The Selling Process – Preparation
Whether you are a professional athlete, classically-trained musician, or a sales person, you won’t be successful if you aren’t prepared to undertake the task at hand. For salespeople, that preparation includes a strong foundation of knowledge of the business model, the market, the customer, and the product mix.

Knowing the Market
We’ve already discussed that as a small business you are working with limited resources. That said, you need to make the most effective use of the resources you have. By taking the time to zero in on specific niche in the market, you can avoid waste in your promotional efforts. Instead, you can focus your time, energy, and resources on targeting only your desired customers.

Designing Your Strategy
Ideally, your strategy will address customer needs which are not being met in the marketplace currently. Equally important is determining if this niche will represent adequate potential growth and profitability.

How Can You Target a Niche?
Concentrating your marketing efforts on one or a few key segments is the basis of target marketing.

Geographically: As the name implies, geographic targeting involves specializing in serving the needs of customers of a particular geographical area.

By Customer: Customer targeting involves identifying and promoting only to those groups most likely to purchase from you.

Tomorrow we’ll be focusing on product knowledge, and how to harness that knowledge to create results.

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In our focus on the various types of sales people, thus far we’ve discussed the order handlers, and the order takers. Today, our focus is on the third type of sales person — the Order Getter. The order getter is at the very heart of the selling process in many business models — they are the creative force that “makes things happen.” They are trained to notice and leverage the subtle nuances of what a customer says, as well as what they don’t say. They are the outside salespeople that call on customers and pitch your new product introductions. They are the individuals that sell us financial products, automobiles, home furnishings, and insurance.

Order getters require more than a cursory knowledge of the products that they are selling. They must know every feature and benefit, and be able to convey them to a customer in a manner that will convince them to make a purchase. They know the target market, and their buying triggers. The order getters are the ones who rally the team, and bat cleanup for your business.

An order getter follows a predictable sales process — one that involves a combination of knowledge, intuition, confidence, presentation and closing skills. Over the next few days, we’ll break down the steps of the sales process, paying particular attention to the skill set needed for each one.

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Today we’re going to take a look at another type of salesperson…the Order Taker.

Perhaps the most common type of order taker would be the fast food counter attendant. They are the front line of this busy hive of activity. This type of sales position affords a bit more flexibility than that of the order handler. Order takers have a more interactive role with customers, and are often expected to perform a certain amount of suggestive selling — thus the ever-popular, “would you like fries with that?”

Again, the order taker plays an integral role in the sales process. Having a pleasant personality, attention to detail, prompt service, and suggestive selling skills (whether it be fries, or a limited-time offer) translates into happy, satisfied customers, and additional sales.

Quality control and evaluation should be a constant when working with order takers. It can be a stressful, and often thankless job. Knowing this, it is important to create a pleasant work environment — one in which the order taker feels valued and appreciated. Ongoing training, a responsive management team, a fair wage, and performance incentives will all help to insure that your front line is providing excellent service to your customers. It will also reduce turnover among your staff, and reduces costs that would be spent in hiring and training new employees.

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Don’t misunderstand the tone of the post title. The emphasis was on the word YOU, not ARE. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get started, shall we?

The Order Handler
Think of the nice young man that took your ticket when you went to see the last Indiana Jones movie. Think about the gal at dry cleaner, who retrieved your favorite grey flannel pants from the line. These aren’t really sales people, even though they are working in a selling environment. They are order takers.

Don’t discount the importance of the order taker in the sales process. If that nice young man didn’t make eye contact, or say “thank you” after accepting your ticket, or couldn’t be bothered to direct you to the right theater — these are things you would make a note of. It may be on a subconscious level, or if his demeanor had been particularly offensive, it will register on a conscious level. Either way, it impacts the customer, and may well affect their future buying decision to use that service or retailer again.

Order handlers are on the front lines, interacting with customers every day. They are also representing your brand every day. You want to insure that your front line is representing your brand in the most favorable light — by being courteous, well-groomed, polite, attentive, and knowledgeable.

Tomorrow we’ll look at another type of sales person, and examine how they can best utilize their position to increase sales.

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As 2008 is drawing to a close, the economy comprises our daily headlines. For many small business owners, the stress is palpable — and this last quarter of the year could quite possibly be a game-changer. If there ever was a time to pull out a Hail Mary pass, it’s now.

As a small business, you may not be able to compete on product choices, price or promotional methods. But that doesn’t mean you can’t compete. You still have plays you can make. The most important one? Your selling techniques.

Sales techniques are one area in which a small business can compete with the big boys — and it is an area in which you can score, and score big.

It doesn’t matter what you are selling — it could be wigs, widgets, or website design.

Becoming an effective sales person doesn’t happen by accident, and it won’t happen overnight. It requires hard work, knowledge of your product matrix, and most importantly, knowledge of your target market. You will need to work to achieve a high level of sales effectiveness in your business.

But don’t worry, I don’t expect you to do it alone. Over the next few days, I will share some helpful tips and information to help put you on the road to making your fourth quarter more profitable.

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