“What are next steps?” “What do you think about what we’ve discussed so far?” “What would be best day to arrange delivery and set-up?” “Is there any reason we shouldn’t get started on paperwork?”

The next biggest mistake salespeople make once they do ask for sale is to talk customer out if making decision. A few years ago, I was considering an activity for one of my training sessions. After listening to salesman’s presentation and seeing product I told him I wanted one. He proceeded to say, “If you want some time to think about it, that’s okay, there’s no rush.” I again told him I wanted to purchase activity and he responded by saying that many of his customers like to consider purchase before making a final decision. Finally, I reached across desk and took activity out of his hands and said, “I’ll take this one. Here’s my card, send me a bill.” I couldn’t help but wonder how many sales opportunities this business owner missed.

If you want to increase your sales, IMMEDIATELY, remain silent once you ask for sale. Here’s why this simple technique is so powerful.

In every sales situation, customer or prospect has a mental checklist of conditions that must be met before they will be prepared to make a purchasing decision. Remaining silent allows them time to mentally tick off each item on that list. Talking interrupts this process and does not give customer time to review what, if any, conditions remain unfulfilled. The longer a customer takes during this process greater likelihood they will make purchase. Yet, most salespeople get so nervous during this period of silence they end up blurting out something like, “Have you been offered a better deal by someone else?”

Don’t give customer a possible objection! Ask for sale and remain silent until they respond, regardless how long it takes. I recall reading a story about a salesperson whose prospect took almost two minutes to say yes after being asked to make a decision. By remaining silent she closed sale. Avoid risk of talking your customer out of sale by keeping quiet after you ask for sale.

If you’re serious about building your business get serious about asking for sale and develop discipline to stay silent afterwards.

BRIAN: "Is it fair to say that rest of your organization really has no visibility to what is going on with you and prospect/customer either?" JIM: "Pretty much. I sent in a report monthly of my activity to my boss, but that is about it."

BRIAN: "How about any financial information? Do you have access to any of that?" JIM: "Quarterly we get a spreadsheet from corporate. I compare my personal spreadsheet to theirs just to make sure that my commission is right."

Perhaps some of you can relate to this situation. It is not that uncommon, but more and more companies are realizing benefits of moving towards being a customer centric organization through a CRM initiative.

I went on to begin to paint a different picture for Jim about how his life could be made a lot easier and how he could be more productive with his time. Below are just 4 ways that integrating department silos, and disparate applications and data could improve a salesperson's life. I could expand and share a similar list about each end user of a CRM system, but I think that you can probably draw some conclusions on your own about how integrating information would help Sales Managers, Customer Service Personnel, Technical Support representatives, and Accounts Receivable specialists.

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1. What if you could turn a quote into an order with push of a button, and have it automatically inserted into your ERP/Financial system? Wouldn't that cut down on time and errors spent entering orders in two systems?

2. What if you had visibility about all open tech support or other customer service issues that your customer had called about, and you were able to proactively contact them, instead of being blindsided when you are trying to sell them additional products or services? Do you think they might be impressed with your level of service and attentiveness? Do you think that your unsolicited follow up might communicate to them that even when things go wrong, you are truly interested in helping them?

3. What if you had access to see how much a customer had spent over past year, products they had purchased, and whether they were on time with their payments? Do you think this might give you increased visibility to who your most valuable customers are? Do you think it might help prioritze who you should be calling on?

4. What if you could sort your customers easily by product line, and easily market to them with complimentary products and services that you offer? Do you think it might help enhance collaboration between Sales and Marketing departments in cross selling efforts? ****************************************

"An effective CRM implementation will have to be able to account for an entire spectrum of customer-based systems and how they interact with customers themselves. This is likely to include conventional personal interactions, paper-based transactions, Web site browsing, e-commerce, telephone contact or voice/data interaction via wireless technology. Organizations must be able to manage and maintain these multiple points of interaction to say they have an effective CRM system." says Charles Saunders in September 24, 2001 edition of EAI Journal.

Outlook can be effective for managing your day to day tasks. But how much time is spent on phone, through email, looking at 4 different spreadsheets to gather fragmented, out of date information? No wonder so many people are frustrated.

To learn more about how Initium Technology can help integrate your applications, data, and information silos into an efficient customer relationship system, please call us at 1-800-250-5732, or visit our website http://www.initiumtech.com/rfi.htm

Have a wonderful Valentine's Day and President's Day weekend! Be sure and take time to express your love to special people in your life!

Kind regards,

Brian Vellmure Initium Technology bvellmure@initiumtech.com

Copyright 2003 Initium, LLC. All Rights Reserved

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