How to motivate your client to buy: develop a dialog with your client that inspires commitment - magazine advertisers

A space sales rep who is more trained in the techniques of closing and overcoming objections, and less trained in the art of understanding clients and their businesses, is less likely to make a continuing series of sales. Through luck and persistence, however, such a space rep will make calls, give presentations and gather orders. But the question is, how many of those orders would have come in eventually anyway? The untold truth of space selling is that most advertising space is not sold--it is bought.

Motivating a client to buy--as opposed to pressuring the client into a sale--means persuading the client that it is to his or her advantage to buy from you. Motivating a client to buy starts with knowing a client and his or her needs. It begins with understanding the answers to these three basic questions:

1. How does my client want to be sold? There is no "right" way to sell all clients. Each client is unique. But if you ask the right questions and then keep your mouth shut, one thing every client is dying to tell you is just how he or she wants to be sold. Some clients make an emotional buy; others want to be sold on the basis of pure logic.

2. What does my client want to buy? If you say "my magazine," you are only partly right. Beyond the physical attributes of the publication you sell is the "total product"--a concept that includes an intangible, emotional side.

This means that clients may also be buying safety, friendship, job security, the chance to demonstrate their negotiating ability to a superior, the opportunity to make a change, affiliation with the "hot new thing," better financial arrangements or perhaps simply extra personal attention. The closer in price and features your magazine is to your competitor's, the more important these emotional features will be in making or breaking the sale.

3. Beyond the obvious, does my client have a problem that can be solved by doing business with my magazine? "Beyond the obvious" means understanding your client's business to the point where you can uncover opportunities to work together that other suppliers have not seen. If you sell buttons and your client makes shirts, motivating him to buy more buttons from you is not about hard closing him on next month's order. Motivating the client to buy means understanding his business to the point that you can show him how to change the way he buys or uses buttons that will make his business more profitable or efficient.

Unfortunately, most sales training does not emphasize client understanding, but instead concentrates on the basics of closing, answering objections, presentations, and so on. It took me years of selling to realize that selling is easy; it's understanding that is hard--understanding your clients and their needs. But once you do, how to sell them becomes obvious. Here are ways to deprogram yourself from a technique-oriented selling approach to client-focused selling:

* Stop thinking about your business and start thinking about your clients. It's hard to pay attention to what your client is telling you if you are sitting there waiting for the proper moment to "time the close." If you can tell your client how to make his business more profitable by using your magazine or interfacing with you, he will be motivated to buy from you.

* Stop pitching and start listening. It's hard to listen for client needs and selling opportunities to meet them if you are the one who is doing all the talking. What client needs do you listen for? The best are those that no other vendor has yet responded to. This means more than sitting with your mouth shut; it means probing and listening for undiscovered ways that your magazine can make a client's company more profitable.

* Stop avoiding objections and start encouraging them. If your focus is on avoiding or overcoming objections, you have the wrong attitude. Objections are a salesperson's blessing. They show that someone out there is motivated enough to apply what you are saying to the specifics of his needs. Until a client raises an objection, you are flying blind. An objection is an invitation that quietly says, "Here's an opportunity to sell me, and here is how I want you to do it."

* Stop waiting for the end of a presentation to close; start at the beginning. If you wait until the end of a presentation to make a sale, you've waited too long. During the first few minutes of your first call you should start moving toward a point of commitment by looking for ways you and your client can work together more profitably.

Closing, overcoming objections, and so forth are the basics of selling. But good salespeople need to move up to the next level and make a real connection with the client. Then, true dialog replaces the canned pitch and reflex response. Remember, clients buy for their reasons--not yours.

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