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Sales. How to Ask for the Business
1 February 2019
Shirley Mansfield
Building a Business
Sales make the world go around, without sales your business is going anywhere.
Zig Ziglar summed it up nicely ‘timid salesmen have skinny kids’.
There’s thousands of timid salespeople who walk away without asking the prospect to sign on the dotted line. They live in hope that the prospect will chase them and beg to buy! Many shopkeepers have the same attitude; they open the shop door, hoping someone, anyone will ask to buy something, anything!
Sales is all about ‘the ask’.
Good sales means asking the customer to buy. The old adage ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Get.
If your business has stopped asking for sales, you need to get back into the habit of asking.
Here is a quick checklist:
- Ask open ended questions throughout the entire process
- Ask the question, then shut up & listen. Let the customer answer; I promise you’ll be amazed
- Listen to what they say, but also to what they don’t say, this is a gold mine of information
- Ask question so you can learn about their business, them and their challenges
- Understand, and I mean really understand, the problem they’re trying to solve and how your specific proposal will solve the problem.
- Sell up the chain of command. This might be their buying process. Embrace it – don’t be worried about having to talk to a junior person first. As you move up the chain, practice asking, and selling until you get to the ultimate decision maker.
Before you go into an appointment make sure that you have planned your ‘ask’, then when the time comes it’ll be the next logical question.
Ask for the business, your customer expects you to ask – so go ahead and ask. If you’ve done the hard work don’t walk away and hope the customer will call you back and offer to buy the product. They probably won’t!
Sales, selling and buying should be a pleasurable, rewarding experience not a hard-fought battle for both sides. A smooth transaction where both sides respect each other, communicate clearly and understand what each other require.
What will you do next time: ask for the business or walk away and hope?
