Do you have a Magic Move in your sales process? Is there a silver bullet in your sales strategy? If so what is it? How often does it work? How do you know it's the secret making the difference between hero and zero?
I'm no fan of all those self improvement books which teach you "how to be the 800lb gorilla in your market". It seems to me the guys who write that stuff are only any good at selling one thing - snake oil to unsuspecting pilgrims. In fact I've written a lot about how that rubbish is coaching you don't need.
Otherwise they'd be exploiting their secrets selling proper stuff to customers with money to spend and a need to buy something.
But having said that, I'm about to offer you a Magic Move you can build in to every sales process.
The inspiration for this post came to me the other evening whilst beating balls on the golf range. I remembered something from the dim and distant past which set me to thinking about sales and the principles and processes we can all employ to increase our chances of winning deals.
My golf swing has been in poor shape for some time now. So much so that I'd give the game up, if our house wasn't less than 100 yards from the greatest golf course in the world. My affection for Royal Dornoch won't let me countenance divorcing it.
So beating balls with mixed results I remembered something written by Harvey Pennick in his Little Red Book. Harvey said the only magic move in golf is (for right handed players) the right elbow must move toward the body at the start of the down swing. On it's own this move won't turn the happy hacker intoTiger Woods, but nobody can build a reliable swing without it.
This got me to thinking. There has to be something that fundamental in the sales process, and there is.
The magic move for sales guys in all markets is one nobody ever talks about. Strange because it's so obvious they shouldn't need to talk about it. Contrary to those people punting Win, Win selling, I'm suggesting the magic move is Lose, Lose selling.
When the customer believes the sales guy has more to lose from the deal going bad than s/he does the two automatically become partners - partners in managing their own, and each others risk.
So here's my silver bullet. It's so powerful precisely because nobody talks about it, or even uses it. It resets the agenda for the customer and changes the conversation.
"Prospect, if you end up unhappy with what you buy from me it'll cost me more than it costs you". "That's why I'm telling you the truth about a market I deal in every day".
How you deploy the tactic in your process is up to you.
- You might drop into the conversation "90% of our business comes from satisfied customer referrals".
- You might suggest "I won't do business that way because?".
- "The only thing that counts in selling is the phone call from somebody we've never met asking for a proposal, referred by a happy customer. Everything else is just noise."
And that's the message we all need to convey to our prospects!