"Pull Selling" - What is It?

By Patrick Valtin

Part I

In the first part of this in-depth article, I will presents vital principles of selling in over-competitive, saturated markets. I have trained over 45,000 sales professionals and executives on the subject of salesmanship, so I can tell you from first-hand what customers today consider as most important in their relationship with you, the sales Pro, and how you can pull them into wanting your product...without pushing!

You think your first mission is to sell your product or to lead your potential customer to make a buying decision, based on your logical arguments? Think again. The customer who decides to listen to you is hoping to believe one thing: you should be able to handle his problem or challenge better than anybody else! You might not realize it fully, but your role and responsibility are vital - no matter the customer's attitude or manners toward you. In periods of crisis and uncertainty, the customer is craving for a relationship of care, trust and dedication.

Do you know what people instantly respond to, especially in our uncertain times? Your willingness to help, your desire to understand! Rest assured: you don't need to transform yourself into a psycho-analyst; you just need to put more attention on what he is telling you and much less on what you want to say.

There are a lot of wrong opinions about the wonderful passion that selling is. If you look at the old definition of the word, you will realize that it had originally ONE meaning: to help. Then about 1,000 B.C. that definition was modified and its new meaning became "to cheat" or to betray.

Nowadays is the perfect time to revive the original definition of selling.

My purpose in this article is to share with you the results of 20 years of observation, work and experience in the field of salesmanship. I had a chance to evaluate and train sales professionals in 27 countries. The areas of expertise of these people extended from computer systems to industrial equipment or consumer products to chiropractic medicine. Observing and working with these people led me to progressively detect the attitude and behaviors of those who were much more successful than others. I was very interested to find out if one could define a routine "pattern" or "technique" used by top sales people in their approach. What are these top professionals doing that others are not? What tricks or what magic are they using that makes the customer or patient want to buy from them?

My conclusion was that selling had nothing to do with "special techniques" or any magic. The fact that "one needs to be born a salesperson" in order to succeed also proved very wrong in my own observations and evaluations. What follows is just a snapshot of these observations. See how it can apply to you.

Selling does not start with your technical skills or your best arguments.

In today's market conditions the customer does not buy what he needs, he buys what he wants. Sure he needs a good reason to buy. You know one thing: he could find the same product or service in many other places. But why would he buy from you? Desire is much stronger than need in a marketplace where the power of choice becomes more and more your biggest barrier to a close: what you sell can always be found in another store or practice, and maybe cheaper.

So your challenge is to find out what can trigger an impulse or a strong, unbearable desire to make the buying decision IN YOUR FAVOR. Your success in selling your product or service depends on your ability to make the customer want to buy from you and not from a [cheaper] competitor.

The first thing he buys has nothing to do with quality or warranty or even price. First he buys TRUST. He buys confidence about your ability and desire to help him resolve a problem, some challenge or some desire. If he does not trust you and does not feel confident with what you say, he will go find what he is looking for elsewhere. Therefore the challenge is to demonstrate, early in the call, that you care more for him and for his sake (his health, his body condition, his comfort, his financial condition, etc.) than you care for his money. How do you show that you care? By showing your talent? No.

In today's market, your technical skills or your best argument is not your best weapon. It is your ability to be curious about your customer and find out "What do I want to know from this customer?" Once you work with that attitude, you will see a big change in your profession - as well as in your life.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2735503

Part II

In the second half of Pull Selling, I will continue with what the most important principles of selling in over-competitive, saturated markets are. These skills are vital if you want to success in difficult times.   

2. Forget your arguments – that is NOT what makes the sale. 

Have an honest look at your best argument as to why your customer should buy YOUR product - the one argument that would beat all. No matter how good or how strong it is, chances are that your competition is using the same argument! Today, when the market becomes more and more driven by the client’s “power of choice”, you can’t rely on any monopoly, or sense of, any longer. Now, what happens when the customer hears the same arguments, again and again, from different sales people? You got it: the customer gets confused and skeptical. 

Relying on your best argument does not make you any different from the competition. So then what do you use to make the difference? There is one factor which is much more impinging on the customer’s buying process – or call it a major “buying factor”: the certainty of making the right decision - or the anxiety of making the wrong one (usually much stronger!). 

Can your arguments help in either increasing his certainty or better yet, decreasing his anxiety/fear related to his decision? Absolutely not. So then, what do you need? 

You need ATTITUDE. Because that is the first thing he buys. He buys your conviction and certainty in your ability and willingness to help him. He buys your dedication to find the right solution for his concern or challenge; he buys YOU first. Most salespeople fall in a big trap: they work the customer in a superficial zone: the zone of logic. They do not understand that the major buying factor has nothing to do with logic – where your arguments stand.  

Buying is ALWAYS more emotional than logical, in any kind of field or industry. So using logical arguments usually do not trigger the desire; they trigger only “thinking” or counter-arguments (have you ever had a customer asking to buy right after you placed your best argument?). 

You thus need to “convert” your arguments into emotional triggers by finding out what emotional subject can be related to your product – or service. For example: as a chiropractor you have a great superfood-based product, known to reduce fat AND environmental toxicity (two good arguments). Your patient is overweight and suffers from respiratory problems – besides having a chronic low back pain. How do these non-optimal body conditions AFFECT your patient in life? In other words, why could it be emotionally important for this patient to use such a product? Well, what impact can his weight issue have on his social life? Could you ask him that? Or how often does he feel tired during the day, unable to focus while choking on his coughs? These are examples of emotional subjects related to the product.  If you can find out what emotional subjects your customer will react to and if you can demonstrate that your mission is to help him handle or resolve these emotional issues, he will want to buy from you! 

3. What is THE most important quality in selling? 

We have heard it all: a good salesperson needs to be enthusiastic, convinced about his product, persistent, caring, honest, passionate, dedicated, etc. etc... And he must be able to listen too! 

All these qualities are definitely needed and vital to succeed. But today there is one quality required, more than any other. Without that one, you will fail to create the desire to buy… 

That quality is: curiosity! 

Look up the word in a good dictionary: you will find out that the first definition of “curiosity” is INTEREST. Great salespeople are curious, they are interested. They want to know so many things about their customers or patients, about their need of course, but more importantly, about their personal desires, fears, concerns. They want to find out what makes the patient “go in life“. They want to find out all about them. They also want to know all about their past good and/or bad experiences with similar products or services. 

In my research and evaluation of all these great salespeople, this is the ONE quality that I found. This is THE difference that I could detect between most sales people and the great ones! 

Great salespeople are curious. They want to know. They do not try to bombard the customer or patient with arguments. They try to find out:

Who is this person I am dealing with? 

What are his problems, concerns, and what does he like?  

What are his desires, concerns or fears, related to the subject of my product/service? 

As a matter of fact, if you should remember one thing about this article, remember this: the more you know, the more you sell. It is not “the more I talk the more I sell”, as many of us have been educated into believing. Consider this: on average, a salesperson will ask 5 to 8 questions before starting to talk and argue (about his product). An observation of successful salespeople revealed that they would ask up to 5 times as many questions, before presenting and arguing about their product. They are genuinely interested. 

So you could write a list of questions that would help you answer this one: “What do I want to know from this customer?” If you adopt this attitude, you will see a big change in your profession and your life. You will soon realize that “one is as successful as he can grant importance to others”. 

And for your customers, guess who the most important person on this planet is?