What Are The 3 Most Important Things Sales Superstars Must Teach Their Customers

Teachers? What are we talking about? Isn't this a Sales newsletter? Well, I don't think I have ever met a Sales Superstar who is not a GREAT teacher. Think back on your own experiences -- there is that special teacher in everyone's life. That one person who truly understood you and wanted the best for you. She helped you when you needed it, utilizing an uncanny intuition and skill set, all applied for?your benefit! Just think: As sales professionals we can find ourselves faced with similar opportunities! We are in a unique position of being able to help our customers. We can use the skills of great teachers to help us to improve our selling skills.

Think of the distinguishing characteristics of great teachers. What comes to my mind is that gifted teachers make the difficult things simple. They have tremendous empathy. They understand that the customization of content for the student (customer) is essential to the full understanding of the content. They inspire with their infectious attitude. They "listen" with their ears, eyes and heart.??

Sales Superstars make use of these characteristics to teach their customers three important things:?

1. Respect, Value and Prioritize Uniqueness. In other words, Superstars respect, value and prioritize the benefits of their UNIQUE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES!

2. Buying Process. Superstars understand what it takes to recognize what is critical to a project, and how to organize it with a Critical Event Timeline.

3. Urgency of creating URGENCY.

Let's look at each of these in detail below:

1. Respect, Value and Prioritize Uniqueness. In other words, Superstars respect, value and prioritize the benefits of their UNIQUE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES!

Sales Superstars teach customers to value and prioritize the uniqueness of their offerings. Step one in practicing this skill requires the sales representative to know what makes her offering unique. Step two requires the rep to understand how this uniqueness benefits her target customer. Prepared with her deep understanding of the customers' needs, the sales superstar can help the customer to see how her solution's uniqueness can help drive long-term successful projects. So, not only must the sales pro understand the customer's current needs as stated, she must be able to teach customers to understand what their needs should be.??

Let me offer an example. Mary is selling a very large technology solution. She asks her customer to share her needs. The response is: "We need a solution that is has a low price and is VERY fast." Average reps would accept that answer and launch into sales mode, making the case that their solution is the fastest and cheapest. Sales superstars immediate go to work to discover and demonstrate the value to the customer of other features, where applicable, such as ease of use and upgrade-ability. These are unique competitive advantages of her offering. She uses references, stories and her extensive understanding of her customer's short and long-term goals to position exactly why ease of use and upgrade-ability?should be prioritized.?

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2.??????Buying Process. Superstars understand what it takes to recognize what is critical to a project, and how to organize it with a Critical Event Timeline.

Sales Superstars teach their customers how to make sound, long-term investment decisions. The expensive and complex B2B sale is typically chock-full of chaos, drama and headaches. Veteran reps know what I'm talking about. Missed crucial deadlines, over-budget targets, incorrect solutions, no processes, unhappy users, implementation nightmares, missed ROI targets, integration problems--we could go on and on. Chaos exists because customers rarely purchase complex solutions. They are simply too busy doing their full-time jobs. Who is responsible for all this chaos that the customer endures? Sales superstars raise their hands. They see themselves as responsible for teaching how to avoid chaos. The sales superstar GUIDES the customer to use-purchasing best practices. The superstar teaches, drawing upon experiences gained with other clients who have been in similar circumstances. The rep teaches without exhibiting bias toward his own offering. This results in the sales superstar gaining enormous trust.?

For example, Trust Triangle Selling workshop attendees will recognize the Critical Event Timeline as the most important tool for guiding customers. The Critical Event Timeline includes the critical event date along with all of the other essential steps to ensure the success of the project. The critical event date results from a response to an internal or external business pressure. The date must be very specific and lets us know when the project must be completed. An example of a critical event date would be the "go live" date. All of the steps that precede the critical event date must be in the right logical order and must be allocated the requisite amount of time.??

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3.???????Sales Superstars teach their customers the “urgency of urgency.”?

Complex, large, B2B investments require senior level involvement.?Your investment is always competing with other key, urgent strategic business investments.?Your solution will NOT be budgeted or approved without senior level executives agreeing that the project is URGENT.?The tool that Sales Superstars use to create urgency is called the Business Case (aka, Value Analysis, Budget Justification Analysis, Impact Analysis).?Some readers may be thinking, “I get involved in projects when they are already budgeted.”?To that I would say, to be a Sales Superstar you must get involved early to earn trust by assisting with the budgeting process and creating urgency for the project.?Additionally, my experience tells me that projects that are budget approved today can easily be cut tomorrow when there are other projects that are brought forward with more URGENCY.

If you can read this newsletter, thank a teacher! Teachers make a difference, and so can we.

A very special acknowledgement goes to my Mom who was a GREAT teacher!

Good Selling