As the most prominent US politician Benjamin Franklin said: "Time is money." Therefore, let's move from words to deeds.
Newcomers to business inevitably face many challenges every day, and trust me, tax bills aren't the biggest of those surprises. The road to success is not carpeted, and all successful entrepreneurs know this rule firsthand.
Do you know everything about sales techniques? Are you able to communicate with potential customers and generally recognize them? Do you know by sight all their fears, hopes and expectations about you?
If yes, then we can only sincerely rejoice for you. If at least one of the points made you doubt, keep reading and you will find the answers to your questions.
From biography
Who is Steven Schiffman? Say this name in the company of any successful entrepreneurs, and you will immediately receivethe answer to your question.
Stephan Schiffman, CEO of DEI Sales Training Systems, knows exactly how to sell to make a profit.
For 40 years, the company of the most famous sales coach has been busy helping firms with completely different starting positions and opportunities to attract customers. Stephen Schiffman's client base included Fortune Global 500 giants Chemical Bank, Manufacturer's Hanover Trust, and Motorola, as well as start-ups fueled largely by Schiffman's training.
If you think you're in sales, but don't know where to start, you just need to get acquainted with the main works of America's largest business mentor. If you're just curious about how human psychology works, read on anyway. You can find a lot of interesting things for yourself, which you probably didn’t know about yet.
Five business handbooks
Any businessman, entrepreneur, sales agent and person interested in the field of business will be useful to get acquainted with the main books of Stephen Schiffman, in which you can find answers to the most pressing questions.
1: "25 Sales Skills, or Things They Don't Teach in Business School"
Who exactly should read this book
If you are new to business or have recently noticed that things are not going as well as you would like, check out this book. It is written in a living "human" language, structured andpleasing to the eye. The author of the book appreciates your and his time and does not allow idle chatter. Only business. At the end of each described skill, a summary is summed up, a short excerpt, which would be nice to write out in your notebook. This way you get a whole page of real practical advice. This will help you not get bogged down in the problems that absolutely all novice (and even very experienced) entrepreneurs face.
For the sake of clarity, here are just a few tips on selling techniques taken from this book.
Beware of internet advice. It's too easy to create a website - and that's why it's not easy to find a good website that supplies salespeople with up-to-date, verified data. Be wary of advice from the internet.
Make the most of the "I didn't plan for this" situation. Seeking to be corrected can be an extremely effective strategy for gathering information. Use it to get the prospect to respond.
Don't post everything at once. Resist the temptation to lay out all the materials at the first meeting; leave yourself an excuse to meet with the client again.
Use email wisely. Follow the ten commandments of electronic epistolary etiquette.
Don't lump everything together. Try not to overwhelm your customer with a flood of information about your products. This will turn him away from you.
© S. Schiffman "25 Sales Skills, or What They Don't Teach in Business School."
2: Golden RulesSales”
The book is titled: The Golden Rules of Selling: 75 Techniques for Successful Cold Calls, Persuasive Presentations, and Sales Proposals You Can't Refuse. The name is long, but it fully reflects the essence of the text inside.
We'll talk about cold calls a little later. In general, this book contains the sales philosophy of the author himself. It will be interesting and useful to understand it.
Stephen Schiffman's Basis of Philosophy
What is the big business problem in Russia?
Many people in our country look at the wrong way people engaged in business. There is good reason for this unhe althy skepticism. In the view of many of our citizens, business is built on the principle: to achieve profit at any cost. At the same time, when analyzing Stephen Schiffman's book "The Golden Rules of Selling", you will have to take a completely different look at the usual things.
What the sales industry is for
The main idea of the author is that the business must meet the demand of the consumer. And the businessman, in turn, must make every effort to identify the client's problem, find a way to solve it, and ultimately solve it.
As you can see, this philosophy goes beyond the conventional wisdom about business. Quality business, according to Schiffman, should solve people's problems, not create them.
Customer learning is the foundation of a successful business
To solve the problem of the client, you should thoroughly study his portrait, needs and approach toproblem solving. Only through direct dialogue and analysis can the customer's need be identified and how to meet it. Of course, the dialogue should be preceded by a quality preparation of the conversation itself. You should write down on a piece of paper in advance the questions that you are going to discuss with a potential client.
All questions should be divided into 6 groups.
- What are you doing?
- How do you do it?
- Where and when do you do it?
- Why are you doing it this way?
- Who are you doing this with?
- How can we help you do it better?
Don't be cunning with a future client
Don't make up the client's problems or try to convince him that he has them. The main thing is honesty and openness of intentions. The client needs you to change his life for the better, and not to make money on him. Study your client, don't hypnotize them.
This is the foundation on which Steven Schiffman builds his business. The Golden Rules of Selling is a practical guide that summarizes several of the author's writings. In it you will find answers to many questions, including:
- how to deal with failure;
- how to motivate yourself;
- how to build your business according to plan, not trusting chance.
Knowing the basics of this guide will be equally useful for both startups and advanced businessmen.
3: "The 25 Most Common Sales Mistakes and How to Avoid Them"
Mistakes in business are inevitable, but rather fortunately than unfortunately. You can and should learn from mistakes, and all that is notkills - makes us stronger, according to F. Nietzsche.
However, it is still better to be prepared for difficult situations, to know the pitfalls and be able to avoid them if possible. This is exactly what the third book by American business coach Steven Schiffman teaches. In particular, you will find in it practical advice on the implementation of various methods in your field. We will limit ourselves to giving only a few, the most extravagant, in our opinion, examples:
Mistake 1: Not listening to the prospect. You can communicate important information… but in the end, the client should make the decision, not you. Ideally, you should know what it takes for a customer to make a sale to themselves.
Mistake 2: Treating the client like an adversary. Don't follow the ridiculous advice you often hear that you have to cheat a client before they cheat you. This is rude, arrogant, anti-social and unprofessional.
Mistake 3: Chasing the sale. Working with any client is cyclical. You first look for the client himself, then find out his problem, explain how you can help him, and at the end make a deal. The main mistake of many is that they play "distillation", forgetting that each stage is important.
Mistake 4: Belittling yourself. You are a professional. There is no need to humiliate yourself in front of the client instead of working with him to solve the problem.
Mistake 5: Taking rejection personally. Whether you understand it now or not, the mainThe barrier to understanding the rejection problem is not what the client thinks of you, but what you think of yourself.
© S. Schiffman “The 25 Most Common Sales Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.”
4: "Telemarketing"
Even with a little familiarity with the works of Schiffman, one can already understand how important the American sales coach pays to telephone conversations.
If you have ten minutes a day, you can make a breakthrough in phone sales!
© S. Schiffman Telemarketing.
Telemarketing by Steven Schiffman can answer these questions:
- how to master the five ways to increase income;
- how to use calls to your advantage and track them;
- how to achieve your goals;
- how to use "how" and "why" to your advantage;
- how to avoid the four types of failure;
- how to make small changes for a big increase in income.
5: Cold Calling Technique by Steven Schiffman
The sole purpose of a cold call is to get approval for a business meeting. The purpose of a business meeting is a re-meeting or closing a deal. The goal of each step in the sales process is to move to the next stage. If your actions do not help you in this, then you are doing something wrong.
© S. Schiffman Cold Calling Technique
What is it and why is it needed
As you can see from the quote, the purpose of the coldcall - receiving a business meeting. But why should they be done?
Cold calling is the best and most cost-effective way to organize a constant search for potential customers.
Without constantly attracting customers, sales will not grow, and therefore, the business cannot be considered successful and advanced. In his book, Stephen Schiffman best compares this situation to begging: you can stand all day with your arm outstretched and you'll get a penny. Or you can stand with a mug, a bell and a “Give Christ for Christ’s sake” sign and earn much more.
Main difficulties when talking to strangers
What is the main difficulty in communicating with a potential client? What difficulties do you face when talking on the phone?
Answering the first question, Stephen mentions the status quo.
The status quo is what people are doing nowadays. If you understand this, you can succeed. We rarely have to fight a real competitor. Usually we fight with the current situation, with the status quo. Remember: most of your potential customers are happy with what they have, otherwise they would call you!
© S. Schiffman Cold Calling Technique
Proceeding from this, the second question immediately follows. What to do if the status quo of your client suits him perfectly and he does not want to change anything? "Cold Calling Technique" by Stephen Schiffman will tell you: how, when, how much and where to look for clients, will explain "on the fingers"the principle of the human psyche and will help to cope with all the difficulties in attracting customers. Again, this is not just theoretical material, this is a direct guide to action.
The big bonus of the book is that all the dialogues described are taken by Steve verbatim from his own practice. You can and even need to learn from them, like a primer.
Summarizing, the philosophy of Steven Schiffman and his sales tutorials can be the key that will finally open your way to the vast world of entrepreneurship.
