The Seeker's List: Business

•  

  Here are the six steps  you have to take to nail a sale — over time.

   

   

   

  Establish  awareness
  Before people will buy, you need to introduce them to who  you are, what you sell and what your business stands for.

   

   

   

  How? Use  advertising, publicity, community relations and networking to gain awareness.  Or, customers can do it for you with word-of-mouth introductions, which you can  encourage by inviting and rewarding referrals.

   

   

   

  Develop  interest
  Follow first impressions with information on how and why to  obtain more information. Help prospects see that what you’re offering fulfills  their wants and needs, prompting them to take a closer look.

   

   

   

  How? Use sales  literature, demonstrations and your Web site. Testimonials with endorsements  from those already sold on your offerings can be extremely  effective.

   

   

   

   

  Create trust  and desire
  As soon as prospects think, “This sounds like something  I’m interested in,” convert their interest to the belief that what your  offering is trustworthy, of high value and something they want or need.  

   

   

   

  How? Use  personal and video presentations, product samples and special or trial  offers

• Watch for cues  that it’s time to close the sale
  Once the prospect gains awareness,  interest and desire, ask for his order.

   

   

   

  How? Prompt  the purchase as soon as you see these indications that the prospect is ready to  buy:

   

   

   

  Nonverbal  buying cues: Increased eye contact, open body language, nodding,  agreeing, enthusiastic responses, making calculations, reaching for a pen or  billfold.

   

   

   

  Verbal buying  cues: Increased questions about product usage, price and product  details, customization options, payment plans, delivery schedules.
• For complicated  purchases, consider involving the customer in the closing; for instance, “Let’s  work out a closing schedule that gets you moved in by August.”

• Each of these steps is  a must-do to close the deal. And they’re all about planning in advance. No  matter what you’re selling, create a plan for leading prospects from awareness  to interest to desire to purchase — and to the launch of a rewarding customer  relationship. That’s the real art of the sale.

2 more annotations...

• Growth slid to two per cent in 2008/09, barely outpacing population growth. The  government expects growth of 3.3 per cent this fiscal year, to the end of June  2010. The Asian Development Bank this week forecast growth of two per cent in  2009 rising to three per cent in 2010
• One ramification of the shortfall was that the government has had to borrow from  the banking system which has meant less funds were available for the private  sector, it said.
  
• The economy has shown signs of stabilising. Inflation in August eased to 10.69  per cent, its lowest in 20 months, while the current account deficit in the  first two months of the 2009/10 fiscal year was $527 million, compared with a  deficit of $2.68 billion in the same period last year.
   
  * Foreign  exchange reserves have risen to $14.36 billion compared with $6.6 billion in  November of last year with remittances rising 31.78 per cent to a record $780.53  million.
   
  * The main Karachi Stock Exchange index has gained 60.9  per cent this year after losing 58.3 per cent in 2008. The rupee, which fell  22.12 per cent against the dollar in 2008, has lost 4.6 per cent this year.
  

1 more annotation...

• The greatest contribution of benchmarking to any firm is the discipline it  introduces through the systematic and periodic measurement of activity levels.  It is very difficult to improve performance if you have no metric to indicate  where you stand and where your performance is varying. Once you start examining  your performance on a regular basis, you will discover insights into what you  are doing well and where you are falling down. Benchmarking with other firms  often provides the discipline to do the job properly.