What Great Sales People Say

I had the pleasure of attending the Professional Beauty Association’s 4th annual Distributor Executive Conference at the offices of Neill-TSP Corporation in Hammond, LA, this past week. At the conference, Mark Norman, author of Selling is Everyone's Business, offered some verbiage and techniques that great sales people use to conduct powerful sales meetings that lead to a close. Here’s a recap:

1. Remember to always ask questions. Ask more than tell. The point of asking questions is to store up ammunition for when the prospect says, “Let me think about it.”

2. Key phrases good sales people use to show active listening include: “Based on what you told me,” and “What you mentioned earlier…”

3. When people ask about a discount, Norman recommends answering with the following question: “What part of the service (or product) offering would you like me to pull out?”

4. Be likable. People have a tendency, when all other things are equal, to do business with people that they like.

5. Be careful of the word “I.” “I” raises the barriers of resistance (yet one of the top 20 words spokes in the English language is “I”). “We” is a bit better than “I,” and “You” is the best word of the three.

6. Take the objection and turn it into fact and reason (validate and learn). This was one of my favorite learnings of the day. How many times have I heard that a spa or boutique owner is not interested in switching skin care lines because they are happy with their current brands? Countless… From now on, I will try to answer this objection as follows: “The fact that you are loyal to your current brands is the reason we should talk.”

The most likely response you will get will be something along the lines of “Why do you say that?”

And to that you answer: “Well one of two things will come from our conversation. Either you will validate the fact that you are correct in your decision or you will learn something that could put you and your business in an even stronger position.”

I can never listen to such insights enough. While I might know these techniques, I certainly forget to implement them often…

As the daughter of the founders of Alchimie Forever and one of its co-creators,  Ada Polla set out to launch her family's Swiss-based skincare line in the United States in 2004.. Securing partnerships with exclusive spas, specialty boutiques and a global collective of cosmetic dermatologists, Ada continues to share her family’s philosophy that healthy skin can be achieved using effective anti-aging products formulated for sensitive and sensitized skin types.