Archive for the ‘Selling’ Category
Good topic, right? Here are three strategies to do this:
1. Increase Your Opportunities
2. Improve Your Selling Skills
3. Increase Your Average Client Transaction
Today, let’s consider the first strategy:
Option 1: Increase Your Opportunities
Years ago I was in a workshop where an attorney in the Advanced Underwriting department of an insurance company (Connecticut Mutual Life) shared a brilliant insight with the group.
He asked the producers assembled, “How many of you came here to learn new ideas?” Then he asked, “How many of you came here to learn how to make more money?” Next he asked, “How many of you believe that learning new ideas will, by itself, cause you to make more money?” The answer was obvious. Finally he said this, “Folks, if you took the next few days and learned NOTHING NEW . . . except how to see twice as many people as you do now . . . you’d double your income, wouldn’t you?”. That hit home with me. I hope it hits home with you, too.
KEY POINT:
If you are competent to do what you do, increasing your ‘new seens’ will increase your income.
If you’ve ever faced a meaningful problem — e.g. you’re about to spend a significant sum on landscaping, a new furnace, tutoring for your child, braces, a senior living center for your folks, etc. you probably asked yourself: “Is this the best provider to use?”
Create Your Own Credentials and Credibility
Facing a challenge in my own life recently, I found one provider offered a ‘Special Report’: “Six Key Questions To Ask Before You Hire a ___________”. It wasn’t about their solution. It was about my question. WOW! It blew me away.
Buying a Professional Service
You really need to know two things to make a decision on a professional service, don’t you? ”What will fix my problem?” and “Who is the best person (or, firm) to do it?”
Information Raises The Bar and Sets You Apart
As consumers, we want to know WHAT we need, WHERE to find it, and WHO to use to get it.
Helping a prospective client learn what they must know to make an ‘informed decision’ is not only extremely useful, it also differentiates you from your competitors who don’t provide such information in the ‘initial’ phase of a prospect’s decision-making process.
KEY POINT:
Help people make good decisions . . . by educating them not only on WHAT they need but on HOW TO IDENTIFY which provider is the best one to use. THAT . . . is a ‘best practice’ that helps prospects make the right decision . . . more likely and more often . . . in favor of you and your firm.
Q:
“What does a good advisor do?”
A:
“Ask better questions . . . than the client knows to ask”
It’s become painfully obvious to me that I, myself, need a good advisor to help me with a challenge I’m having with something.
Why so ‘obvious’? Simple. I’m running out of time to live with the situation ‘as is’ and I’m all out of insights as to why I’ve got the problem in the first place.
When your clients experience a similar situation . . . where something ‘isn’t right’ in their world . . . and they’re clueless about both WHY that’s happening and HOW to correct the situation, you become the knight on the white horse . . . riding in with your insightful questions to shed light on the cause that calls for a cure.
Many times, you won’t even need to have the answers. If you do, that’s a double bonus. But even if you’re only able to ask your client the questions that reveal the underlying cause or causes for the distressing symptoms (what clients call ‘the problem’) . . . then you’re providing significant value to your clue-less client.
As the surgeon told her patient who asked her to breakdown her bill, “Ok” she said. ”For the incision, surgery and suturing . . . 1% . . . knowing where to operate and why . . . 99%”.
And THAT . . . is why asking insightful, revealing questions . . . that are the first step in getting your clients what they want . . . is PRICELESS!
