The ninth and final day (well maybe…there is a rescheduled day due to the fire on day 3) was delivered by Leigh Ashton, Managing director of The Sales Consultancy. Straight away she set the tone of the day with her positive and direct sales attitude which became slightly infectious after a while, even to a slightly cynical designer like myself. However we quickly realised her presentation style wasn’t by chance, it was a honed and highly developed sales tool.

Get yourself noticed
The first step in any successful marketing/sales plan is to define the key steps you need to reach a goal. Five seems to be the magic number, because as for the 5S system of Lean manufacture, Leigh had also settled on five keys ideas for success. They are as follows:

• Clarify outcomes
• Take action
• Be aware
• Be Flexible
• Rapport

The last idea of rapport instantly stood out as the most important part of sales success. Whether your communicating through marketing or directly with a potential customer it is the rapport you have with them that will ultimately determine the sale. Subsequently creating this rapport with the customer should be the main focus of any sales/marketing department. We also learned that when communicating it is important to step away from company-centric “we” language and start to use the more customer-centric “you”. This language shift engages the customer more lets you be more responsive to the their actual needs and wants, rather than just spouting on about the “features” of your business.

Using these 5 keys to success we went through how companies get attention in the market. Advertising, direct mail, telemarketing and PR were amongst the topics discussed. It was especially helpful being from a small company with a limited marketing budget to get some hints and tips about what routes to market are more effective than others. There was also an opportunity to share some of our (Pli’s) experiences of marketing furniture products for a small company’s perspective.

Communicating and Influencing
In the afternoon session Leigh focused on the sales pitch and how we communicate with a customer. Firstly we dissected the different aspects of communicating;

• Words
• Tonality
• Physiology

Having dealt moe or less with ‘Words’ in the morning session through marketing, we now looked at how Tonality and Physiology could effect the rapport with the customer. Understanding these two areas of communication can help a sales teams discover clues and strategies in dealing with different types of customers. For instance knowing whether a customer is a visual communicator or a auditory (hearing) based communicator lets you adapt your style of language to engage them more effectively. Another interesting, if not kind spooky, part of the session was her ability to use the tonality of her voice and philological signals like mimicry to influence a room of people.

The last section of the day looked directly at the ‘Pitch’. Obviously knowing what to say and when is the difference between a good sale and looking like a complete novice, so it was interesting to see where things were going well and places where we have been dropping the ball. We first looked at the power of the ‘open question’ to find out key information about the customer and keep them talking. This again helps with the rapport and lets you form a stronger relationship with the customer. Again the stronger relationship the more likely the sale but also this relationship also may go further and lead to subsequent business thorough customer referrals.

The next variation in the ‘pitch’ looked at the pain vs gain motivations of a customer. Why people want your product can be broken down into two categories, what a ‘gain’ do they get from it or does it ‘pain’ alleviate. Understanding these motivations can let you tailor your pitch accordingly. People who by for ‘gain’ want to hear what the product will give them, for example take a product thats point of difference is speed, you would sell this product using the pitch “you can be faster if you buy my product”. On the flip side, people who buy to get rid of ‘pain’ don’t care about what they get, they just want to hear about the problems that will disappear. Here you have to sell the concept of speed differently, the pain you have where speed is the solution is that you are slow, so the pitch would now be “are you tired of being slow, then buy my product”. Knowing this can set you down the right path and save you a poorly directed pitch.

Lastly we summed up with by going through two checklists one for preparing and the other for reviewing a pitch, both useful tools in formalising each process for better results. She did give also reveal her secret to closing deal ,but that i will keep close to my chest.

All and all a really worthwhile day. I learned an awful lot of hints, tips and strategies that will make a big difference here at Pli. So if you get a chance to attend a Sales Consultancy seminar or need some advice on sales I highly recommend getting in touch with them.