Podcast – Greg Martinelli

I spend a lot of time training salespeople on how to ask questions.  Good questions, great questions, high-value questions, open-ended questions, and so on.

It is the top-selling skill needed to accomplish everything when selling, when cold calling, to determine a customer’s needs, to close a sale, to develop relationships, to solve customer problems, etc. 
 
However, I have failed to spend enough time on the selling skill of answering questions.  When your prospect or customer asks a question, all of your senses should set off an alarm.  That alarm should be telling you to stop thinking of whatever it is you are thinking about.  Focus all your attention on the question that you were asked. 

Listen in as we dig deeper into a planned approach to several critical questions your customers might ask!

Part 3

How to build Emotion Value

An old sales adage says, “Every purchase is an emotional decision justified with logic”.  It implies that humans are emotional and are driven to purchase based on their emotions.  They want to feel like they are making the most rational decision based on financial/business factors.  However, emotions are the underlying factor in their purchases.

In parts 1 and 2 of “Selling Value in agribusiness”, we discussed the financial and time value that we bring to our customers.  I guess that most often, you sell on these two value factors.  More specifically, you focus on the financial value that you bring.  That is, until a competitor comes along with a lower price.  My experience tells me a competitor will always come along with a better price.

That’s when the experienced salesperson brings in the emotional value of their products, services, and most importantly, the emotional value of buying specifically from them as their salesperson.

Listen in as we discuss how to build emotional value and what to do with it!

Time Value

Have you ever heard: “Time is money”?

Do you believe it?  Have you ever stopped to consider how much your time is worth in real dollars?  What about your customer?  What dollar value do they put on their time?

Well, if you haven’t thought about these questions before, you might be missing out on an untapped value that you and your products provide to customers.

Listen in as we discuss how you can uncover the time value that you, your products, and your services bring to your customer!

The three components of value in every sale:

Dollars-Time-Emotion

Have you ever had someone tell you to: “Quit selling on price and sell the value of our products!”

As salespeople, we’ve all heard this advice from sales managers, sales trainers, product managers, or social media sales gurus.  It’s so easy to flip that comment out there, but much more challenging to get into the details with a salesperson on how to actually do that.

But what does that actually mean to “Go sell the value of our products?” 

Listen in to this week as we cover the first component of selling value – Money Value

When selling, don’t forget the one person more important than your customer

As Ag sales professionals, we wake up every day, jump in the pickup and head out to the farm, ranch or Ag retail store to focus all our efforts on improving the lives of our customers. 

Here is the interesting part.  So does your customer.  They wake up every day, jump in their pickup, and focus all of their efforts on their customer. 

Listen in as we discuss how to change your sales approach with your customer to be more effective

They want you to do a good job at selling to them

Here’s a bold thought for today:  Your customer wants you to be a successful salesperson.  They want you to do a good job of selling to them.  They may not act like it, but they truly want you to do well when you call on them.

As salespeople, we often get the feeling that customers are not on our side because we are trying to sell them something.  Even if we use a highly relationship style of selling, we still get that feeling.  It’s not that we feel like the enemy, but more like an adversary. 

Listen in as we discuss how to change your view of your sales call audience!

How to overcome the fear of rejection and keep the sale alive

Farmers (really, all customers) shop harder during tough times.  This week, I want to also remind salespeople that in tough times, producers will reduce all expenses with their vendors.  You are going to experience more “No” responses in your closing questions than you did previously.

That fear of rejection (no) is still one of the strongest emotions that salespeople have.  So fearful, many salespeople will find any excuse not to cold call or prospect.  Just the act of turning the steering wheel and driving down the farmer’s driveway seems impossible. 

7 of the most common No’s:

Listen in as we uncover some ways to overcome these objections

The seven stations on every customer’s journey

Are you helping, hurting, or ignoring them?

Over the last ten years of weekly blog articles and podcast episodes, the focus has mostly been on improving your selling process.  I think it’s important to spend a few minutes discussing the buying process that your customers go through.  It’s appropriately called the “Customer’s Journey”.  It’s their journey to becoming your customer.  It’s also their journey when they decide to stop being your customer.

This journey has seven stations or stops along the way.  The visual below helps to understand them.

Listen in as we discuss how you can use a simple set of questions to understand your target market and sell more ideal customers.

How to be persistent to get the sale versus being pushy

Every salesperson knows they have to be persistent to gain a customer, to get a prospect appointment, or to make a follow-up appointment again and again. 

However, not one single salesperson in the world wants to be known as pushy.  This is even more true in agribusiness. 

Listen in to hear how you can go from pushy to persistent, and increase sales in the process!

Set the bar low to build daily selling skills

that stick!

We hear it every day, “Shoot for the stars…. Reach for the stars….Aim High…..Set your sights high…..Dream big.”  Even the famed Herb Tarlek told us to, “Think big to be big”, on the 1970s sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. 

While those sound great, most people fail to achieve those lofty goals because they don’t know what to do on day one of that journey.  They set New Year’s resolutions on Jan 1, but by Quitting Day (Jan 16 this year), they don’t know how to sustain their journey.  They set the bar so high and the daily journey effort so high that they crush under the weight. 

Salespeople fall into this same trap!

Listen in to learn the three steps to achieving great success in sales and life!