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The traditional customer call once seemed indispensable to the selling process; the time and expense involved were just a basic cost of doing business. In recent years Mike Alstott Buccaneers Jersey , however, the business community has come to regard the sales call as an expenditure for which there are substitutes. For many companies telemarketing and direct mail have made the sales call a choice not an inevitability. This is not surprising when various studies suggest that getting one sales person in front of one customer now costs ?500 - this cost has trebled since 1983. As a consequence professional salespeople have to be more effective than ever to justify the investment in a face to face effort.


In essence, we can draw seven primary conclusions and taken together, these findings paint a picture of the current state of the sales environment.


Customer Focus Creates Competitive Advantage


? The one term that sets top performers apart - customer focus
? Outstanding sales results depend on
- The ability to think from the customer's point of view
- Understanding the customer's agenda Matt Gay Youth Jersey , buying cycle and best interests
? Beyond a superficial reading of immediate customer needs, salespeople must gain a deeper understanding of both the buyer's long-term goals and the overall business climate
? At the heart of customer focus is the art of listening constructively - the best salespeople are masters at capturing information
? Customer focus means taking the customer seriously - to-day the salesperson who clings to the product orientation of a decade ago is losing ground
? As client companies branch into new markets and unfamiliar territories, they are demanding unique, flexible solutions from their vendors - customised to support specific goals
? Another myth which can be exploded is that whilst customers value flexibility Anthony Nelson Youth Jersey , being too flexible can undermine the sales relationship. On the whole salespeople imagine that customers value a vendor's responsiveness above all. However recent research shows that their primary concern is reliability.


In summary, in order to maintain customer focus the best salespeople become facilitators, creating a partnership that extends the selling relationship within the customer's company. The motivation to achieve this should be strong - it costs five times as much to attract and sell to a new customer as it does to an existing one!


The right to do business has to be earned and never assumed.
Rather than doggedly asking for the business, the very best sales people work to keep the relationship moving towards a sale. They realise the need to identify how to turn their company's products into real solutions Mike Edwards Youth Jersey , which must meet specific needs. Unfortunately, our surveys confirm that the average salesperson drags the customer over old ground as much as 52% of the time - they are unable to provide continuous stimulation and never know when to treat an existing customer like a new one.


Conversely, exceptional salespeople only make such 'return? calls for 10% of the time. Above all, earning the right to proceed requires gaining the customer's trust and top salespeople work diligently to establish a climate in which the customer is willing to share information and feels comfortable doing so. The key here is integrity.


Customers are persuaded when they are part of the process and not part of the audience.
Sales success to-day demands a radical shift from the ?peddler? mentality of merely demonstrating products and expanding on their features. It requires treating the customer as a participant. More often than not Jamel Dean Youth Jersey , a ?flashy? sales presentation alone alienates rather than persuades


The best salespeople regard the sales call as a two-way conversation - not a one sided pitch. They have developed active listening skills Average salespeople score fairly well in their ability to provide customers with facts and figures, but top performers dramatically outscore the rest when it comes to gathering information. In addition, how a salesperson collects information still distinguishes exceptional achievers from the rest of the pack. I.e. top performers ask better questions and as a result gain much better information. Essentially, they aim to engage customers in the buying process with questions that require thoughtful answers Sean Murphy-Bunting Youth Jersey , that stimulate curiosity and that reveal the customers underlying needs


Businesses need to re-define selling and what constitutes basic selling skills.

Ongoing research demonstrates that to-day's ?average? salesperson is just as effective as the high performer in explaining features and benefits effectively Devin White Youth Jersey , relating a service or product to customer needs and closing a sale. But, above this Level 1 plateau of competence, the exceptional salesperson is busy defining the ?basic skills of tomorrow?.


Building an up-to-date foundation in sales competence does mean sacrificing some old notions of what it takes to succeed in a competitive marketplace. For example, a salesperson can no longer just ?win by knowing?. Every company needs to test their assumptions about what skills really contribute to sales success. Too often operating on old sales theories means training and rewarding people to do the wrong things.


When the buyer and seller act as partners O. J. Howard Youth Jersey , they are building a bridge to profitability.
Successful selling is definitely not about the ?hit and run? sale. Sales achievers regard their relationships with key customers as a partnership and cultivate it as such. When customers face tough business challenges and complex technological choice, they rely on sales people who can assist them in making the right decisions.


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