Four Keys to Strategic Selling. How to Become Excellent at Prospecting. Three Essential Questions for Creative Prospecting.

January 14, 2011 by smsadmin
Filed under: Sales Management

Four Keys to Strategic Selling

There are four keys to strategic selling that you must master if you want to join the top 10 percent of money earners in your field. These are specialization, differentiation, segmentation, and concentration.

1 Specialize!
With specialization, you determine exactly what it is that your product is designed to do for your customer. You may specialize in a particular result or benefit. You can specialize in a particular customer or market. You can specialize in a particular geographic area. You can specialize in satisfying a particular need better than anyone else. But you must be a specialist rather than a generalist.
Many salespeople have built their entire careers by specializing in a particular industry, a specific type of customer, or a distinct geographic area. How could this apply to you?

2 Set Yourself Apart—Differentiate!
In differentiation, you determine what it is that makes your product superior to your competitor’s. What special benefits does your product offer to your customers that are not available anywhere else? In what areas are your products better than 90 percent of similar goods or services on the market?
In many cases, if the product you are selling is available elsewhere, such as with real estate or life insurance, the special differentiator that you bring to the sales situation is your own unique personality. There is only one person like you in the whole world. Most sales are made on the basis of the feeling that the customer has about the salesperson, more than any other factor.

3 Sort Out Your Market—by Segmentation
The third part of strategic selling is segmentation. Once you have determined your area of specialization, and what it is that differentiates your product from your competitors’, your next goal is to determine exactly which customers can most benefit from what you do better than anyone else. Who are they?
Where can you find more of this ideal type of person or organization for your product? Think of running an ad for “perfect customers.” How would you describe them?

4 Focus and Concentrate
The fourth part of strategic selling is concentration. This is perhaps the most critical skill that you can develop for success in any area, especially selling. It is your ability to set clear priorities and then to concentrate single-mindedly on only those prospects who represent the very best potential as customers.
In some cases, one prospect may be worth one hundred times the value of another prospect. The basic rule in selling is to always fish for whales, not minnows. Remember, if you catch a thousand minnows, all you have is a bucketful of minnows. But if you catch one whale, it can sink your entire ship.
After a sales seminar in Tampa not long ago, a salesperson wrote to me and told me that she had begun applying these techniques immediately. Within one week, she closed a sale that represented 58 percent of her quota for the entire year. She was absolutely astonished at what a difference it made when she concentrated all of her energies on her largest potential customer.
What customers or markets could be capable of buying enormous quantities of what you sell? Where are they, and how can you approach them?

Become Excellent at Prospecting

The fastest way to increase your income is simple. It is the key to success in selling. “Spend more time with better prospects.” This six-word formula is the recipe for high income in every market.

Creative prospecting is essential to your success. It begins with thorough planning and analysis, and starts with three questions: (1) What are the five to ten most attractive features of your product? (2) What specific needs of your prospective customer does your product satisfy? and (3) What does your company offer that other companies do not offer; its area of excellence?

1 What are the Five to Ten Most Attractive Features of Your Product?
Do you know your product’s most attractive features? List them in order of importance. Then go on to determine the following:
 Why should somebody buy your product at all?
 Why should somebody buy your product from your company?
 Why should someone buy your product from you?
You must be able to answer these questions clearly in your own mind before you get face-to-face with a customer.

2 What Specific Needs of Your Prospective Customer Does Your Product Satisfy?
What benefits does it offer? In other words, what is in it for the customer to purchase your product rather than someone else’s product, or no one’s product?
Write the most attractive features of your product down one side of a piece of paper. Then write the benefits that your customer will enjoy from each of these features next to them on the other side of the paper. Remember, customers do not buy features; they only buy benefits. They do not buy products or services; they buy solutions to their problems. They are not concerned with what goes into your product; they are only concerned about what comes out for them.

3 What Does Your Company Offer That other Companies do not Offer?
What is your “unique selling proposition?” What is your company’s or product’s area of excellence? In what ways is your company, product, or service superior to anything else available in your market?
The greater clarity you have with regard to these answers, the more creative you will be in finding better prospects and making more sales to those prospects.