You have a choice. You can insist your sales staff sell like SALESMEN and limit their success, your company’s success and the success of the entire sales profession, or you can teach them to sell like ISRA, to position themselves in alliance with their prospects, customers and competitors instead of as adversaries. Adopt the ISRA secrets and they’ll not only sell faster and easier … they will Increase Sales, market Respect and Admiration.
The 3rd ISRA secret: Deputize Your Competitors.
The traditional selling model most companies subscribe to today, disregards the real needs of prospects and customers. ‘Traditional selling’ encourages salespeople to sell anything to anyone willing to part with their money, doing whatever it takes to close the sale because quotas, commissions and employers’ threats of dismissal leave them no choice. Are you one of these employers? The fastest way to alienate customers is to sell them things that don’t fit, that they don’t need or that don’t perform as promised. The fastest way to alienate your sales staff is to perpetuate a culture of fear and promote a mercenary selling philosophy.
ISRA teaches that if your product or service line fits the needs of your prospect/customer … go ahead and close the sale. But if it doesn’t fit, then deputize your competitors. In other words, help your prospect/customer find the product/service that does fit, even if the sale has to go to a competitor. Offer to research the market on behalf of your prospect. Check out every alternate supplier until you find the Holy Grail. If you can broker the alternate product or service without having your prospect deal directly with your competitor, fine. But do not mark it up nor hide the name of the alternate supplier. Simply ask your prospect if she would rather you broker the sale at no added cost to her, or if she would prefer to deal directly with the other supplier.
Sound counter intuitive? It’s not. Your customer/prospect will be indebted to you and respect and admire your selfless act of allegiance to her. She will not only sing the praises of your sales staff and company throughout the marketplace, but the moment she has an opportunity to do business with you again, she’ll be your customer for life.
