Your Personal Bias May Be Costing You Money
What kind of buyer are you?
If you are normally a ‘price’ buyer and your prospective customer raises objections to the price, you may be more open to accept their objection as real.
If you are the kind of person who tends to ‘think it over’ before you buy and your customer says, “I want to think it over;” you may tend to go along, as this objection makes senses or sounds rational. After all, that is the way ‘you’ buy.
The objection you will normally find the most challenging will be the one that is the most‘consistent’ with your own value system and past track record.
By accepting sales objections that make sense or resonate with you, because you can relate to them, you are essentially projecting your personal attitudes into the sales process. Hold on!
This is not your role as a selling professional. And, for the record, just because someone says the price is too high, does not always mean ‘they’ believe it. I’ve had folks say ‘that’ and go on to invest even more in the final results.
When you project your personal bias into the sales process you wrongly assume that everyone buys like you do and for the same reasons. And, conversely, that they don’t buy for the same reasons.
People make decisions to buy for their own reasons. Sometimes they even buy items they don’t need. And, as you probably know they don’t always tell you (the sales person) the truth.
This erroneous attitude and action will cost you customers and money.
Your role is to be a neutral in the sales process, there to help, to provide solid resources, to guide, and to nudge for a buying decision. So, check your bias at the door and step onto the sales floor ready to be a selling professional.
Are you consistent with what you are selling?
Here is another area of challenge for you as a selling professional. For example, if you are in retail selling home furnishings, your store would be professionally designed and laid out, room settings and groupings are accessorized, and it is kept clean to help you sell. You would invest time and money to ensure your prospective clients got a good impression when they walk in the door, wouldn’t you?
Take a look in the mirror:
- Is your image consistent with what you are selling?
- Are you well groomed, your clothing pressed, shoes shined, wearing a genuine smile, to present a professional image?
- Do you invest in your professional image to ensure your client’s first impressions are good ones?
Consistency in presentation works to provide a positive image and to build and reinforce your credibility as a selling professional.
