Stop Selling; Drink Coffee
How understanding the psychology of sales can help grow profitable relationships.
To ‘sell’ your products and services more effectively you simply need to create an environment around you and your clients, referrers and prospects which allows them to buy from you, not one that sees you trying to sell to them. Coffee is one of the key players in this process.
By using coffee as your binding agent here is a recipe for 10½ key ingredients to create the perfect environment for your contacts to buy from you.
1. Emotion first; logic second
People are irrational. Decisions are made on emotional triggers before empirical data is analysed. They are often motivated to buy a product based purely on an emotional level, and then justify their decision with logic afterwards.
In each step of the sales process you need to identify the client's needs and then find an emotional connection, so that they are motivated to take action and purchase your product or service.
2. Confidence and positive attitude
Have you got the confidence to sell your business effectively?
People are naturally attracted to confident people. As they say, people buy people.
Building confidence in yourself and your products is a recipe for success. Create an aura of confidence by generating a reality and projecting an abundance of confidence that people will notice, respect and admire.
Your attitude can mean the difference between achieving success and facing disappointment. Is your glass half empty or half full?
A positive attitude is essential. It helps you to achieve your goals, attain success faster and increases your ability to win business. Your clients will be influenced by your attitude and this will help determine whether they choose you ahead of your competition.
3. The right place
Being at the right place at the right time and in the right environment is incredibly valuable.
People tend to do things through inertia and often develop a habit of always attending the same networking and hospitality events. A much better use of your time is to be more selective.
As there are many networking events on offer, it is important for you to select those events that will be most beneficial to your business and will give you visibility. When you are at the right event make sure you optimise every opportunity to speak to the right people.
4. Listen and be interested
You need to create an effective relationship where respect, trust and understanding are felt by both parties. Listening is very important; it enables you to fully understand and find out what is important to the other person, which ultimately makes for a more successful connection.
5. Put yourself in their boots
Everyone did it when they were younger. You would put on a pair of adult's shoes and pretend to be grown up! You could take on the world, you oozed confidence and it gave you a new persona. Can this work in business and have the same effects?
In order to be more attractive to your clients you need to put yourself in your client’s boots, pretend to be them and think like them. Plan ahead of your meeting and ask yourself, what will they want? What will their concerns be? What is their purpose? What is their vision and their desired outcomes?
6. Have clear messages
‘One message fits one’
When communicating with people you need to be aware that people are all different in interpreting messages which are being given to them.
With this in mind you need to have clear messages for different audiences, taking into consideration their life experiences, cultural and social norms and values. By avoiding ambiguity the person will know exactly what they are getting and how your products and services will benefit them.
7. Focus on what you will leave behind
There is a great book ‘The Jelly Effect’ written by a friend of ours, Andy Bounds. Within the pages Andy talks a lot about being aware of what you leave behind after working with a client, or ‘afters’ as he describes it.
8. Be goal orientated
In today’s busy business world, goals, ambitions and dreams can be easily lost in the day to day running of your business. You need to instill a focus and clearly communicate your goals in order to stay one step ahead of your competition.
Be SMART. Being SMART will enable you to convey Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time based activities.
9. Your coffee system
How many coffees do you need to drink to win that sale?
Coffee is the new business lunch. It’s quicker, more cost effective and more successful.
In order to maximise your sales you need to have a tangible workable system in place. You need to adopt a process which creates a more accurate picture of the world in which you operate.
The system acts like a funnel; you only get out of it what you put into it. The more people you meet, the more relationships you form, the more meetings you have, so the more cups of coffee you drink. Its a winning way to succeed. Sounds simple? It can be!!
At Size 10½ Boots we ensure that we have the tools to be more cost effective and accurate with our sales process. We know exactly what we need to put into the funnel to get to the goals we require. Put simply we know how much coffee we need to drink, and you can too! Contact us to show you how.
10. Plan and review
It is essential to create a communications strategy and plan in order to stay close to your key relationships. These key relationships could be clients, prospects or referrers but need to be those people that are going to make a difference.
By having a multitude of different touch points and reviewing them regularly you will be able to keep in close contact with those who matter the most.
10½. Do them a favour
We at Size 10½ Boots are firm believers in the power of reciprocation. If you ever needed proof of its influence then we would recommend that you read Robert B. Cialdini’s ‘Influence - the psychology of persuasion’.
Size 10½ Boots Cufflinks
The winner of a pair of Size 10½ Boots cufflinks is Pat Coyle, Marketing Manager at Rollits. Pat provided us with the best idea of how to make your marketing budget go further. Congratulations Pat!!
What our clients say about us
We wanted to restructure the sales and marketing team of our firm to align it with our business objectives. We wanted an external viewpoint from somebody with a close but not exact industry experience, a track record and a flexible way of thinking. Now we have a robust model with the potential to be successful.
Chris Lonergan, Business Development Director, Cooper Parry, Accountants
In a world looking increasingly bleak and in particular working in a sector which has been on the ropes since late 2007, it was extremely useful to get everyone focusing on where new opportunities may lie and the practical steps they need to take to access those opportunities. The sector appraisal exercise certainly stimulated some lively debate. It got the team thinking about which organisations or businesses may be in the market for property based legal services, how we could access those organisations and how we might define our service to give us a real competitive advantage.
Jonathan Cavell, Partner, asb law, Law Firm
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