top tip to successful selling identify a

Identify a point of mutual interest and start a conversation, easier said than done! Interestingly each and every one of us does it daily, whether we are in the sales profession or not, we still as people practice the art. So what is a mutual point of interest?Put simply is talking to a fellow human being about any thing really. Whether you are recommending a great coffee shop, movie, hairdresser or any experience that you may have had good or bad; that is a mutual point of interest. We as humans love to be listened to, c'mon don't say that you have never tried to speak over some one else during a discussion and you just had to get your message across, sure you have we all have. The practce of trying to speak or in other words not listening completely to what the other party is saying is fatal for a sales professional trying to make a sale. Selling is easy if you understand and are prepared to have a look at your mutual point of interest closely. Yes, you do have a sales approach that you use either consciously or unconsciously every day, we all do, not just those that are in the sales profession.If you are open and prepared to learn by looking closely at the mutual point of interest you are currently engaging, to identify the strengths and weaknesses, and are then prepared to change your tactics, you will start leveraging your natural skills and knowledge, thereby actually selling more by creating compelling dialogues with your customers. Ha, you are probably thinking to your self, I already do just that. Yes you probably do to some degree. Here is a question for you if you believe that you are, "How are you keeping up with the continual changes occurring every where around you with your customers, your competitors, your market and your own organization?"I have walked into numerous businesses from car yards to boutique stores with the intent of buying, and invariably and sadly for the sales person or shop owner have left without buying. WHY? The answer is quite simple, none of the sales people practice engaging in the skill of finding a mutual point of interest. Instead they relied solely on product knowledge or technical expertise to try and convince me to buy their product or service and unfortunately this does not work as well any more particularly in today's sales environment where the customer is very savvy and knowledgeable. This makes life for the sales person that is still using decades old methodology (unfortunately this is still being taught to people entering the sales field) of relying on product features and benefits which necessitates the sales person to tell their product stories far too soon, without necessarily meaning to do so, and thus talk from a generic product vs. customer point of view.As a buyer you have more than likely experienced this. As soon as the sales person has identified a need, they jump to the product, rather than creating a mutual point of interest to understand the why, how and when of their prospective customer.As business becomes even more challenging, sales people are going to require higher and higher levels of skill. In my experience over three decades of training sales professionals around the world at best only 25% of professional sales people practice consultative need based selling and less than 5% of those achieve trusted advisor status with their customers.Unfortunately the majority of sale people (under pressure to reach sales targets) are too quick in telling a product story and while they may think solution they present product, why? Because they tend to talk and talk over their customer more than they listen to their customer and this creates an imbalance and instead of a 50/50 dialogue it is 80/20. Overall, the sales person's level of preparation and questioning does not measure up as they are more interested in getting an immediate commitment. I liken it to fishing where as soon as the fish has nibbled at the bait the anxious fisherman yanks on the rod with the hope that the fish has hooked up, only to be disappointed with no fish on the end of his rod, just eaten bait. Are you that type of sales person?Most organizations have good sales people but what they lack are superb sales people to drive the growth that they need to succeed. The old features and benefits dialogues are still around and being taught and this is blocking sales talk and holding sales people back from being superb.Tip: Monitor your skill of finding a mutual point of interest and measure your ratio to achieve a 50/50 ratio

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