Three Essential Questions You Must Ask To Make More Sales - Ignore Them At Your Peril

Theres loads of material about making money available on the Internet. Most of it is called How you can make money on the Internet by selling products called How to make money on the Internet.

If its not that title, its about how to write killer advertising copy or how to write adverts that draw people to your product like bees to the honey jar.

Theres never anything about sales, selling or the sales process. Why?

Has selling become a dirty word?

Lets take a look at the processes of selling and advertising and look at the links.

Advertising is simply salesmanship in print (salespersonship just didnt sound right sorry!). Advertising has one purpose: to generate sales. It serves no other purpose. If you disagree, read Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples or Claude Hopkins books My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising. Youll be left with no doubt.

Like salespeople, theres good and bad advertising. Good advertising draws buyers to you. Its effectiveness can be measured and the results identified.

As with sales, the goal is profitable revenue. Bad advertising is just that. It doesnt get the phone ringing or the Clickbank account swelling.

When you buy books about copywriting, they give you a formula to follow. Essentially, that formula is to record your sales presentation, and then write it down. What you write forms the basis of your advert, website or direct mail piece. Thats all well and good, but what if you dont understand the sales process?

If you cant sell, you cant use the formula. So the fundamental lesson is to understand the sales process.

Unlike sales people, direct marketers rely on high volumes of visitors or readers (traffic). Success in selling relies on high quality prospects, not volume. Theres only a certain number of people you can see to sell to in any given week. Depending on what you sell, that may be as few as five people or as many as 30.

Unlike an advert selling is interactive. The days of making a pitch disappeared along with the snake oil salesman. There has to be two-way dialog. From the two-way dialog comes an understanding of the process. You learn to read the buyers response from their body language, for the questions they ask and the answers they give to your questions.

With that understanding, you can start to write copy. You build the copy around the framework of your presentation, including the questions and your replies along the way.

The process of the sale, like a good website, has a structure. A beginning, middle and an end. Even the best Internet marketers will tell you that a 5% conversion rate from your site is good. If you as a salesperson only made 5 sale from 100 presentations, youd be worried wouldnt you?

A good sale is based on trust. Thats why McDonalds succeeds. In a strange town given the choice of Greasy Joes Diner or McDonalds, we choose McDonalds. Trust.

The sale is also based on you the vendor having an understanding of the buyers needs and wants. It depends upon the buyers ability to make a decision and on their capacity to pay for what you sell.

How often have you tried to sell something and had the response Thanks but no thank / well think about it / call me next week / have to talk with my partner? Then when you tell someone that youre not making sales they suggest you should learn some sales closing techniques.

Thats when as a sales manager and trainer, I scream. To me, thats like a train driver giving racing tips to Michael Schumacher.

Theyre coming from the wrong direction. If you think you need to learn closing techniques, youve made a fundamental mistake. That mistake is simple.

Here is the explanation.

Write it down. Memorize it. Dont ever forget it.

Ready?

You cant close a sale if you didnt open it properly. Let me spell it out for you in simple language: Unless you started right, it wont end right.

If you get the Well call you answer (or similar), you didnt ask the right questions. You didnt establish if your prospect had an interest in your proposal, you didnt ask if they could make the decision and you didnt ask if they had the capacity to pay.

Here are three essential questions you must ask yourself...

1. Have they an interest in what Im selling?

2. Can they make a decision without involving someone else?

3. Can they pay for it?

Dont expect to make any sale without finding out the answers.

James Yuille, Brisbane, Australia, 2004.

About the author:

James Yuille is a sales and marketing consultant and trainer with over 32 years experience. He is based in Brisbane, Australia. His free weekly sales and marketing newsletter provides topical information for business owners and salespeople. Find out more at http://www.jamesyuille.com

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