As promised, I’m cruising through the specifics of my 5 Sales Tips to Maximize Your Price. We already covered Sell the Outcome, Not the Activity.
Today we are focusing on what it means to…
Sell the urgency of the customer’s timeline.
Customers are far more willing to pay more when what you have is what they need now. Key is in knowing what that timeline is.
Too many salespeople try to force the customer into buying based on their timeline, not the customer’s timeline. For example, many salespeople feel compelled to close a couple more sales before the end of the quarter.
We’ve all been there, and unfortunately, the end result is a high probability of making last minute concessions to close the deal.
Rather than selling to your timeline, sell to the customer’s timeline.
When you can sell to the customer’s timeline, you are far more likely to not only sell without discounting, but also to sell at a premium. Your objective early in the selling phase is to uncover the customer’s buying timeline.
If you wait to find this out too late in the selling process, you’re far more likely to be given a false date by the customer, because they don’t want to sound urgent.
This is a key reason why I subscribe to the belief of having a selling process that engages the customer in a very relaxed manner. Customers are far more likely to reveal to you critical and truthful information when they do not feel rushed or threatened.
One of the best ways to find out a customer’s timeline for making a decision is by asking them early in the sales process. You can verify the response the customer gives you by asking them how they’ve made decisions like this in the past. People tend to repeat themselves. If they’ve purchased something using one timeline before and it went well, then you can almost count on them using the same process again.
Craft your proposal around the customer’s timeline. Putting a proposal on the table too early will only give the customer time to shop your proposal with competitors.
A proposal put on the table too early is also inviting the customer to come back to you one or more times looking for a reduction.
Sell to the customer’s timeline. The added profit you’ll make by waiting will be worth it.
Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
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