How a Video Shop Can Increase Sales
Tiger Woods is a pretty good golfer, yes? Well, he excels at his craft because he tapes himself and continually looks to improve his swing. As a professional salesperson, how do you get feedback and continually improve your presentation?
It’s simple! Video mystery shopping. Mystery shopping has been around a long time. Adding a concealed camera to the exercise takes the mystery out of what really happened because a salesperson can sit and watch the entire sales presentation as it unfolds and learn where the weak areas are that need immediate improvement.
From conducting over 10,000 shops in our 24 years of performing video mystery shopping in the Orlando market and many other markets nationwide, we have uncovered some constant errors that most salespeople make:
–Talk too much
Selling is a dialogue, not a monologue. A great salesperson is a great interviewer and excels at the art of asking great questions and listening.
–Feature dumping
All the customer cares about is “what’s in it for me?” Salespeople talk about the company, how long in business, why we’re so great, all our cool features, etc while the customer is yawning and looking at the exit sign. Put all your brochures away and pretend you just met this person at a party. Your approach would be totally different. Find out about them their pain, their issues and then solve it with your product or service.
–Poor closing
What happened to us? As kids, we MASTERED closing techniques. Then we all became adults and now can’t ask for the sale for fear of being “too pushy”. You don’t need to be pushy. Your job is to get the customer to ask you when to move forward. You have delivered such a compelling, customized presentation based on the customer’s specific needs and trail closed throughout, that signing the paperwork at the end is a given. You must earn the right to close.
–Weak negotiation skills
In this economy, everyone is looking for a “deal” and asking for discounts. Before you lower your price, consider “terms and conditions” instead. Once you lower the price, the value is diminished. Can you offer a better finance rate? A quicker delivery time? Throw in a free service contract for a limited time? You can have a lower priced service as a loss leader but avoid cutting prices because the value of your offer slips away. Remember, even in this tough economy, there are still people buying Starbucks and driving fancy cars. WE seem to always have money for what we consider “necessary”. Be on that list! When someone asks, “Do you negotiate?”, Your response should be “what did you have in mind?”.
The next time your manager announces you will be video shopped, instead of freaking out, THANK him or her for paying for your opportunity for feedback!
