In a down economy, generating sales leads is the key to survival. Discover how to turn prospects into customers and drive business growth. Download your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

1. The right to begin the interaction. Buyers would prefer to choose when to engage with a salesperson. They should be attracted by price, style, quality, or brand, and then they are more than willing to enter into a discussion with you. It is alienating to your customers if you are selling before a need, or a reason for the sale has been established.

2. The right to open his or her wallet. The buyer decides who they will give their hard-earned money to, when they will give it, and how much they are willing to give. Salespeople should avoid looking at a customer as just a potential sale, and try to see them as people who work just as hard as they do for their money. Don’t dip your hand in their wallet the first chance you get; show them the benefits of buying from you first.

3. The right to say no. At the buying “decision point,” buyers have a right to say yes or no. If they say yes, great! If they say no, then it’s an opportunity to understand why. The reason may be the price point or the wrong features for what the customer was looking for. Look for ways to ask about “no.” It often can feed you better information for future sales.

In a down economy, generating sales leads is the key to survival. Discover how to turn prospects into customers and drive business growth. Download your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

1. Sell solutions. As much as it sounds like a buzzword, prospects are most apt to buy if you pitch your offering as a solution. Not just any solution, but one they need. Take the time to identify your prospects’ problems and the issues underlying those problems, and you will be far better prepared to sell them something they need, and they will know it.

2. Recognize the status quo. Work-arounds that only “fix” the problem temporarily only serve to maintain the status quo. You will need to explore the historic background behind the problem your prospect is looking to solve and be able to identify the flaws in current systems if you want to successfully battle the status quo.

3. Be patient. A buyer will always explore the familiar solutions to an issue before coming to a vendor for a costly solution, even if the current situation is costing them more than your solution. One of the most successful sales techniques is to prompt the prospect toward your solution, but be prepared to wait while he or she explores internal solutions to the problem before committing to you.

—Sean Carty

In a down economy, generating sales leads is the key to survival. Discover how to turn prospects into customers and drive business growth. Download your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

1. Keep it simple. Your primary competitor is your customers’ valuable time. Once you understand their needs, use that information to get the right message across in a 90-word email or single-page sales letter.

2. Be invaluable. After a few pitches or transactions with a customer, they probably assume you are “good enough” — as competent as your competition. To stand out, it’s crucial to quickly establish trust. To do that, treat customers as if they’ve already hired you. Instead of espousing your skills and worth, focus on your customers’ needs.

3. Always align. Are your sales prospecting techniques in line with your customer’s needs? Konrath uses the example of a company that stopped focusing on the savings provided by its document management solutions, which were not overwhelming, in favor of the reduced order processing time. Suddenly, customers found the impact they were looking for.

4. Elevate priorities. Create a list of events that could change the sales environment for your company. It might include legislative changes, trends impacting the customer base, economic conditions, mergers, or the announcement of a new product. If you can beat your competition to the punch, you’ll have gained an immeasurable advantage and left the D-Zone for good.

—Laura Paquette

Learn more by downloading your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

• Maintain eye contact. Look your customer in the eye and maintain your focus on his or her message. This simple act allows you to better connect with your customer and shows respect when he or she is speaking.

• Don’t interrupt. Stifle the desire to jump in with information or questions while your customer is speaking. Powerful salespeople show their sense of security and appreciation of a customer by not interrupting during conversations.

• Avoid distractions. Turn off your cell phone during face-to-face customer meetings so you can focus your attention on them. If the meeting takes place in your office, turn off your computer to resist distractions.

• Take notes. Nothing shows respect to a customer better than taking notes during a face-to-face meeting. In fact, many experts believe this is one of the most successful sales techniques.

• Ask questions with sincere interest. Listen and keep an open mind to truly understand the viewpoints of your customer. Ask questions to hone in on what your customer’s needs are. Then, ask additional questions to help position yourself for a sale.

Step 1: Raise awareness. Before buyers fall in love with your product or service, they must know it exists. That can be done any number of ways, from sending out direct mail and email blasts to cold calling to connecting via social media. If you run an Internet ad campaign, be sure the sales force understands who you’re targeting and why the message will appeal to prospects. With direct mail and opt-in email marketing, have the sales team make follow-up calls. Lastly, have sales and marketing meet regularly to discuss campaign results and better ways to create more powerful messages.

Step 2: Provide information. When potential buyers hear about your product or service, they want to learn more. Marketing must provide literature to support the sales effort. The information must offer tangible evidence of benefits.

In a down economy, generating sales leads is the key to survival. Discover how to turn prospects into customers and drive business growth. Download your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

Step 3: Evaluate. Once the buyer is serious, they will consider the risks and rewards of doing business with you. They will compare you to the competition. Face-to-face selling is one of the more effective sales conversion techniques because you can provide answers to buyers’ most pressing questions. Marketing must arm the sales team with testimonials, case studies, and guarantees.

Step 4: Secure a purchase. The buyer buys because you provided them with the right information in the right way at the right time. Now, the salesperson must send a personal thank you note. The goal is to ensure the purchaser feels happy about their decision.

Step 5: Re-evaluate. Will the customer buy from you again? Now’s the time to guard against complacency and continue to provide value. Make customers glad they chose you and you’ll reap the benefits of good word-of-mouth advertising and future sales.

In a down economy, generating sales leads is the key to survival. Discover how to turn prospects into customers and drive business growth. Download your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

• Think simplicity. The last thing overwhelmed, chronically multitasking people need is more complexity. Make sure all decisions can be made easily, and all tasks the customer must perform are manageable.

• Become invaluable. Customers are very mistrustful of attaching the word “unique” to anything — they believe that even if your company is special now, competitors will soon catch up. You must become invaluable to your frazzled customers. Prove to them that you are smart, savvy, and, most important, there to help.

• Stay aligned. One of the most successful sales techniques is to convince your potential customers that your product or service is relevant to them. Make sure you understand the customer’s needs and challenges before pitching anything; use case studies they can identify with; share values that are consistent with the corporate culture; and show that you’re knowledgeable about the customer’s industry.

• Fulfill customers’ priorities. The ever-changing and busy lives of customers mean that their tasks and priorities are always changing. Target customers who will find your product or service vital, and be sure to maintain that importance. Constant follow-up emails or calls won’t get you anywhere.

— Jessica Saint Jean

In a down economy, generating sales leads is the key to survival. Discover how to turn prospects into customers and drive business growth. Download your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

1. Client to client. This referral is typically to someone outside your customer’s company. Upon making an introduction, immediately let them know that you have a successful relationship with a mutual contact, and based on your past success, the contact suggested you contact them. You are calling with the purpose of earning their business. Don’t expect to have business handed to you; you have to impress the new client. Be professional and respectful. Once you have established some rapport with the new client, you have to earn his or her trust.

2. Client to coworker. This requires a little more hand-holding. Your goal is to have your client champion you in other departments at his or her company based on the added value you bring to the table. Lunch meetings or joint conference calls are great ways to get introduced. Make sure you are on your game and prepared to put your best foot forward.

In a down economy, generating sales leads is the key to survival. Discover how to turn prospects into customers and drive business growth. Download your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

1. Wrong level of abstraction. When you analyze your sales techniques, are you providing the big picture and generalities when your listeners are hungry for details, facts, and specific how-tos? Or are you drowning them in data? Get on the same wavelength with your prospects. For first contacts with executives, describe what your company can do for them in broad generalities. With middle managers, discuss exactly how you can work together, a medium level of abstraction. If you are dealing with IT professionals, use the lowest level of abstraction, lots of facts and figures.

2. No pauses. Few sales presentations have enough pauses. Good music and good communication both contain changes of pace, pauses, and full rests. One of the most effective sales conversion techniques is to give prospects enough time to ask a question or even time to think over what has been said. Pauses allow pondering and understanding.

3. Irritating non-words. Hmm … ah … er. These non-words might be okay occasionally, but not every 30 seconds. Practice in front of your sales manager or colleagues, or video yourself and note any digressions.

4. Not having a strong opening and closing. Engage your audience immediately with a powerful, relevant opening that includes them. For example, “You have an awesome responsibility.” Then fill in what it is: increasing sales, reducing errors, cutting overhead, whatever your product can help your prospect do. Another excellent strategy is to do some research. Then you can say, “Congratulations on your company’s recent success,” and describe it.

5. Misusing technology. Too many salespeople rely heavily on their PowerPoint and flip charts and do not ever make an emotional connection. Technology is usually much more exciting to the person who created it than the person who is watching or listening to it. PowerPoint presentations tend to be wholly informational and don’t connect emotionally to the audience. Make technology a support, not a crutch.

In a down economy, generating sales leads is the key to survival. Discover how to turn prospects into customers and drive business growth. Download your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

1. Unclear thinking. If you can’t describe the objective of your interaction in one sentence, you may be guilty of fuzzy focus, trying to say too much at once. You’ll confuse your listener, and that won’t help you make the sale. At any stage of the sales process, you should know in advance why you are interacting, what benefits you are offering your prospect or client, and what you’d like the next step to be.

2. No clear structure. Make it easy for your prospect to follow what you are saying, whether in a casual conversation or a formal presentation of information and ideas. They’ll remember it better — and you will, too. If you waffle or ramble, you lose your listeners. Even for a conversation, mentally outline your objectives. What key “points of wisdom” do you want the prospect to remember? How will you illustrate each point? What phrases or slogans do you want to guarantee they will repeat afterward? You speak to be remembered and repeated.

3. Talking too much. Salespeople often talk too much about themselves and their service or product. They make a speech rather than having an exchange or interaction, otherwise known as a conversation. Ask questions, and wait for, and listen to, the answers. In fact, a successful encounter early in the sales process should probably be mostly open-ended questions, the kind that require longer answers rather than just “yes” and “no.” Learn to listen, even pausing to wait for further comments.

4. No memorable stories. Regardless of your sales techniques, people rarely remember your exact words. Instead, they remember the mental images your words inspire. Support your key points with vivid, relevant stories. Help them “make the movie” in their minds by using memorable characters, exciting situations, intriguing dialogue, suspense, and humor. Telling stories of satisfied clients and painting a picture of how this client’s condition will be improved with your product or service are appropriate.

5. No third-person endorsements. When it comes to successful sales techniques, there’s a limit to how many bold claims you can make about your company and product results, but there is no limit to the words of praise you can put in the mouths of your delighted clients. Use case histories of your clients’ success stories about the benefits they received from your service or product. When you are using their actual dialogue, you can say much more glowing things about yourself and your company than you could if the words were your own.

6. No emotional connection. The most effective sales conversion techniques combine both intellectual and emotional connections. Intellectual means appealing to educated self-interest with data and reasoned arguments. Emotion comes from engaging listeners’ imaginations, involving them in your illustrative stories by frequent use of the word “you” and from answering their unspoken question, “What’s in this for me?” Obviously, a customer is going to justify doing business with you for specific analytical reasons. What gives you the edge is creating an emotional connection, too.

In a down economy, generating sales leads is the key to survival. Discover how to turn prospects into customers and drive business growth. Download your free copy of Effective Sales Techniques: How to Sell in Boom Times or a Recession without cost or obligation.

PROBLEM: Even though Cecile Rothschild’s business, Create and Associates, was doing well and she had a steady stream of prospective clients, the work was not always the best match for her design firm. Her lack of a sales and strategic planning background, she felt, was putting her Armonk, N.Y.–based company at a disadvantage. “I’ve been successful for 15 years by word of mouth,” she says. “But especially in a bad economy, I had to look at what I could do better in terms of sales and strategy.” Rothschild recognized that she needed a plan. “When it’s word of mouth, it’s whatever comes my way,” she notes. “And some jobs may not be appropriate. I needed to learn how to think long term and how to present my company.”

SOLUTION: A friend introduced Rothschild to Jenine Lepera Izzi, owner of salesSpectrum, a New York company that provides customized sales training and consulting services. “The fact that she was teaching a sales course at NYU gave me confidence,” says Rothschild. Using salesSpectrum’s modular training program called the Right to Sell, Izzi worked with Rothschild on business development skills as well as sales techniques that work. “We analyzed step by step what needs to be done,” Rothschild says. “We put together a sales plan that has attainable goals — it really helped me think about what would be good accounts.”

Initially, Rothschild was surprised at how accessible she found the concepts: “I had no sales training or background in this area, but the training was eye-opening and not difficult to follow.” She reports that learning strategic sales planning was worth the time and effort. “Things are looking good,” she says. “I’m keeping very busy and the steps we established are helping. I’ve gained a lot of confidence. I was intimidated by the whole idea of sales training, but now I’m convinced this project is in my best interests.”