So I asked him how he liked it and why he left it. His answer was fascinating. He proceeded to explain that there are very specific techniques required to be successful in selling “plots”. An example: a great cemetery plot salesperson will make note when someone has died and has left a widow behind. They have learned that the widow will usually get a life insurance settlement approximately 60 days after the burial of the their spouse and that is the perfect time to follow up with the widow – when they have money available and have begun to deal with the grief associated with the loss.
Category Archives: Sales Techniques
How Not to Sell to a Woman
Then it happened – his words: “This camera is also perfect for ladies!” he exclaims. Which, as you might imagine made us both very curious – Is that because it is small and fits the woman’s hand better? Is it because it is the right color (silver) and more popular with women? Or, what made it “perfect” for women – so we asked him.
Night Vision Goggles Stolen | What’s the Selling Opportunity?
I conducted a workshop recently where a sales rep with a large physical security company told the story of one of his clients who called explaining that he recently had a break-in to one of his warehouse facilities and wanted to better secure the facility. Great! A rookie sales rep might be tempted to “dash to the demo” or even the proposal to help answer this straightforward issue. This rep didn’t celebrate at this point, he kept asking more questions. Through questioning he found out the client affected was the Department of Homeland Security and they were endangered of being fined $1Million per occurrence.
Availability ≠ Authority
In general, for your solution to get funded in today’s challenging economy, you MUST have one or more powerful, credible champions who are willing to personally vouch for your solution. They can’t just be interested…they have to be committed. When the financial or operational executive questions the expense, your champion(s) must be willing to sometimes literally stand in the line of fire. If not, “do nothing” will win after you have spent lots of time in an account, utilized a lot of other sales-related resources and thought that you had a lot of momentum.
If the value isn’t quantified, it isn’t valuable
While ROI (return on investment) alone isn’t enough to get a project funded – it sure is better than not having one. The mistake many of our client sponsors make is that they fail to quantify the value of the proposed investment. Oh, they’ll identify the “categories” of value – improve turnaround time, reduce complexity, better serve our customers, etc. – but without a stake in the ground on actual targeted value (or pain) associated with the proposed initiative, in the mind of the CFO this becomes a “nice to have,” not a “must have.”