Chapter 35 Chapter 3 Visiting Customers: Talking to Customers Face to Face

The concept of "as long as you work hard, you can sell" is outdated, replaced by "planning carefully, saving time and effort".The first face-to-face communication with customers and effectively visiting customers is the first step towards success.Only well-prepared customer visits can make progress. Your willingness and ability to prepare carefully is critical to your future success and ability to acquire the wealth you want.Our rule is: Whenever in doubt, overprepare!You certainly won't regret the extensive preparation you've put in to visit your clients.The effort you put in to prepare will often be the key factor in getting that deal.

For a novice, careful preparation has more benefits: With a plan, there will be a coping strategy during the interview, because sometimes impromptu strategies on the spot have little success.With thorough consideration in advance, you can flex freely when the scene changes without panic.With adequate preparation, self-confidence will increase and the mind will be more stable. At this stage, you should gather as much information as possible about the company the client or prospect works for.Gather this information online, at your local library, in newspapers, or through other sources.And when you collect information about a company, you can go there to visit, or ask someone from that company to send you product information brochures and other sales materials that they have recently used to develop the company's market.After getting the materials, read them through and take notes on the main points in them.The more research you do up front, the more informed and intelligent you will be when you finally sit down and talk to your client.

If the customer you are facing is a commercial enterprise, then do your best to understand the company's products, services, development history, competitors and current business activities.Our principle is that if the information is not prepared enough, then do not ask your potential customers any questions, nothing can destroy the trust of customers in an instant like "what does your company do?" . Asking this kind of question tells the potential client that you didn't spend any effort doing research before the visit.This is definitely not the message you want to convey to your client during the first contact.

If the customer you are facing is an individual, such as selling insurance, as a marketer, you should not only obtain the basic information of the potential customer, such as the other party's personality, educational background, living standard, hobbies, social scope, habits and hobbies, etc. The names of good friends, etc., but also to know the current proud or distressed things of the other party, such as moving to a new house, getting married, having a baby, children going to college, or work stress, financial strain, full of pressure, insomnia, poor health, etc.For these situations, you can learn as much as possible from the recommender, or you can go to their community, inquire from neighbors, or get some information from the website of the company where they are employed.In conclusion, the more you know, the easier it will be to determine the best way to speak to your customers.

For channel salespersons, before visiting customers, it is necessary to know in advance whether the other party is a key customer or a general customer, so as to formulate a visiting strategy.For example, if a salesperson plans to visit the manager of a certain supermarket, he must know the general situation of the supermarket well before departure, including the supermarket's purchasing decision makers, market sales conditions, and credit conditions. To fully grasp your company's sales policies, price policies, and promotion policies, especially when the company introduces new sales policies, price policies, and promotion policies, you must understand the details of the new policies.When a company launches a new product, marketers must also grasp the features and selling points of the new product.Knowledge about the company and the industry, product knowledge of the company and other companies, etc.

Set the purpose of this visit.What kind of purpose do you want to achieve through this visit, whether to enhance emotional communication or promote customer purchase. We must make it very clear that the purpose of every visit by the salesperson is different, such as courtesy visits, product descriptions and demonstrations, order signing, payment collection, after-sales service, complaint handling, referral requests, etc.According to the statistics of the American Marketing Association, 80% of sales cases require more than 5 visits, 48% of the salesmen give up after one visit, 25% give up after two visits, and only 10% of them insist on more than five visits.This statistical data tells us that very few salesmen achieve the purpose of signing the order through one visit. It takes about five steps from the first contact to the signing of the order. It would be good if each visit can achieve one purpose. So don't rush for quick success.

Who are you going to meet?What are you going to ask him?What kind of result do you hope to get through this visit?This is what you need to know before visiting.At this stage, you should think carefully about the details of the visit in advance and plan carefully. It's a good idea to write down your questions on paper so that you can bring them up when you're communicating with the client.Clients love visitors who have a well-prepared written outline. Here's a really great trick that most top sales professionals use, and that's to prepare a "question list" before calling on a client.Make a list of the questions you want to ask, in order from broad to specific, with spaces between them.

When you meet with a potential client, say, "Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to meet with me. I know your time is precious, so I've created an agenda for our meeting where we can discuss some of the above questions one by one. item to explore. This is your share." Doing so shows that you respect the client's time and that you have prepared for the meeting in advance.Then you follow this list of questions and take out your questions one by one to ask the customer, and during this period you can ask new questions at any time.If this method is implemented correctly, it will help you become a real consultant rather than a product salesperson, which will greatly help you in the future.

You can maintain a good image by striving to be natural in clothing, appearance, manners, and even facial expressions. How to enter the door is the biggest problem we have encountered. A good start is half the battle, and 75% of the opportunities can be grasped at the same time. "If a worker wants to do a good job, he must first sharpen his tools." In addition to the spirit of perseverance, an excellent salesperson has a complete set of sales tools is an absolutely indispensable fighting weapon.There is a saying circulating in Taiwan's business circles that "sales tools are like the sword of a knight", and salesmen must bring any information that can promote sales.Surveys show that when salespeople visit customers, using sales tools can reduce labor costs by 50%, increase success rate by 10%, and improve sales quality by 100%.Sales tools include product brochures, corporate promotional materials, business cards, calculators, notebooks, pens, price lists, promotional materials, etc.

If you make an appointment with the customer in advance, you should arrive on time. Arriving too early will put a certain amount of pressure on the customer, and arriving too late will convey the message "I don't respect you" to the customer. At the same time, it will also make the customer feel distrustful. It is best to arrive 5 to 7 minutes in advance to prepare before entering the door. Sales start with rejection.The reasons for rejection by potential customers are varied and countless.Usually there are the following types: the price is too expensive, other products are cheaper; the quality of the product is not good; the service is not thoughtful; the company is unreliable;Therefore, the salesperson must be confident about how to answer these questions before going out, and will be able to cope with it when they meet.

Confidence preparation: Facts have proved that the psychological quality of marketers is an important reason for success or failure. Highlight your best personality, make yourself popular, and maintain a positive and optimistic attitude. Knowledge preparation: door-to-door visits are warm-up activities before sales activities. The most important thing at this stage is to create opportunities. The way to create opportunities is to raise topics that the other party cares about. Rejection preparation: most customers are friendly, think about it from another angle, usually in the initial stage of contacting strangers, everyone will have instinctive resistance and ways to protect themselves, just find an excuse to push you away, not really hate you . Smile Preparation: If you want others to treat you, treat them first. Many salespeople always envy those successful people, thinking that they are always too lucky, but they are always unlucky.Facts have proved that good luck exists, but good luck always favors honest and passionate people! We also prepare for the analysis after the visit, because the end of this visit is the beginning of the next visit.For a successful sale, after the call you should take some time to recall and write down every single piece of information from the conversation that just ended.Don't trust your memory too much, and don't wait until the day is over to recall the client conversation.Write everything down in your notebook that you can recall, and you'll see later how helpful this record is in turning a prospect into a real customer. Later, when you revisit this client, take a few minutes to review what you wrote down.Once you do this, you will be mentally sharp and confident about the client and his current situation. In addition to products, some details of the sales staff in visiting customers also have an important impact on the success rate of sales. Experts say: the best dress scheme is "customer + 1", which is only "a little better" than the customer's dress, which can not only show respect for the customer, but also not widen the distance between the two parties.Dressing that contrasts too much with the person being interviewed will make the other person feel uncomfortable, and virtually distance them from each other.For example, the building materials salesperson often visits the designer and the general contracting construction management personnel. Of course, the former needs a shirt and tie to show your professional image; the latter would be inappropriate if they are dressed the same, because the construction site environment is limited, and the staff cannot pay attention to the attire. , If you wear too good clothes to go to the construction site, not to mention talking to customers, it may be difficult to find a place to sit. Most of the phone calls are a characteristic of salespersons, and it seems impossible to talk to customers without a phone call.However, most of our sales staff are very polite and will formally ask the other party for permission before answering the phone. Generally speaking, the other party will say no problem generously.In fact, the other party said in his heart: "It seems that the person on the phone is more important than me, why does he talk for so long?" So the salesperson must not answer the phone during the first or important visit.If the caller is really an important person, you should hang up quickly after answering the call, and then call after the meeting is over. When the salesperson says "we", it will give the other party a psychological hint: the salesperson and the customer are together, and they think about the problem from the perspective of the customer. Although it is only one more word than "I", it is more A little closer.Salespeople in the north have some advantages when working in the south. Northerners like to say "we", while southerners are used to saying "I". During the visit, write down the time and place and the name and title of the customer; write down the customer's needs; promise the customer what to do; the time of the next visit; your own work summary and experience.This is definitely a good work practice for salespeople.Another advantage is that when you listen to customers while taking notes piously, in addition to encouraging customers to speak out more about their needs, a feeling of being respected also arises in the hearts of customers, and your next sales Work will be much smoother. Regarding this point, young sales novice should pay special attention.Young people are quick-witted and eloquent, and they speak at a fast pace like firing a machine gun regardless of who they are talking to. When encountering customers who are elderly, they will not be able to keep up with their thinking.There is a salesman who is good at project sales. This person is not good at words, and there are not many good skills in sales technology, but he has a good relationship with the supervisors in the project, and the supervisors are generally old engineers who are about 60 years old and will retire. He has a lot of research on the psychology of the elderly, and he will gain something after talking slowly with the supervisor every time.Eventually the veteran engineers all became staunch supporters of the product being adopted in their projects. If you want to achieve the purpose of sales more efficiently, you must study the excuses for revisiting customers.Here are 20 different excuses for revisiting. If you can use them well, you will definitely increase the chances of revisiting many times. General salesmen always hand out business cards to customers immediately when they meet. This is a relatively traditional sales method, but it is inevitably a mere formality. Unexpected result. This is also a good method, because customers usually don't want to give business cards to unknown salespersons, especially new salespeople who don't know, so customers use the excuse that the business cards have been used up or have not yet been printed, instead of giving them.At this time, there is no need to force it. Instead, you can deliberately forget about it and take this rejection as an opportunity for you to visit again. If you have a different business card, you can use the reason of changing the business card or promotion to visit again, but special attention should be paid to avoid giving the same business card to the customer, so as not to be misleading. It is best to indicate which one has been used in the customer management information. A business card or use the date of visit to identify. When the customer is not very able to accept but is too embarrassed to refuse, he usually asks the salesperson to leave the information and contact him after reading it.At this time, experienced salesmen will never be fooled, because this is just an excuse for the customer to order to evict the customer. After the information is given, it may not be long before it will be thrown into the trash can, so even if the customer asks for it, he must politely decline it. But before you leave, let us know that it will be sent to you next time you visit.If you forget to leave an excuse for revisiting, you can also use other titles, such as "the material has been revised and printed, and it is specially sent for your reference" or "customers are too eager to ask for it, so the company keeps reprinting it again and again. delivered." This material must be something that customers have never seen before. Professional sales staff should have several different promotional materials in order to provide different materials for different customer needs. If you find news or statistics related to commodities published in newspapers or magazines, which are enough to arouse customers' interest, you can immediately show them to customers or ask for advice. Before leaving, the salesperson must explain the importance of the information and make an appointment to retrieve it at the next meeting. If the customer doesn’t want to keep it, it’s okay, just put it down and leave. The customer dare not throw away the information even if they don’t read it.Remember, the interval between the next appointment should not be too long, otherwise you may even forget such a thing. Explain that you happened to be looking for friends nearby or visiting customers, or even just completed a transaction, but you must not say that you came to visit. Special attention should be paid to this point, so as not to make customers feel disrespected.At the same time, it should also be noted that there is no need to deliberately explain the excuse of the visit, so as not to draw more and more black and ask for trouble. This is not to test the client, but to understand the client's professional knowledge, so don't ask too difficult questions, it is better to be a "discussion topic" that can give the client room to express. Visiting through a third party will bring pressure to the client, especially when accompanied by your supervisor, which can improve persuasiveness.Because the boss assists the salesperson to develop performance, the possibility of closing the transaction will be greatly improved. This is the best time to reach customers and the best way to operate.Of course, the size of the gift has to be determined by oneself. Only customers who are very likely to make a deal can give a heavier gift, otherwise they may lose their wife and lose their army. This needs to be judged clearly first. Using the opportunity to give away a client's company publication for free as an excuse to revisit is also quite appropriate.For example, some companies will publish some monthly, weekly, daily or market news, and send monthly calendars, calendars and other materials during the Chinese New Year. The products to be sold can be combined into many different combinations. Some people call them "suits". If you can remember the birthday of the customer or his family in time, then go to the customer and send a birthday card or flowers at that time, which is also an effective way to impress the customer. If you can provide information briefing sessions on the latest products to enhance customers' understanding of the products, or provide free prizes, I believe many people will come to participate.When the salesperson gives the invitation card to the customer, he can briefly explain the content of the lecture, and ask him to come and guide him before he leaves. Design several different questionnaires for customers to fill out. The content of the questionnaire is mainly to understand the customer's acceptance and concept of the products to be sold, or the degree of preference for the products. Take advantage of the opportunity of the market to release important news, provide market personnel or your own opinions to customers for reference, make customers feel honored, and thus shorten the distance between each other. "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be imperiled in a hundred battles." Collecting dynamic information from related industries as a reference can not only serve as a basis for improving one's own products, but also give examples of other people's successful experiences. Attract customers to accept commodity prices with benefits, thereby triggering their desire to buy commodities.For example, when some products are on special sale, they often use the strategy of "buy one get one free" and "buy 1000 get a discount coupon"; another example is that credit card companies offer points for consumption in exchange for gifts, all of which can arouse customers' desire to buy Methods. Instead of trying to find reasons for your actions and hesitate, it is more effective to directly visit the door.Although it is more abrupt and may hit a wall, it is also an opportunity to train your ability and courage.