The art of selling is one worth learning. Here are some tips to help you become a more effective seller that knows what customers want.

Who says that you have to be big to have big ideas? Sue Barrett is the founder of Barrett Consulting, an organisation that has helped over one 100 high-profile companies master the necessary tools to understand what it takes to achieve real and sustainable sales performance.

In 2000 Sue was also inducted into the Australian Business Women’s Hall of Fame. It’s not a big organisation, but on her own admission it has some big ideas.

Career in sales
And to get her operation ready, she saw herself as being on a self-funded research project in trying to deconstruct and understand what affects sales performance for organisations.

Barrett does not have a pure sales background, in fact, she was a pharmacologist/immunologist by university qualifications, but she never actually practiced. “My first proper job was as a sales rep in the pharmaceutical industry,” she says.

“I was the youngest at the time. I was 21 when I got the briefcase and the company car and I didn’t know any different. I found it challenging for myself because you couldn’t get direct sales results, because you are obviously influencing doctors at the same time. I learnt a lot of good things there and I learnt some things that weren’t so good, too.”

No tricks and secrets
On the need and the calibre of training for sales, Barrett has strong views.

“The problem with a lot of sales training is that over 90% of sales people follow no logical process when selling,” she explains. “Most of them are flying by the seat of their pants and then the training that they have been given in the past, and still sometimes today, is really around tricks and secrets to success in sales, but there are none.”

Time to listen
Instead she argues salespeople need to spend much more time in understanding what good effective sales performance is, by really deconstructing it and looking at it as an effective communication process.

Barrett warns that sales made easy with secret tips and so on are making false promises if they don’t show what is the main game for sellers.

“To be a good sales person or an elite sales person is like being an elite sports person,” she says. “There is structure, there is process, there is skill, and you have to practice at it. That’s why being effective really at anything, but particularly at sales, is being able to actually go through and really make sure you’ve got the foundations in place to continue to evolve and develop as a sales person.”

Horses for courses
What is interesting about Barrett is that she thinks role models of super salesmen might not really be a help for many would-be sellers. She accentuates the individual and how selling differs with each person.

“It’s actually being able to identify and unlock and access your potential for elite performance in anything,” she argues.

“We try to help people gain a great insight and awareness into themselves. The approach is about looking at a business and realising it has a strategy it has to translate into action. Key questions become the staring point such as, if you’re looking at the sales function of the business, what type of sales approach do we need for our business to perform well? This might lead to another question, such as: ‘We have a team of sales people, but how fit are they to deliver that strategy?’.”

One size doesn’t fit all
Barrett says that it’s foolish to assume a one size or approach fits all. Market conditions could have changed, competitors could have changed, things may have moved from being low tech to very high tech or from a highly valued knowledge base to a commodity.

The art of listening
“The biggest thing that we’ve seen is that top performing sales people are excellent problem identifiers and solvers so they do a lot more listening than they do speaking, and they do a lot more understanding of where you’re at and so they’re helping you make an informed decision about what’s needed to solve your problem with their appropriate products or services.”

A simple exercise
Barrett gives us an easy tip — look at your clients to see what they are really after.

“It’s not about just selling product,” she lectures. “A product does nothing or a service does nothing until it’s actually done in the context of a situation that a client has. So, what problems do clients have? What issues do they need resolved and are you in a position to be able to do that in an ethical and professional manner?”

Look at the target
She emphasizes that whether it’s buying jocks or socks or it’s actually dealing with a high tech service delivery, be it an integrated CRM system or something similar, you really have to be able to find out what your target market is and then start to look at how do you solve problems.

Product problems
But what if the product or service you are selling has faults such as it is priced too high compared to rivals?

Barrett says there’s always a market for a range of things.
“People seem to focus on price, but it’s not always price. For example, some people may be prepared to pay a little more for good service. At the end of the day, none of us likes to be tricked or duped. If we find out that you promised this, but we didn’t get that, I’m probably not going to come back to you.”

If your product is dearer, Barrett says you should find out what it is that the person values. And for people who are very busy, they may not have time to schlep about talking to all sorts of people, and you may be able to — as a mortgage broker, for example — to provide that service, keep them up-to-date with what’s going on.

The value equation
“It might cost slightly more but then you can actually see the value in that. I don’t get this thing about petrol prices when there’s two cents a litre lower somewhere and people spend half an hour driving to get the two cents a litre lower and then sit in the queue with their engines on, burning up all the savings they’re going to make!

“I mean, it’s not just price. So, it’s about what you value and if you’re time poor, you may be able to pay for someone to help you get what you need at a slightly higher price,” she says.

The ultimate tip
The price may not always be right but if you learn to understand your customer nine times out of 10, your sales proposal will be right on the money.

By Peter Switzer, published on 8/04/2009

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