Hello Again!

This month I wanted to share some great information I’ve heard from many of the latest Trade Learning Events I’ve been able to attend.  As a whole seminars are an absolute must for anyone who desires to keep on improving in their trade and business.  They help us break free from the negative and unproductive attitude that “we know everything and can’t do a better job”.  One area that many of us sometimes forget to work on is sales.  So in this months always-profitable newsletter lets talk about how we can improve our selling skill-set.

This past October in Baltimore we were fortunate enough to attend the excellent  Remodeling Show.  This show always brings a great display of new tools and products along with (or more importantly if you’re like me) fantastic seminars on business topics and sales.  One of the first seminars I attended was by Bill Millholland of Case Design/ Remodeling Inc.  He gave what I would consider to be one of the best sales talks I’ve heard in a long time.  Bill doesn’t just talk about sales, he works sales on a regular day to day basis personally selling and managing over a dozen sales personnel.  The title of his seminar summed up his process perfectly, “Getting the Sale Step-by-Step”.  We have to have a process where we move from one step to the next step in an organized way to bring our customers along with us.  This process helps our customers feel comfortable both with the product they are buying and also with our company.

A clear sales process you can try could be as simple as the following:

1. Start with a Warm Up Call

   1. This is a great way to pre-qualify customers by taking time to ask them simple questions like what have they done in the past, why are they doing this now, what are they looking for, what are their priorities for the project, etc.

2. Be Prepared for the Presentation

   1. Bring along brochures and pictures of previous similar projects to show customers.  Even be prepared with a sample price range ahead of time to again qualify your customer, don’t waste time if their not prepared to spend what you know the job will cost.

3. Give Options

   1. Also give your customers options.  Customer needs to feel comfortable with a project and the best way to accomplish this is by getting their input through option selection.

4. Ask for the Go-Ahead

   1. Get the customer involved by getting their go-ahead.  Make sure to ask them when you can start and begin the planning process.

Bill also gave another seminar on the “Science of Sales”.  In this talk he had some great facts that we all need to keep in mind in our own sales process.  For instance, did you realize that many people are already 60% into the sales process by the time they actually meet with you?  With the Internet, people are researching you, your company, what they want their project to look like, best project options, and on and on.  Customers more and more are really doing their homework.  So are we equally as prepared when we talk with them?  We need to be the Expert not just in name but also in actual expertise!  Another great point from Bill, was that first impressions are even more important then we thought we knew. I’ve always thought that first impressions took a few second to develop but Bill cut this time frame way down to just 0.1 second.  People make snap decisions about whether they’re comfortable doing business with us.  What is our first Impression like?  How do we look when we talk to customers?  What does our body language say?  How do we speak to our customers?  If you haven’t before maybe try out your typical sales call on a non-biased party and get their feedback.  You might get some feedback you weren’t expecting!

So as you can see many great points can be gleaned from seminars.  But to get these points we have to be there to hear them!  I’m always trying to learn mroe and more.  How about you?  What have you learned from a seminar that could be helpful?  Anything interesting?  I would love to hear from you!

Your partner in being Always-Profitable,

    Frank Taciak