Great Sales People Are Great Fishermen

Bob Ayrer

Abstract Most sales people have problems with closing because they don’t understand the Big Secret of selling. They think you close the sale by asking for the order. Wrong! You close the sale by getting the buyer to acknowledge that they are going to get everything they want from your proposal. The Big Secret: Close the sale before you ask for the order! To find out how to do that, just keep on reading...

Let me say this up front, no fisherman ever hooked a fish - you catch fish by getting the fish to swallow the hook! Good salesman do not "Sell" a prospect -- they get the prospect to buy.

What does it take to be a good fisherman? First you must have good bait. Then you must have an attractive lure. You will need a bobber to let you know when the fish is nibbling at your bait, and you will need a strong line to tie it all together and land the fish.

Once you have all the equipment you must fish where there are hungry fish. For best results you should fish where the big fish hide. You then make sure you get your bait and lure in front of the big, hungry fish. When a fish swallows your bait you must have the skill to set the hook and land them.

In selling, the bait is your product or service. You must have a product or service which satisfies a hunger in your target market. If you do not have a product or service that people will pay to get, all of the rest of the process is irrelevant. The very best sales people cannot sell a product no one wants.

Your marketing material (advertising copy, brochures, radio ads, etc.) is your lure. All of your marketing material should offer your prospect the opportunity to identify themselves to you. This is your "bobber," and when they have identified themselves, you stop marketing and begin selling.

The selling process you use to bring a prospect to a buy decision is the line which ties it all together. If you are not following a disciplined, well defined selling process, you are fishing with a weak line. You may be able to attract big fish and get them to nibble your bait, but you won't land them.

Defining the right fishing hole and knowing where the "Big ones" hide is your prospecting and qualifying process. Creating attractive marketing collateral material is building your lure. Taking your prospect through the discovery process to a buy decision is your "line."

Once you have done your marketing, that is, defined your target market, profiled your best prospect, created your collateral material, placed your material where your target market goes for information, and created a response mechanism, you should be spending your time with the highest probability prospects only.

A great deal of time and energy has been put into making selling seem like a mysterious and complex issue. In fact, selling is simple -- but not easy. It is fundamentally a discipline. It takes knowledge, skill, and an internal drive to succeed. It takes enthusiasm; it takes a positive attitude.

If you do not have the desire, or drive, or a positive attitude, professional selling is not for you. All of the skills of selling are learned behavior. Anyone who really wants to be a professional sales person, and is willing to pay the price in time and effort to learn the skills, can be successful in sales. There is no such thing as a "born" sales person. Selling is hard work and determination, not some genetic mutation.

Where do you start? Marketing! Marketing will tell you who your prospects are, what they want, where they go for what they want, and why they should buy. Keep in mind that no prospect wants your products or services...they want what the product or service does for them personally.

The Bad News: The Golden Rule is dead. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is an egocentric attitude that everyone I encounter wants the same things I want in this world. Not so! Customer wants are as individual as fingerprints. No two of us have the same history, education, values, wants, desires, needs -- we are all individuals.

What does that mean to a sales person? You must learn to find out your prospect’s individual passion and wish list before you try to "sell" them anything. How do you do that? By asking good questions and listening naively to the answers. Naively, with no assumptions or preconceived ideas about why the buyer should buy.

A popular motivational speaker often says, "Just get in front of a prospect and tell your story" as the key to good selling. If you follow this "Show up and throw up" school of selling your closing rate will be average at best. When you drag out your stuff before you understand your prospect's unique, idiosyncratic wants and needs, you wind up "spilling your popcorn in the lobby."

In my workshops I ask sales people, "How many of you have interviewed companies as prospective employers? That is, how many of you have had to look for a job?" "Did you write a good resume?" "Are you aware that the first function of the resume is to get you eliminated from consideration?" This comes as a shock to most people.

When an employer has 100 resumes to review for one position, the first thing they look for is a reason to disqualify you, not hire you. When you meet with a prospect who has four or five sources to get what they think they need, they are not looking for a reason to buy from you, they are looking for a reason to eliminate all but one contender. It takes selling skill to be that one. Spilling your popcorn in the show up and throw up mode will more often get you eliminated than sell. That’s why the average sales person has a 20% closing rate!

So, you market to get the highest probability prospects for your products or services to identify themselves to you through some kind of response, you get the appointment, and you ask good questions. When you find their passion (the W.I.I.F.M. -- What’s in it for me?) issues, now you’re ready to show your stuff. Not all of your stuff, mind you, but only your stuff which links to the buyer's passion points. If they haven’t indicated a passion for some feature of your stuff, don’t go there no matter how important you may think it is. What you think doesn’t mean squat.

Link your stuff to their passion with a three step presentation...Feature, Advantage & Benefit (FAB). The Feature is something that "is" about your products or services. The Advantage is what that feature "does," and the Benefit is what that means to the buyer in relation to their passion...the link.

Each time you make a link between your offering and their passion ask a "FAB follow-up" question, "Will that get you what you want?" When you have linked all you have in your feature bag to all of the passion points (there will only be one or two), and you have agreement from the prospect that they will get what they want from your offering, ask for the order.

Most sales people have problems with closing because they don’t understand the Big Secret of selling. They think you close the sale by asking for the order. Wrong! You close the sale by getting the buyer to acknowledge that they are going to get everything they want from your proposal. The Big Secret: Close the sale before you ask for the order! Close with the FAB follow-up question and asking for the order is simple house keeping.

SELLING IS SIMPLE, BUT NOT EASY! Good fishing.

About the author:
Bob Ayrer is a successful survivor of corporate life who now consults to organizations on building top performing sales programs. Bob is a popular speaker at conventions and sales rallies. Professional speaker, trainer and consultant -- Bob Ayrer can be reached through:
REA Performance Consultants, Inc.
9082 Bermuda Dr., Suite A
Huntington Beach, CA 92646
(714) 968-4136 Fax (714) 962-1889
E-mail: perform@improvingsales.com
Web site: www.ImprovingSales.com

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Copyright 2000-2010 by Bob Ayrer. Used with permission.