| Company Expert's B2B Forum

The Method
I am not going to suggest that you don't need marketing and advertising to introduce customers to your product. Nor will I suggest that you don't need for a sales force. However, your sales force, and everyone else in your company who deals with your customers, will sell more product if you just "Make it easier for customers to buy!"

Think About It
Once someone has decided to buy your product (or service) what do they have to do to complete the transaction? Think about the last time you went to, for instance, the hardware store to buy a new door knob. You knew what you wanted, or at least what store carried several good kinds.

What Can You Do?
Take a look at your operation. From the moment a customer decides to buy, until they have the product in hand, what do you make them do? Can you cut out any of those steps or speed them up? Can you make technology do things for them?

Think outside the lines. Don't do things just because "that's how it's done." Don't do things because it's easy for your staff or because you like doing it that way. Look at it from the customer's perspective and "Make it easier for customers to buy!" You will increase your sales - Guaranteed.

You went there, read the advertising on the packaging, selected the product and went to pay for it so you could go home and finish the project. Instead you found yourself waiting in a line that never moved. There were ten registers, but cashiers were only working three of them. Did you get tired of waiting and go to a different store? Did you at least consider it?

Smart retailers use staff from other functions as overflow cashiers. That way they can keep down the cost of cashiers standing around with no one to wait on, while at the same time reducing the length of a customer's wait in line.

It is a sound idea, but the overflow cashiers have to be alert, and they have to recognize the value of providing that customer service. Restocking the shelves, finishing the paperwork, counting the number of widgets on aisle 3, etc., can wait - take care of the customer - "Make it easier for the customer to buy!"

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Topic starter Posted : 12/06/2010 9:13 am

Re: Guaranteed Sales Increase

Good salespeople are aggressive, dynamic types. Everybody knows that. There are plenty of good salespeople out there. They have good product knowledge. They have good selling skills. And they are likable. The more competition you have, the more products that can do the same or similar things as yours, the more you need to help and advise your customers, not just sell to them.

Great sales people are an extremely valuable commodity because they are in such short supply. So, what are the bottom line differences between good salespeople and great? Great sales people are continually trying to better themselves. They are always layering on new skills while honing the skills they already have.

Don’t just be GOOD. Many of your competitors are good and they’re doing everything that they can to be better. Become dissatisfied with good. If you are good – want to be excellent. Then become dissatisfied with excellent. When you are excellent, want to be outstanding. Continue along this path as far as you can.

Great sales people also have a higher level of ambition than ordinary sales people. Sure, they want all of the things that money can buy, such as bigger houses bigger cars and more interesting vacations. They also want the non – tangible things that money can buy such as respect, admiration and more freedom.

Another big difference between good and great is that great salespeople have a love for selling. Now, you and I both know that it’s possible to make a great deal of money selling without having any love for it. So, what’s the big deal? The big deal is that at the end of a long career in sales, you have been competing against people who do love it. This means that for your entire career you have been competing against people who are willing to invest more time, and more energy in what they do for a living because they love what they’re doing.

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