Quick Tips for Sales Professionals
From Competitive Advantage, Briefings Publishing Group, Briefings.com.

Make Your Opening Count
Most salespeople take for granted how they open a sales call and underestimate how it can help to differentiate them from competitors. An effective opening lays important groundwork for the entire call. Remember these important points:

Don't forget about rapport. Prepare for it. Look for rapport cues. People buy from people they like when all else is fairly equal.

Rethink your purpose. Saying “Before I discuss what I have prepared, I'd like to learn about you …” is better than saying “I'm here to tell you about us and what we do …” 

Gain credibility by leveraging your prep work. Tell the prospect “In preparation for the meeting, I have … (example: “discussed X with our specialists …”)

Strengthen your credentials further by giving a 30 to 60-second overview of what your company does, tailored to your prospect, and check if there are any questions.

Lead out of the opening by going into the needs vs. your presentation. Then you can ask questions, listen and drill down so you can be persuasive when you present. Wrapping up with a question sets the expectation you will be asking more questions and enhances client cooperation.

Adapted from “Richardson Cyber Tips,” Linda Richardson, www.Richardson.com.

Paint word pictures that persuade
Descriptive phrases that create vivid mind pictures for prospects will surprise, grab, inform and persuade them in a way that dry, long-winded explanations will not. A carefully considered metaphor will lift you over anticipated humps of boredom, information overload, confusion or negativity during your sales presentation.

Examples: One salesperson compared buying the wrong software package to “marrying the wrong guy.” Everyone instantly understood the urgency of avoiding that scenario. Another salesperson compared a prospect's outdated lead management system to “shoveling sand with a fork while your competitors use an end loader.”

If you think you're not creative enough to come up with good metaphors, think again. You reach for them every day in common conversation when you “chew” on an idea, “plow” through your work and return a “mountain” of voicemails. You hear them every day, too. When Sen. John McCain said “Being chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is like being a mosquito in a nudist colony,” listeners took notice.

Bonus: When you package an idea in highly vivid language, you make it easier for prospects to repeat your bright language when they present your message internally. And after prospects hear five similar presentations, yours will rise above the crowd – metaphorically speaking.

Adapted from Metaphorically Speaking, Chiron Associates, Inc., www.annemiller.com.

Shut up! The best closing advice
Too many salespeople ruin their perfectly executed sales presentations by failing to heed the one most important rule of closing:

Whenever you ask a closing question, shut up. The first person to speak loses.

Why silence? Because if you say anything, you relieve the pressure on the prospect to speak first, answer the close and commit.

It sounds like simple advice but it isn't.

The average salesperson can't wait more than 10 seconds before talking again after asking a closing question such as “We've just about covered everything. What would be more convenient, delivery on the 1st or the 15th of next month?”

If the prospect says nothing, the salesperson inevitably says something like “Well, we can talk about that later…” and goes on talking, unaware the closing situation was just destroyed.

Having the courage and concentration to sit still and be silent for a half a minute requires practice. It may sound ludicrous, but if you sit alone in a place you might very well be closing in, and concentrate on doing nothing and saying nothing for 30 seconds, then it won't be so nerve-racking when big money rides on how calm and silent you can be in a real closing situation.

Adapted from How to Master the Art of Selling, Tom Hopkins, Warner Business Books, www.twbookmark.com.