Salespeople should know that a tour is not just a presentation, it is an opportunity to discover the customer’s needs and turn the characteristics of their product or service into a benefit for that customer.
Learning good sales techniques takes practice, and learning how to give a “walk-around” sales presentation is essential to the sales process.
A great ride presentation is not a canned presentation. It has been said: “A good presentation doesn’t work because it is canned; it was canned because it works.” That’s what a ride should be, not canned, but planned. Sellers need to know where they are going all the time. Hopefully, they can help guide the customer down the path to selling.
Before we can attempt a presentation, we must understand what is a “feature” and what is a “benefit.” A feature is what something is, a benefit is what something does. Let’s use car sales as an example. So let’s look at some car sales techniques. A “ride” occurs when a salesperson pulls a vehicle out of the line of cars in front of the dealership. The seller opens the doors, the trunk and the hood. They start the car and run the air conditioning in summer (or the heater in winter). They take the customer and inform them about the vehicle as they go around it.
The aerodynamic styling of a vehicle is a feature; the resulting benefits are great fuel economy and a quiet ride. Many salespeople are good at reciting features, but not at explaining why the customer needs them, for two reasons. One is that they don’t know enough about the car and the other is that they did a poor job of rating the customer’s needs. Ask your customer questions. Ask what they want from their next vehicle and listen to what is being said.
How can a salesperson rave about the double steel cargo bed if they don’t know what the customer is going to use the vehicle for? They can not.
In a typical sales situation, a salesperson might say something like, “Yes sir, this car has everything you are looking for: an energy efficient engine and a Bluetooth hands-free communication system. It also has ABS brakes, slip-on rear axle. limited, and land management. ” Sounds great, right? Wrong. There is nothing your salesperson has told this customer that 1,500 other salespeople, brochures, and Internet research haven’t already told them.
So the customer looks at the seller like a deer in headlights. You don’t know what you’re supposed to say except what you’re probably thinking: “I can see all these options, Mr. Salesman. Tell me something I don’t know.” You see, when the salesperson recites his cornucopia of knowledge, it’s not a question, so it doesn’t really advance the sale. You are simply repeating what the customer told you they wanted.
The only response from the customer is: “Yes, Mr. Salesperson, I can see that you have everything I asked for. How much does it cost?” Or worse yet, the customer may not say anything. The worst thing that can get into a traveling presentation is silence. When there is silence, there is pressure and in the sales process, we do not want pressure. As I mentioned many times, the only common point a customer has is price. When you stop talking, all they can say is how much … or goodbye.
To make a great ride, salespeople need to remember what the customer wants to know more than anything: “What will you do for me?” Until you tell the customer that answer, they are probably not listening.
Going back to the walk, how long did it take me to recite the above options, 30 seconds? What do I do now? I have no things to say. Obviously, there are many options and you could probably go on for a while, but even if you could memorize them all in each model, the customer would yawn. Why? Because he wants to know what he will do for him. If the salespeople are only going to recite options, they’d better hand a brochure to the customer and send it on their way. The brochure is better than a seller will ever be on features. They break the passenger compartment down to cubic inches, for God’s sake! When it comes down to it, does the customer even care that there is 28 inches of legroom? No. But you’ll be interested to know that, “Thanks to the cross-mounted engine, Mr. Customer, when you and your family take that trip to Colorado this summer, you can really stretch your legs!” This is how you sell legroom. Note: Without asking good questions, how could you make the above statement? But here’s the good news: You can make that statement even more powerful in two ways: by advancing the sale and by placing the order.
There are many ways to move the sale forward, but here are a few. These are simple sentences that keep the customer following you:
“Let me show you this feature in your new Ford Explorer.”
“Let me show you this”
“Let me show you one more thing”
“Great, follow me.”
Ask about the order, it is quite simple, for example:
“That’s a feature that I’m sure you would like, right?” The client says: “Yes!” The seller says, “Great, follow me” or “Great, now let me show you one more thing.”
The question above is one that you should already know the answer to. Use it with a function that the customer wants, for example, seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, etc. A customer just won’t say no to seat belts.
During the sale you are always closing, in sales terminology, that means you are always asking the customer for the order. For example, a very successful salesperson in a 20 minute presentation will ask the customer in several different ways, more than a dozen times, if they want to buy the vehicle.
Some of the best closing techniques to use during a sale are called tie downs. Some call them closing the trial. A mooring is simply a question at the end of a statement that demands an answer. Instead of saying, “Those airbags are a wonderful feature.” In the eyes of a customer, this is just an opinion. But, if I add, “Isn’t it?” At the end of that statement, it forces the client to respond, hopefully, in a positive way.
Or, “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest rating, how would you rate this vehicle so far? What would it take to turn that number into 10?”
However, sometimes a customer may say something that implies that they do not like the vehicle. For example, “Oh, that looks like something else that will break.”
One way to handle these “objections” is to approach the problem with the “Feel, Feel, Find” response. For example, you can respond by saying, “I can see why you might feel that. A lot of people have felt the same way, but once you’ve figured out the engineering behind it, you’ll see how beneficial this can be to you.”
These few tips will lay the foundation for a safe ride presentation.
– Know your product inside and out, research what is said about your product on the Internet.
– Know the needs of your client in the initial greeting and qualification.
– Present with confidence and link the functions to your needs.
– Help your needs become your wants.
– Remember to refer to competitive brands and create value.
– Make the most of your product expertise when presenting and SELL yourself and your product.
And remember, selling is a process of listening to customer needs, finding solutions to their needs, generating value in your product or service, and giving them the opportunity to buy that product or service that meets their needs.
