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Sales Tip of the Week: Refresh Your Memory

Every now and then it's helpful to take a step back from what we think we know and refresh our memories with some tried-and-true selling strategies.

Here's a quick reminder of three important ones:

Build A Trust Bond
In many cases, the quality of your relationship with a referral source is the competitive advantage that enables you to edge out others who may have similar services. The quality of the trust bond that exists between you and your referral source can be so strong that no other competitor can get between you. So make sure you spend a concerted effort to build that trust from the beginning and continue to reinforce it throughout the relationship.

Listen to Your Referral Sources
The opposite of listening is ignoring. You always listen to that which you most value...and you'll always ignore that which you devalue. The fastest way to turn a referral source off, to hurt their feelings and make them feel slighted and angry is to simply ignore what they are saying or interrupt them in the middle of a thought. Ignoring or interrupting is the equivalent of an emotional slap in the face. Try to curb that natural desire to make a remark or an observation in the middle of a conversation. This can often cause the sales conversation to come to a grinding halt.

Know The Time To Sell
Only when you and the referral source have completed a thorough "examination" and have mutually agreed on the "diagnosis" are you in a position to begin talking to them about your service. In general terms, this means that you cannot pull out your brochures and other materials and begin telling them how your service can solve their problems or achieve their goals until about seventy percent of the way through the sales conversation. Until then, you have not yet earned the right. Until then, you don't even know enough to begin an intelligent presentation without embarrassing yourself.