SELLING STRATEGIES by Maura Schreier-Fleming
Maura Schreier-Fleming is a professional salesperson, sales trainer, and motivational speaker. An engineer by training, she was Mobil Oil’s first female lubrication engineer in the U.S. With over 20 years of sales experience, she teaches the art and science of selling with a unique, hands-on perspective and a great deal of real-life insight. She can be reached at Maura@BestatSelling.com or 972.380.0200.
It’s all in your head. You may have heard this if you’re unsuccessful at accomplishing something that you know you can do. So much of selling success is also in your head. Here’s what you can do to destroy the selling demons that you create that hold you back.
tively. That’s what happens with sales call reluctance.
spond and respond differently if you are meeting with a Donald Rumsfeld type versus a Mr. Rogers type. A quick resource if you are deficient in this area is the audio CD “Secrets of Persuasion” at www.BestatSelling.com.
Sales call reluctance is a real issue for
salespeople. I was talking with a sales
manager about selling, persuasion,
and sales call reluctance. He imme-
diately pulled out a sheet of advice
that he gives his salespeople to help
them become more effective in sales.
He rattled off his list: Listen more.
Ask more questions. Be prepared.
Be persuasive. Be more focused. Of
course he’s right. There’s only one
thing wrong with his list. Most sales-
people with even a little bit of expe-
rience know that they need to do all
those things. They know what to do.
So what’s wrong? The problem is that
most unsuccessful salespeople don’t
know how to do all these skills effec-
Think about your own selling. You
probably have to make prospecting
telephone calls. What would you think
if you didn’t know how to quickly
build rapport and begin the sales dia-
logue effectively? Would that discom-
fort make you a little shaky? Probably.
When you get really nervous about it,
the shakiness will lead you to create all
kinds of reasons to avoid selling. That
immobilization is what sales call reluc-
tance is.
Next, you have to know how to create and then ask strategic questions. These questions guide your customer to understand that there is a need or problem and it’s important to act on that need or solve that problem now. What you need is an effective questioning strategy. Read Spin Selling by Neil Rackham. It’s the best questioning strategy that I’ve seen and I’ve adapted it into the Strategic Questioning program that I teach.
Get Out of Your Head
The only way to sell is to learn how to
execute some selling basics. You have
to be skilled in “reading” your custom-
ers so you can figure out how to build
rapport quickly and understand how
your customer wants to buy. When
you know how to skillfully build rap-
port, you build trust quickly and you
can talk with any customer. You have
the confidence to know how to re-
How do you know that your question-
ing strategy is deficient? Here’s how.
Do you start the sales call instead of
end the sales call with a price conversa-
tion? You need a different questioning
strategy. That’s what this sales manag-
er was finding. His salespeople were
always leading with price.
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Vol.20No. 8
Many of your insureds, if they think about personal umbrella policies atall, probably think of them as something that only rich people buy, particularly in the current economy. After all, umbrela policy limits typically run in the $1 million to $10 million range. Most people can’t imagine needing that level of coverage. But realistically, it’s not that difficult to do a million dollars worth of damage. For example, in an auto accident, the insured could seriously injure a family of seven riding in their van or hit a commuter train – mak-ingtheinsuredresponsibleforsomeprettyheftymedicalbills. One unextinguished campfire or cigarette casually tossed into the underbrush can lead to a disastrous wildfire that damages property and injures many people.
• Intentionalacts • Vendors endorsements
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• Number ofuninsured motoristsmayclimb • Who payslegalcosts?
P
• Sleepandjobperformance Umbrella policies vary from insurer to insurer, but most share common elements with Insurance Services Office’s (ISO) umbrella, which our discussion focuses on.
The CSR Advisor
A
• Isallo wingminorstodrink anoccurrence?
A CONTINUING EDUCATION SERVICE FOR INSURANCE PROFESSIONALS
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If a court ordersthe insured to pay damages, the insured has to pay, even if the amount exceeds his or her homeowners or auto policy limits. That could leave the insured in a huge financial mess. Personal umbrella policies are designed to protect the insured against catastrophic losses by providing additional limits for occurrences covered by an underlying primary policy, such as the homeowners, personal auto, or watercraft policy.
• Theimpaired propertyexclusion
February2009
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• Commercial inland marine
Who needs a personal umbrella?
In some cases, the umbrella policy pro vides broader coverage than that offered in u nderlying policies. The policy pays damages for bodily injury, property damage, or personal in jury for which an insured becomes legally liable due to a covered occurrence. There are an umber of exclusions that apply – expected or intended injury, except the use of reasonable force to protect people or property; injury arisin g out of the insured’s business; war; communicable diseases; bodily injury that should be covered by workers compensation; and others. Still, there are typically fe wer or less restrictive
In This Issue:
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• Personalumbrellas
Excess and drop-down coverage
Continuedon page 2
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Now picture yourself ready to make a phone call or make your next sales call. You know how to read people so you are confident that you can implement a strategy of how to talk with that particular customer. You are confident that you can create a sales dialogue that gets you the information you need to show a customer why he should buy from you and pay you what you and your products are worth. When you know how to proceed with each sales call and you feel confident, do you think that you will be a very effective sales professional? I’ll bet you do. Sales call reluctance is the farthest thing from your mind.
Make sure you know how to execute a strategic sales dialogue. It’s not enough to know what to do. You have to know how. If that’s all in your head, that’s all you need to sell successfully.
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