Drive Sales Success With Certainty

When it comes to selling, nothing is more important than the power of certainty. After all, when potential customers or clients are uncertain, they hesitate. They don’t want to move forward, say “yes” or allow you to close the sale. The more uncertainty you have, the higher the risk for the person making the purchase and the more likely it is they will decide to wait.

For today’s Friday Feature, Promotional Consultant Today examines the power of certainty in sales by sharing these tips featured in this month’s issue of Promotional Consultant digital magazine.

As a sales professional, you want to achieve that “advisor” status, not that of an order-taker. You want to provide your customers with the power of certainty. The fact is that it has been increasingly difficult for order-takers to make a living in today’s networked, mobile, social and interactive economy. The salespeople who do best are those who act not as order-takers but as trusted advisors.

Now the main questions are: “As a salesperson, how do you really reach that trusted advisor status?” Here are two keys to keep in mind:

1. Raise the bar on trust: Many salespeople lower the level of trust they have with customers, not because they aren’t trustworthy people, but because they aren’t thinking about trust before their sales pitch. Therefore, when you’re talking with a prospect or customer, you always want to ask yourself, “Where is the current trust level?” Perhaps there isn’t any. If so, that’s okay. Work at building trust as the conversation and resulting relationship progresses.

2. Send customers away: Rather than strive for sales or transactions, strive for relationships that span time, price fluctuations and the competition. Sometimes this means sending customers to your competitors. Yes, it sounds contrary to traditional sales-building advice, but it’s a sure way to build your trusted advisor status.

Even though you didn’t make this sale, you just made many future sales because you are now definitely a trusted advisor. Transactions are here today and gone tomorrow. That’s why your goal is to gain customers who are with you forever.

For more ways to maintain that advisor level status, read the complete article, “Drive Sales Success With Certainty,” by Daniel Burrus, in the August issue of Promotional Consultant magazine.

Source: Daniel Burrus is considered one of the world’s leading technology forecasters and business strategists, and he is the founder and CEO of Burrus Research, a research and consulting firm. He is the author of six books, including the national bestseller Flash Foresight: How To See the Invisible and Do the Impossible as well as the highly acclaimed Technotrends.