I have had a few requests from Salespeople to write posts geared towards the wonderful art of Selling. Here is the first one. You walk into a store to do some shopping, or maybe just browse around, and a salesman walks up and asks a simple question, “Would you like any help?” Without thinking about it, and even if you need it, your automatic response will be “no thanks” or “I’m just looking.” The reason for this is because you are guarded and as of yet, have no reason to open up. Also people feel too proud to accept any help if they are not seeking it. The salesperson has done nothing to let you know that they really care. That is a very powerful bit of information that, if used to your advantage, will dramatically help you boost your sales numbers.
If you walk up to a customer and ask if they would like any help, just like you would do, their automatic response is “no thanks” or “I’m just looking.” Asking if someone needs help will almost always result in a negative response, leading to… no demo.
A functional trick that I have found is asking an open ended question (a question that cannot be answered by yes or no). Statements also work very well. The one I use most often, that almost always leads to a sale, is: “You look like you are in deep thought…” The response is always a little chuckle (which tells me that they have let down their guard and will now open up to me) and then they tell me what they are thinking. A benefit to this is that I am doing something that the other salespeople are not doing, which helps me in setting myself apart.
Give it a try, use the above phrase or use your own. Just do whatever you can to be different!