5 Selling Tricks Guaranteed to Repel Sales

By Ann Elliott

In many cases, sales have a bad reputation. You know the snake oil peddler and the used car salesman. The emphasis is not solving a customer’s problem but rather making a sale.

Repel sales with these 5 selling tricks:

1. Use deception to get an appointment or make a sale. Even though you succeed, what is the customer’s residual feeling? If long-term relationships are of no value, this is a good selling technique. If you do not appreciate referrals, this is the way to sell. I answered a knock on the door. The man on the porch introduced himself; his family had been selling firewood for generations. “Yes, the wood is seasoned.” When I paid him, I thanked him for selling me his load of seasoned wood. With a tip of his hat and a slight grin, he climbed into his truck. Did you know seasoned wood has small green leaves? 2. Do most of the talking with a prospect or customer. Tell him why your product has the best features before you know anything about his interests. Observe your next networking event. As someone thrusts a business card into your hand, listen to him tell you all about his product or service. As an afterthought, he asks what you do and half listens as he looks over your shoulder to find his next target. 3. Push a customer into a buying decision. When pushed into a corner to make a purchase, people feel manipulated. It has a high rate of backfiring.  The last time I shopped for a new car I was dealing with an inexperienced salesman who was learning all the sleazy tricks in the book. Bless his heart. He left his office to confer with his manager twice. The final straw was the third phone call. He said, “She is not the kind that can make a decision.” As I calmly stood to leave, I said, “Actually I have made a decision. I have decided not to do business here.”  4. Assume you know what your potential customer wants or needs. Customers want to feel part of the decision to buy your product or service. Unless you provide them the opportunity to explore the problems they want solved, they have little confidence in your ability to solve the problem. In the recent project to redesign my website, I rejected the proposal from a web designer. She asked me to explain my decision. I told her that she did not listen to what I wanted and needed. I had no confidence in her ability to deliver.  5. Say negative things about your competition. It does nothing positive for your reputation. Customers want to know you are spending your energy building something extraordinary not tearing down others. Invest time and creativity serving your customers with excellence. As my mother advised me, “You take care of yourself and you will have plenty to do. Don’t worry about what someone else is doing.”  Forget selling tricks. Adopt selling skills to make it easy for your prospects and customers to do business with you. Make your objective to determine what your customers want and need. If you have a product or service that can fill this want or need, your work is to demonstrate clearly this relationship between their problem and your solution.   © 2014 Ann Elliott All Rights Reserved

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Ann Elliott

Ann Elliott, founder of The Berkana Company, excels at leadership strategy

An expert at helping business leaders enjoy more profits and improved productivity with less stress, she blends fun and excitement with executive coaching and training to yield results for her clients.

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