The sales process is a journey.  If the customer doesn’t understand where you’re headed and why they should come along, they won’t.  Making a sale should be easy, especially when you have the right product at the right time in front of the right person.  But too many people try and make it more complicated than it needs to be, and lose the prospective client in the process.

Here’s five “keep it simple” rules which can keep you on track and help get you to a successful close.

Cut to the chase.

A good sales person doesn’t waste time with filler words. They start talking about their product right away. Here’s an example; a website developer calls your company and starts by saying, “I am glad I finally got a hold of you. It took me more than 10 minutes to find your contact information on your website.  My company does web development, and we could help you quickly fix that.  Your customers would then be less frustrated and more easily able to contact you.  Can I go over the site with you and find out what else you might like it to be able to do?”  As the person being pitched, I am now fully engaged in the web developer’s product–because he showed me he did his homework, and can solve a problem I didn’t know I had.

Skip the jargon.

Whether your product is technical in nature or you just tend to be on the know-it-all side of the spectrum, find a simple way to explain your product which anyone can follow. Customers don’t want a lengthy explanation; they want to understand right away.  Recently I was looking to buy a new mattress and was confronted with all kinds of features to choose from.  Rather than use empty pseudo-technical terms like moisture-wick and memory foam, a salesperson carefully went over why his mattress would last longer, how its structure would keep my wife and me from waking each other with our movements, and why the two different materials on its surface would help us be comfortable in any weather.

Paint a picture.

You’ll not always have the luxury of meeting with your customer face to face.  Learn how to describe your product in a way that even someone who’s never seen it can imagine what it is.  Recently I worked with a company who sold products over the phone. They have several items which are made of lesser-known wood species, so they can be hard for the customer to envision. They added a new product to the line and I had not yet seen it, but I heard one of the sales reps describing it to a customer as looking like the inside of a tree when it’s freshly cut.  I knew immediately that it was lighter in color, had a ring pattern, and a visible grain.

Get curious.

When you speak to a customer, concentrate on finding out about the customer instead of making your pitch.  Start by asking open-ended questions, and then by carefully listening to the answers you’ll find you’ll always get further than delivering a monologue.  A bank I never would have considered recently landed a meeting with me because the sales person, after hearing I was not interested in changing credit card processors, asked me if there was anything I was frustrated with at my current bank.  As it happened, there had been a recent frustrating situation with my current bank and I was mad enough to want to talk about it, and he was astute enough to carefully connect my discontent to how his bank is different.

Make it matter.

Your product may have a ton of benefits, but they’re worthless if the customer you’re trying to sell to doesn’t need them. Be able to constantly reframe your product benefits so the particular customer with whom you’re speaking understands the direct impact the product could have on their world.  Our current health insurance broker won my business not because he explained to me how he was going to save me money (which wasn’t particularly a priority for me), but because his product offered a web portal that was able to help my employees clearly understand their health care options, and made my job as the administrator less burdensome. Those were the high priorities on my list.

A good way to think of selling is like a journey on which you are leading your customer.  If the customer doesn’t understand where you’re headed and why they should come along, they will either choose not to take the trip, or wander off in a different direction midway through.  All you have to do is get them excited about the destination, tell them all the beautiful things they will see along the way, and answer any questions so they feels safe and can enjoy the route.

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