Tag Archive for: Marketing and Sales

74% of salespeople complain about losing a sale because their price was too high. And 74% of them are wrong.

How did you lose the sale?
Why did you lose the sale?
Was it really price? Or was it you?

Losing the sale manifests itself in ‘blaming complaints’ about: price, unreturned phone calls, bidding, loyalty to others, and other blame-based excuses about why a sale does not take place, and the relationship isn’t being built. Ouch.

Here are the major reasons why salespeople lose sales:

1. The customer was loyal to someone else. Your first job is to uncover what makes the customer loyal. What’s the real reason they continue to do business with someone else? Ask yourself if you and your company possess the same qualities.
2. Lack of real connection to or with the buyer. The prospective customer is looking for comfort, peace of mind, and assurance
3. Lack of engagement. You weren’t able to create real interactive dialog.
4. Lack of perceived value. If the customer does not perceive genuine, definable value in your offer, then there is none.
5. Lack of perceived difference. If the customer does not perceive genuine, definable difference between you and your competition, then there is none.
6. Lack of relationship. When long-term relationship is present, truth, trust, and value are the basis of purchase.
7. Lack of hustle. Response time to a customer’s need for service and/or information are critical factors in purchase.
8. Poor salesmanship. This has fundamental flaws of preparedness and presentation skills. There’s an obvious lack of questioning skills or sales strategies that create a buying atmosphere.
9. Poor attitude. The way you present yourself and your word choice combined with your tone and demeanor leave a HUGE impression on the customer. And that impression is either positive, neutral, or negative – and YOU CHOOSE how you made them feel.
10 Lack of ability to reduce or eliminate risk. This may be the prime factor in losing sales. And the least talked about. The simple answer is: PROOF. Can you substantiate your claims?
10.5 Failing to do your BEST. Without a doubt, this is the BIGGEST flaw in salespeople. Whether it’s attitude, belief, self-confidence, preparation, or follow up, your execution at a level less than BEST leaves a huge opening for your competition to win.

REALITY: None of these reasons are ever stated by salespeople. Instead, they (you) blame the loss of a sale on price.

“They took the lowest price,” is the most often stated ‘reason’ for the loss of a sale. And it is totally bogus. It’s easy to blame ‘price’ for the loss. It’s harder to face and discover the real ‘why.’

The reality (and life-long value) of why you lost a sale is forever silenced when you blame the loss on price, and move on to the next sale.

REALITY: “The customer took the lowest price,” is as bogus as “My dog ate my homework.” The fact is you let the customer control the selling/buying process. Not good.
STRATEGY: Get the customer to change the criteria of proposal submission in a way that is both in favor of the customer and you.
GIVE THEM IDEAS TO GET THE ORDER: Make the customer aware of the cost of buying inferior products as it relates to work stoppage and lack of productivity. Make them aware of the value of their image and reputation.
PROVE IT TO WIN IT: Make everyone competing provide a VIDEO testimonial for each item they’re selling and every claim they make about it. Document and prove elements like service response time, how friendly you and your team are, and how easy you are to do business with.

THE REALITY OF BLAME: The opposite of blame is responsibility. In sales responsibility is taken, not given. Be responsible TO yourself and FOR yourself. Don’t blame the customer, HELP the customer. Do not let the REAL reasons you lost the sale get tangled up in blame.

ASK YOURSELF: Why did you really lose that sale? What could you have done to make it?

PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE: Lowest price is the EASIEST excuse for a salesperson to make. Customers take lowest price because they perceive your product or service is the SAME as your competition. Not good.

If you are sick of losing sales like that, then you better discover WHY they took the lowest price, and create greater value differentiation. And while this is easier said than done, it is BY FAR, the biggest sales and profit opportunity you possess.

“Jeffrey,” you whine, “But what about bidding?” You know the people that take three bids then choose the lowest price? I’ve got some surprise answers about bidders next week!

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

I get a ton of emails from people seeking insight or asking me to solve their sales dilemmas. Here are a few that may relate to your job, your life, and (most important) your sales thought process right now.

Dear Jeffrey, What is your opinion of tracking daily sales dollars versus activities that will result in revenue? Does it really matter if Monday’s sales dollars are lower as long as the month pans out in regard to your goals? My thought is “Who cares which day the dollars get posted as long as they do get posted.” Ocha

Ocha, So I’m assuming your boss is making you do this and he or she is paranoid you won’t make your number by the end of the month. Both of which, tracking the daily sales dollars and the daily sales activities, are stupid. What you need to do is track the sales cycle and know where you are with respect to that sales cycle and what your expected revenues are. Because if your expected revenues are underneath your daily dollars, but your daily dollars are over your goal, you think you’re doing well, when in fact, you could be achieving 20, 30 40, 50% MORE sales by making certain you’re looking at your target dollars not just your actual dollars. Received dollars are real easy to record, but if you’re a salesperson and your boss needs to know what activity you’re doing every day – whether you’ve made five follow-ups and whether you did three cold calls – you’re doing it all backwards and you’ve got the wrong boss. What you need to do is look at the sales cycle and parenthetically look at the dollars, but they have to be compared to what you projected those dollars to be. Best regards, Jeffrey

Dear Jeffrey, I have a regional billboard company with two years of experience. For the smaller, greener, and less connected salespeople of the world, how do you keep a strategy in mind at all times to help land clients such as AT&T, Best Buy, or Taco Bell? Stuart

Stuart, You’re not going to land those people without years worth of trying, banging your head against the wall, seeing their ad agency, and doing all kinds of other stuff. UNLESS somebody in your family, somebody in your circle of friends, or somebody in your circle of influence knows someone up high at those big companies. If they do, and you can be introduced, you can get in the door. And if you can get in the door with some kind of impact, you’re going to win. But here’s the secret: don’t just be selling them a billboard. Give them a design that helps them get a response. And maybe you could even arrange with your company to give it away for 30 days to measure that response and go from there. The biggest mistake anybody in advertising makes is walking into a sales call with some kind of a media kit that shows how big a quarter page ad is, or how big a billboard is, or how many 30-second commercials there are. Go in with something already finished so people can look at it, like it, invite other people in to see it, and ultimately buy it. Best regards, Jeffrey

Jeffrey, You are pretty critical of CRM systems. They are here to stay, so how do you suggest we make them less threatening and more useful to the sales rep? How do you suggest someone shows the value of CRM to the sales users? Mike

Mike, Make the CRM applicable to the sales cycle, not just what they did on Tuesday. Don’t count the number of cold calls. Rather, study the sale from the beginning to the end and coach on that. That will actually help the person who is forced to use it.

Keep in mind salespeople just want to make a sale. They don’t want to be accountable. They got into sales so they wouldn’t have to be accountable. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not responsible. And it’s the managers or the leaders responsibility to help them be responsible for themselves. Best regards, Jeffrey

Jeffrey, I sell broadcast television advertising in a small market. I have mountains of information that shows TV as a great way to advertise, but how do I work that into my sales presentation without being overly analytical and pedantic? I need to give my prospective clients reasons to buy, but I don’t want to overwhelm them with data. Dennis

Dennis, Good. Nobody wants data. Everyone hates data and, in fact, no one believes data. 74% of all people don’t believe data. Where did I get that number? I made it up. But it sounds good. It’s data. What you need are video testimonials from customers who have already advertised on your station, got great results, and are willing to recommend that another prospective customer use your TV station. That’s all you need. If that’s not working for you, or you can’t get them because you don’t have any relationships, then do a 30-second spot where you are the voice. And do a spot about whomever you’re trying to get – the car agency, the car wash company, the cemetery lot salesperson. Whatever it is that you’re trying to get people to buy, do that. You make the commercial. It’s 30 seconds. It’s only 90 words. Figure it out. You’re a smart guy. Your method of being pedantic is too pedantic. Making a commercial in advance and getting a testimonial – those are the only two ways to sell. Best regards, Jeffrey

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].