of questions about the intricacies and value of your services. For example, if you were to sell IT services and data protection, questions you might ask include: 1. How much is your data worth? 2. Who is protecting your data daily? 3. How much spam do you get? How much time do you spend dealing with it? What is your time worth? 4. What happened the last time you lost data? 5. What is a business heart attack to you? 6. What's the difference between 99 percent guaranteed up time and 100 percent guaranteed up time? The difference translates to 3.65 days of downtime. What is the ex- tra 1 percent worth? Hand the questions to the customer and read the questions out loud, and then ask him or her, "Would you like to think about these questions by yourself, or would you like to think about them with me?" Keep in mind, you are the expert. The customer is depending on you for answers that he or she cannot create. Whether you sell life insurance, refrigerators, new cars, or apparel decorating services, the customer is most likely making a single purchase, but for you, it may be your 1,000th time to make the presentation. It's critical that you transfer confidence, not just information. Instead of feeling defeated, consider "I want to think about it" as your golden op- portunity to give value, prove value, make prospects think about themselves and their options, and still have an opportunity to make the sale. PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE You must prepare for the "I want to think it over" stall before you make the sales call and positively accept the stall when it occurs. The more positive you are, the more surprised the prospect will be. This will allow you to present the solution outlined here. When presenting this answer to the prospect, your tone must be both friend- ly and calm. The prospect will see that you're prepared and, at the very least, be impressed—and, at the very most, be both engaged and willing. You are in complete control when you're prepared. You have totally lost control when you're not prepared. This solution will not work all the time, but it will work. How often it works will be de- termined by how often you try it. The more you prepare for it, the better you will be- come at overcoming. Selling Smart The ultimate response to 'I want to think about it' pw