markiting

To succeed, entrepreneurs must attract and retain a growing base of satisfied customers. Marketing programs, though widely varied, are all aimed at convincing people to try out or keep using particular products or services. Business owners should carefully plan their marketing strategies and performance to keep their market presence strong.

What is Marketing?

1. All company policies and activities should be directed toward satisfying customer needs.
2. Profitable sales volume is more important than maximum sales volume.

To best use these principles, a small business should:

• Determine the needs of their customers through market research
• Analyze their competitive advantages to develop a market strategy
• Select specific markets to serve by target marketing
• Determine how to satisfy customer needs by identifying a market mix

Market Research

Successful marketing requires timely and relevant market information. An inexpensive research program, based on questionnaires given to current or prospective customers, can often uncover dissatisfaction or possible new products or services.

Market research will also identify trends that affect sales and profitability. Population shifts, legal developments, and the local economic situation should be monitored to quickly identify problems and opportunities. It is also important to keep up with competitors' market strategies.

Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy identifies customer groups which a particular business can better serve than its target competitors, and tailors product offerings, prices, distribution, promotional efforts, and services toward those market segments. Ideally, the strategy should address unmet customer needs that offer adequate potential profitability. A good strategy helps a business focus on the target markets it can serve best.

Target Marketing

Owners of small businesses usually have limited resources to spend on marketing. Concentrating their efforts on one or a few key market segments — target marketing — gets the most return from small investments. There are two methods used to segment a market:

1. Geographical segmentation — To specialize in serving the needs of customers in a particular geographical area. For example, a neighborhood convenience store may send advertisements only to people living within one-half mile of the store.

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Increase Sales by Stealing Competitors' Accounts

Increase your sales by using these simple C-level relationship selling, sales tips. Steal your competitors' accounts. They are qualified, and they buy your type of products / services. Your competitors sell to these accounts. So what's not to like, except they are not buying from you. To make you feel worse your main contacts at these competitive accounts are very cordial, yet let you know they're happy with your competitors. Therefore, you assume everybody, including the powerful C-Level decision makers, love the competitors and will never change. Then one day you realize another competitor has penetrated one or two of these accounts and now you're really bummed.
So here are some sales tips. You're usually only talking with one or two contacts and you're getting limited feedback, which is probably from the competitors' sponsor/s. You must realize there are always problems with incumbents. If nobody presents themselves as an alternative or second source, the account sticks to whom they have until something big happens. Then every competitor is called to bid. Companies shy away from the bidding / investigation process because it's cumbersome, takes time and is a pain. So they stick with the incumbent, even though they're not happy.
So here's the sales tip to increase your sales. Set yourself up as the second source. In this way when there's dissatisfaction (which is regularly) someone will call you for a second opinion - so to speak. It's easy if that someone can just pick up the phone and call a second source that's shown they're qualified and acceptable. However, if you're only talking with one person and that person is in tight with the competitor, you'll never get a call. So you have to get to other people, especially the C-levels and their staff and ask, "What do I have to do to be considered your number two supplier?" Then, explain to them how you can meet those requirements. Do this and I guarantee you'll start increasing your sales within a few weeks.
Sales Tips to Prepare Yourself
1. Cite an example where you've displaced an existing vendor. How did you do it?
2. Cite an example where you've shared a customer with a competitor. How did you do it?
3. Have your competitors ever messed up but still maintained the lion's share of business? Cite an example. How did they do it?
4. Pick 3 of your competitors' accounts:
a. Who are their sponsors / strong supporters?
b. How can you network to others in those accounts to get exposure and a bigger perspective?
c. Learn if the C-Level executives feel the existing vendor is special or just gets the job done?
d. If you can learn the leaders' threats and opportunities, you can offer some ideas that may give you a point of entry.
e. What are the likes and dislikes of the competition as seen by each C-Level executives?
5. List reasons why a company would want a second source?
a. Use these to expose and entice your new contacts, but don't push.
6. List your competitor's customers. Commit to getting an interview with someone you've never spoken to before. Sales Tip: look for someone outside the norm.
7. List some actions to stay Number One with your existing customers to be sure someone doesn't replace you.
Tak'n It to the Streets Sales Tips
1. List three of your competitors' accounts. You set the criteria - big, small, etc.
2. How will you start the process of positioning yourself as #2 to increase your sales?
a. Who will you call? Look for other company people to start - i.e. their sales people.
b. What will you say? Sales tip: "Can you help me get to......"
c. How will you use this person and others to network you upward? Sales tip: Ask them for an introduction.

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Dancing in the Jaws of the Dragon

This is the first installment in a 10-part series of excerpts from Richard A. Plinke’s upcoming book, “How to Sell the Plague (Without Being a Rat and Other Cheeky Musings of an Unrepentant Salesman).” The series humorously explores how Plinke ended up in sales, the last place he ever thought he’d be and what he learned during those early days that carried over through his 35-year sales career. Subsequent installments will be posted each Monday.
I was fresh out of college and it was my first professional job. The interviewing process was a new and foreign experience and a whole other job onto itself, and even though I had been advised along the way by the disingenuous, bottom-feeder sales puke from the employment agency, I had no idea what I was getting into. I didn't have a clue where those first few steps were taking me, but the sales puke had told me I could make $14,000 a year if I worked hard. Fourteen thousand dollars! In today’s runaway economy, $14,000 may seem like chump change, but in 1975, $14,000 a year was almost twice the national average, and $14,000 is just about all I heard during those interviews.
Yea, like I wanted to be a salesman. Right. Big smile, firm handshake and shiny shoes, ala Willie Loman; slap you on the back and tell-you-what-I’m-gonna-do fast talking, no-low-is-too-low creeps like the one that sucked me into the employment agency in the first place. Not me, pal. No way. A year or so, make a bundle and move onto my real calling in life.
Oh yea, I was smarter than all of them and I would use this banal and uninspiring interlude for my higher purposes and then discard the wing-tips and three-piece suits after I had taken all I could get, like throwing a crumpled cigarette pack out the window at 65 mph, moving down the highway on my way to glory, immortality and beautiful babes. Oh yea, we all smoked and threw empty cigarette packs out the window in 1975 because we were the first generation of the masters of the universe, only we didn’t know it yet and we were, at that time, simply pigs in training.
What I didn't know was that once I got through all the misconceptions, blind alleys and unrealistic expectations, I was embarking on the adventure of a lifetime, and I've spent a lifetime – 35 years – dancing in the jaws of the dragon and loving every minute of it. And one more thing, I made $20,000 that first year and never looked back.
Go Ask Alice
 I graduated from Rutgers University in Camden in June 1975 with a bachelor of arts in English. Oh wow! In the business world, an English degree was like telling everybody you’re a smart guy but not smart enough to have a plan. And I didn’t. Loosely, I was going to take a year off and make some money, and then go to graduate school and then teach at the college level and then be the next William Faulkner. Enlightenment, fame and babes were waiting around the corner and all I had to do was show up, eventually. But along the way I met the Buddha and he told me enlightenment doesn’t come cheap and happiness is definitely better with a pocket full of cash; contemplation of the existential nature of the known physical universe was not readily available to those preoccupied with paying the rent. Who was I to question the Buddha?
Like William Tecumseh Sherman plowing through the last vestiges of ol’ Bill Faulkner’s antebellum South, I went through college in two-and-a-half years, seven straight semesters. To do so, I needed 24 credits my last semester, so I was wasted, burned out and numb when I graduated.
While I was in college, the drinking age in New Jersey was 18 and we had a tavern on campus that served beer and wine drinks, creatively named the Tavern, where I worked and ended up managing my senior year. It was a great place for me to drink beer and meet girls, two of my favorite collegiate pursuits, outside of becoming ostentatiously erudite. So I stayed on as manager of the Tavern after graduation to decompress and continue the pursuit of two of my three objectives.
And at some point in those undefined and unfocused halcyon days of post-hippie, pre-yuppie transformation (who can remember with all that decompressing going on), I started looking for a real job. But first I needed to educate myself on how to look for a job because I certainly didn’t get any of that in college. What with all the beer and the girls and the Faulkner, who had time for those kinds of pedestrian details? So after proving I could get through a Henry James novel, drink myself silly and woo the ladies with my silver tongue (a training that would become one of my greatest assets as I entered the dragon’s cave), I put on a clean, pressed shirt and ambled off into the deep black hole of responsibility and the end of my Alice in Wonderland trip where the new dormouse was definitely not interested in feeding my head.
Next Week: “Baby We Were Born to Run”
 “If I knew then what I would come to learn over the years about job hunting, or if I had taken some time to find some effective directions, I could have saved myself a great deal of time, energy and frustration, but I was still too preoccupied with other aforementioned objectives and finding a job was only important relative to supporting those more highly prioritized initiatives.”

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What's The Worst Objection?

I was reading a blog post the other day, it posed the question: "What's the worst objection?" There were a lot of interesting responses and amusing war stories, but I was surprised that one, the one I think is most significant, was not raised.
To my mind, the worst objection is the objection (or issue or concern) that is never asked. Too often, I think this may be why we lose sales, we have created an environment where the customer has not raised a key concern or objection.
Objections are great, they create a forum for discussion. They demonstrate the customer is engaged. Objections tell you where you stand with the customer and give you an indication of what you need to do to improve your ability to win.
There are varying schools of thought about whether sales people should pre-empt objections by raising them and addressing them before the customer poses them. There are others about stimulating objections, perhaps through being provocative. I'm not sure where I stand on those issues, or whether they are really important in the overall scheme of things.
What is important is that the sales professional creates an environment, a dialog, that makes the customer comfortable in raising whatever issues or concerns they have about the solution or the situation.
While, I'm on the topic, let me spend a few moments on objections. I am constantly amazed by the fear and avoidance reaction I see with many sales people. Objections are great, I am excited to get objections-which doesn't mean that I can always respond to them adequately-but at least objections tell me the customer is listening, engaged, and is interested enough to challenge me.
Generally, I find 98% of all objections fall into one of these categories:
-We have failed to understand the customer, their needs, priorities, and what they are trying to accomplish.
-We have failed to communicate adequately to the customer, so they haven't understood us or the solutions we are proposing.
-There are legitimate differing points of view that need to be reconciled.
These are all great opportunities to engage the customer and test how you stand in creating a valuable solution for them. It's a deadly mistake to think the customer is being stupid when they raise an objection-more often it's the stupidity of the salesperson thinking this.
The final 2% of objections fall into the category that the customer is being a jerk. In my experience, it's rare, but it does happen. Often it's an indicator they should be disqualified-you may be wasting their time. Sometimes they are trying to prove how smart they are to you, their peers, or bosses.
Make sure you create an environment that engages the customer in a dialog and makes them feel comfortable in raising all their concerns, regardless of how trivial they may seem to you. You'll establish deeper relationships and win more often.

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Rethinking Qualifying - Is This Good Business For Us?

Most of the time when we think about qualifying sales opportunities, we focus on the customer situation. We consider:
-Do they have a real need to buy, is there some compelling issue, opportunity or problem they have urgency in addressing?
-Do they have funding for a solution, or will they commit funding once it's justified?
-Are they willing to seriously consider as a potential solution provider?
There may be other criteria depending on how you qualify opportunities.
There's something important missing, it's an assessment of whether this is good business for our company. It's important to think about whether this is a good opportunity for our company. Too often, we find ourselves in the position: The good news is that we won the business, the bad news is that we won the business. Somehow through the process, we have had to commit to things that we cannot or do not want to deliver. We may have committed to a price that makes the business unprofitable to us. We may have committed to a customer that is not on our target markets and may divert focus and resources. We commit to a customer that may be very difficult to support-for many reasons. These are bad deals for us an our company.
In delivering on these deals, they can be draining, lose-lose opportunities. We are unhappy, it's draining our attention and resources. The customer is unhappy and making others aware of their unhappiness-hurting our reputation.
Early in the qualification process, it's important to assess whether we really want to win this business and live with this customer. Consider:
-Does this customer fit our sweet spot? Will winning this business continue to reinforce our business strategies and priorities?
-Based on what we understand of the opportunity and the customer, will we be able to deliver? Can we support the customer? Is this a customer that we will be able to satisfy on delivery? Can we make this customer a happy customer willing to be a great reference?
-Based on what we know, do we believe we can compete and win this business-and agree to terms that make this deal profitable for us?
-Will we be able to live with the terms, conditions, and target pricing?
As early in the customer buying process, it is critical to assess these issues-ideally in qualification. At any time through their buying process, if it starts becoming a bad deal for your company, consider abandoning the opportunity.
One final word, if the this deal passes your qualification screen-at qualifying and through winning, never ever have Seller's Remorse. Never ever let anyone in your company have Seller's Remorse. You and your company chose to pursue this deal. You chose to win it and accept the implications of winning it. In winning it, you need to be totally committed to delivering a great customer experience and satisfying this customer.

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10 Ways Lead Management Can Help Your Business Grow

The goal of a good Lead Management program is to nurture and build up a trusted relationship with your leads so that when they are ready to buy they actually reach out to you. Done well, it can help generate many more qualified sales opportunities for your sales team and maximize the ROI of your marketing efforts.
Here are 10 ways Lead Management (LM) can help your business get the most revenue from your marketing-generated leads.
1. LM ensures that all new leads are followed-up with in a timely manner and none fall between the cracks or are (essentially) lost.
2. LM allows you to easily capture all web leads directly into your CRM database and to immediately respond.
3. LM educates and informs leads who might be familiar with your product/service but not ready to buy now.
4. LM saves you time by automating the follow-up process with lead nurturing tracks based on of pre-written email templates.
5. LM helps close more deals by providing your sales team with sales-ready opportunities rather than unqualified leads.
6. LM automatically assigns leads to your sales team so you can track their status/progress and re-assign to someone else if needed.
7. LM grades your leads by monitoring their activity (email opens, downloads, etc.) so you know who to call back first.
8. LM allows you to keep your partners up-to-date on your products so they can easily refer your business (when appropriate).
9. LM can be used to re-engage past customers who have not purchased from you lately.
10.LM keeps track of the actual sales revenue from each lead so you can optimize your marketing strategies for the best ROI.
These are just a few of the many benefits of a well-thought-out Lead Management program. Every business should consider implementing an automated Lead Management program to ensure you get the most sales revenue from the leads in your database.

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Unselling What You Just Sold

I'll never forget the first time it happened to me. The presentation with the customer was going well. I had prepared extensively. In fact, I had not just spent more time than normal, I had stayed up nearly all night to make sure I had every element covered perfectly in my presentation. For me, this sales call was going to be a huge success. My boss had told me this was going to be a difficult quarter, and that's all I needed to hear to motivate me to close this particular sale.
The customer I was meeting with was tough. In fact, using the word "customer" was simply too nice. This customer was the ultimate professional buyer who would routinely drive salespeople crazy with questions, bold accusations and flat out rejection.
For this sales call, I was prepared. The program I was presenting to him that day included a new item that I knew in the back of my mind he didn't need and would most likely flat out reject with some very colorful language. Shortly into my presentation, I noticed him giving me a high level of attention and agreeing with what I was saying. Before I was even half way through my presentation, he said he wanted what I was selling.
To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I couldn't believe it! I began to wonder if he knew what he had just agreed to. Yes, he did know and yes he said again he would take it. At this point, we all know as a salesperson that it is wise to take the sale and leave. Yet, I was a bit hurt. Remember, I had spent nearly the entire night preparing an incredible presentation, and suddenly more than half of it was never going to see the light of day. My ego took control and I felt that if I had spent hours preparing it, he was going to hear it, so I continued on.
Go ahead and say it - BIG mistake! You're right - it was a big mistake. The more I continued on with the presentation, the more the buyer was becoming upset; however, he was not upset enough to throw me out without the order. He listened, and honestly, I'm still not sure why. That's when I made the final mistake. I shared with him some information that I never should have had in my presentation, and suddenly he began asking me questions. It's not hard to imagine what happened next, as he decided not only to NOT buy what I was selling, he also went into a tirade about how I and the company I worked for didn't know what we were doing.
My mistake was very basic. I kept talking after the buying signal was given and in so doing, I lost the order and I lost credibility. The reason I'm sharing this is not to say this has happened to me only once in my more than 25 years of selling. I'm sharing it because it's one of many situations where I've unsold something. It's just that on this particular occasion I saw it coming like a slow-moving train and still didn't do anything to get out of the way.
When the buyer gives a buying signal, close the sale and leave. It's simple, yet we as salespeople allow our egos and our pride to get in the way. Let me share two rules I have regarding sales presentations. They're not complicated rules, but many times are overlooked.
Rule 1: Close the sale as early in the call as you possibly can. The only exception is if the price or quantity the customer wants is not within the range of your objectives. If the buyer's requests are in your range of expectations, then get the order.
Rule 2: Close the sale before you run out of presentation. I tell salespeople with whom I am working that the measure of success is to not have to go through your entire presentation to close a sale. This rule is extremely important. You always want to have information and questions you can share with the customer. I like to view it as always having a "back pocket" presentation - information I can share with a customer, but only if it is necessary. This gives me more flexibility and helps me close the sale earlier. My ego is saved and the buyer is not subjected to information they don't necessarily want to hear. Final benefit of keeping some of your presentation in your back pocket is it subconsciously gives you confidence and determination. You will have confidence in knowing you have more information if you need it, and you will have determination to close the sale with the initial round of information and questions.
It seems crazy that a salesperson could unsell what they have already sold, but it can happen. Do whatever you can to make sure it doesn't happen to you.
If you're wondering what happened to me and my relationship with the customer, here's the epilogue: He never did take the new item, and although he did continue to work with me on other activities, I never did get our relationship back to the level it was before my mistake.

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How to Keep Your Sales Team on Track

Rhonda recently called me to go over sales issues with her selling team. She was gravely concerned about the possible lack of effort. We spoke in greater detail about several things including knowledge, sales intelligence and capability. However, what we found was the manner in which the team went about their day.
We discovered that sales agents were not really as busy and they claim. For selling professionals to make an impact to any business requires countless activities to remain visible. In a crazy world where buyers become distracted by even the simplest issues, sales managers must ensure that selling professionals remain top of mind.
Sales managers must ensure the following:
• Activities - Sales reps must be involved in multiple activities that create visibility for customers. This includes the use of electronic and direct resources so that professionals can be remembered as a client peer.
• Action - Sellers must ensure that they return calls when they say they will dress professionally and engage in ethical behavior. A good selling professional's actions helps to create client-to-client influences in the form of testimonials and referrals.
• Appreciation - Research shows that over 50% of every client interaction involves customer service. Respect, support and client superiority ensure the organization and its sales people will always be remembered.
Sales agents like many others are busy. They are distracted due to the many client issues. Yet what concerns most senior officers and sales leaders is focus and consistency. And, more urgently sales people must be out of the office with clients rather than in the office. Understanding that here are a few of the methods selling professionals can use to remain client visible.
• Handwritten Notes - The proliferation of email and social networking have creating much laziness for any busy professional. However, because of the overwhelming use of electronic correspondence have returned to the use of handwritten cards to become client visible. Clients appreciate the effort. Most importantly handwritten cards are handsomely displayed on office credenzas and desks- sometimes in full view of competitors.
• Phone Calls - Yes individuals are busy but calling clients once per week with useful information that will aid their competitive position is perfectly acceptable. However do not allow sales individuals to call without purpose. Every call must have a focus and aid the customer.
• Sales Intelligence - The use of the Internet allows for instantaneous research to help clients. Moreover clients need trusted peers not vendors. Sales Reps can increase their situation by presenting information to clients that increases revenues, returns profits to shareholders or increases their position. Sales people become trusted advisors not vendors.
• Aesthetics - Today's professional must be memorable. This requires looking and acting the part. Sales members must be dressed as if they will meet clients daily. This means individuals must be dressed the part. Selling professionals must spend money on good clothing, briefcases, pens, daily planners, grooming etc. Dress must always be grander than that of the customer.
• Accountability - Sales Representatives must be accountable - no excuses. This requires returning calls promptly. (I return all my calls in 90 minutes no questions asked). Excuses such as caller ID, working on other projects etc. count little when it comes to clients. Clients must remain the purpose of the business and not an interruption of it.
• Organization - How many sales managers have heard about windshield time or email obligations? Sales Agents are self-regulated unless they illustrate how often and in how many ways they waste time. They have two priorities remain in front of clients and close business that means to conduct the latter sales people must conform to the first scenario.Sellers that are not meeting with, speaking with or communicating with clients are simply unorganized and waste time. Organization and prioritization are a must for the selling professional.
The simple truth is the busy selling professional is the one who makes the most progress. Active selling professionals prioritize their daily tasks by how many clients they have to communicate with. Simply put they place clients first. Those selling professionals that place clients above other issues are visible, vocal and more importantly memorable. Those that make excuses are simple an apparition.

Uncertain about b

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Highly Effective Sales Meetings With Comedians

So you're going to conduct a sales meeting, and you have better be sure it's done right.
A comedy show can add value to your sales meeting, as well as compliment it in a ways to make it more effective.
Hiring a comedian for your sales meeting is a win-win because it helps you achieve your meeting purposes as well as gives your sales team something extra to look forward to.
Here are 5 ways hiring a comedian makes a highly effective sales meeting:
Focuses Your Audience
You might initially think that hosting a comedian would distract your employees from the purpose of the sales meeting. On the contrary, hosting a comedian can lure in unfocused members and concentrate their attention towards the task at hand.
A comedian will speak to what's relevant to your audience. They'll pull them in by telling interesting and hilarious stories, which focuses them on the speaker.
Fun
How effective is a boring meeting? If your attendees are tuned out, they won't be getting anything out of it. Employees that have fun at their sales meeting are much more likely to come out motivated and eager to put more energy into sales.
Engaging
From the first laugh to the last, the audience is participating and involved in the act. They'll be hearing funny stories that are relevant to them in the workplace and that will grab their attention.
Stress-Relieving
Laughter is has been scientifically proven to relieve stress. A comedy show is a great, all-natural stress-buster! And stress-relief is something that everyone could use these days, especially without any weird side-effects.
Reviving
Thanks to the stress-relieving properties of laughter, your sales team will leave the meeting feeling refresh, revived and invigorated. They'll be prepared and energized to implement and capitalize on new challenges.

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Are You Giving Away Your Profit?

Want a quick way to destroy sales motivation and profit at the same time? Picture yourself as a sales manager who suddenly receives a phone call from a salesperson who is on the verge of closing a sale. Here's a sample of that typical conversation:
Salesperson: "We have to cut our price to get the first order. Then, once they see what we can do for them, we will be able to raise our prices. I'm sure once they see how good our service is, I'll be able to convince them to pay the regular price."
Hmmm. Really? I'll let you fill in how you feel the sales manager should respond. The sad comment is that too many times, the sales manager - after sounding tough on the telephone for 30 seconds - then gives way to the idea of lowering the price by saying something like, "Well, just this time, but we certainly can't go making this part of our sales tactics with other customers. The only reason I'll say 'yes' this time is because of how much business is at stake."
I can't tell you the number of times I have heard this rationalization. Sadly, what blows me away is the number of times I have heard it when somebody is trying to land a new customer - but then I never hear from these same people a year or two later expressing what the long-term results have been. Why do salespeople or sales managers never share with me the long-term outcome of such "price reduction" strategy? Because it never works out the way the salesperson or the sales manager initially believes it will.
Let's look at this from the customer's perspective. If you bought something at one price, don't you think you would be able to buy it again at the same price? Sure you would. So why do you as a salesperson think that increasing the price after the initial sale is going to go smoothly?
Cutting your price to secure the initial deal only does one thing - it takes profit out of your pocket.
Many of you are thinking that this is all right, because all that is being lost is some profit on the initial sale. My experience is you're giving up profit not only on the initial sale, but also on any future sales to come.
The reason is simple (so simple, in fact, that I can't believe so many salespeople still think slashing price on the initial sale is a viable option). The first price the customer gets is what they believe is the right price with the right value. If the price is higher, they believe it to be unfair.
Sales motivation takes an even greater dive when the customer is ready for the next purchase, and the salesperson begins to wander down a dangerous path. The salesperson justifies in their own mind why increasing the price is just "not the right thing to do" and will "jeopardize the long-term value of the customer." In the blink of an eye, with that one thought, the salesperson has committed themselves to lower profit on a going-forward basis (maybe even indefinitely. Yikes!).
As tempting as it might be to cut your price to gain a new customer, don't do it!
If you can't land the customer at the profit margin your business plan is built upon, then that particular customer is not worth having. Think I'm crazy? Run the numbers over the long-term and you will see what I mean.
To avoid being in the situation where you feel desperate to get a sale "at all costs," here are some strategies to put in place:
First, maintain a strong pipeline of prospective customers. Discounting is far more prevalent when a salesperson believes the sale on which they are currently working is the only sale they are going to get.
Second, never attempt to close a sale until the customer has identified to you the specific objectives and you've had the opportunity to explore the needs they have. When the customer understands the benefits you're helping them with and the gains they're going to get from those benefits, then you're in a much better position to close the sale by not having to discount your price.
Too many times, the salesperson gets taken down the price discount road only because they have not taken the time upfront to get the customer to fully explain the benefits they're looking for. As tempting as it can be to close a sale quickly, the pressure of the price discount is many times what emerges when you attempt to close too early. Allow the customer to verbally describe the benefits for which they are looking. This gives you time to expand on them and, in turn, help the customer see the full value of what it is you're offering them.
Protect your profit. Protect your sales motivation. Both are too valuable to toss aside, all in the name of making a sale.

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