Free-Reprint Article Written by: Craig Elias See Terms of Reprint Below.
***************************************************************** * * This email is being delivered directly to members of the group: * * [email protected] * ***************************************************************** We have moved our TERMS OF REPRINT to the end of the article. Be certain to read our TERMS OF REPRINT and honor our TERMS OF REPRINT when you use this article. Thank you. This article has been distributed by: http://Article-Distribution.com Helpful Link: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Overview http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/dmca1.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- Article Title: ============== Is There a Silver Bullet in Sales? Article Description: ==================== We have been conditioned to believe that in sales there is no such thing as a silver bullet. I can tell you that there is. It is called timing -- getting in front of the right buyer at EXACTLY the right time. Read on if you want to learn how to make timing happen and repeatedly get in front of the right buyers at exactly the right time. Additional Article Information: =============================== 1203 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: 2006-09-26 11:36:00 Written By: Craig Elias Copyright: 2006 Contact Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Craig Elias's Picture URL: http://www.shiftselling.com/images/craig_elias.jpg For more free-reprint articles by Craig Elias, please visit: http://thephantomwriters.com/free_content/d/e/motivate-buyers2call-you.shtml AND http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/d/index.shtml#Craig_Elias ============================================= Special Notice For Publishers and Webmasters: ============================================= If you use this article on your website or in your ezine, We Want To Know About It. Use the following URL to let us know where you have used this article, and we will include a link to your website on thePhantomWriters.com: http://thephantomwriters.com/notify.php?id=3619&p=load HTML Copy-and-Paste and TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of Article Are Available at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/e/silver-bullets.shtml#get_code --------------------------------------------------------------------- Is There a Silver Bullet in Sales? Copyright (c) 2006 Craig Elias Shift Selling Inc. http://www.shiftselling.com Some people will tell you that in sales there is no such thing as a silver bullet. I can tell you that there is. It is called timing - getting in front of the right buyer at EXACTLY the right time. Research shows that the average sales person is five times more likely to make a sale when they have the right timing. Event-Based Selling is a way to make timing happen. Read on if you want to learn how to make timing happen and repeatedly get in front of the right buyers at exactly the right time. Buying Modes To master timing you need to understand that, no matter what you sell or to whom, buyers are always in one of three Buying Modes: 1. Status Quo: Status Quo is when a buyer perceives the product or service they are currently using meets, or exceeds, their needs. 2. Window of Dissatisfaction: A Window of Dissatisfaction occurs after a buyer realizes that their current solution no longer meets their needs but before they start the process of searching for alternative solutions. 3. Searching for Alternatives: Searching for Alternatives is when a buyer realizes their current solution no longer meets their needs and is actively searching for alternative solutions. Timing - getting in front of the right buyers at exactly the right time - is getting in front of buyers in the Window of Dissatisfaction before your competition. By being first with these motivated buyers you will sell more, sell sooner, and sell at a higher price. Event-Based Selling Buyers typically move from the buying mode of Status Quo into the Window of Dissatisfaction because of an event, or a series of events. Event-Based Selling is about identifying, finding, and creating the events that cause buyers to enter the Window of Dissatisfaction and then getting to these motivated buyers before your competition. Events that shift buyers from Status Quo into the Window of Dissatisfaction fall into one of three different categories: 1. Experience: A buyer has a bad experience with their current supplier, e.g. the company, its products/services, or its people. 2. Transition: A change or transition within a buyers' environment, e.g. a change in legislation, management's priorities, or the buyer who purchases your products or services. 3. Awareness: Buyers, through word of mouth, become aware there is a better way. Event-Based Selling and Prices It's important to understand the impact that events have on prices. As a rule, buyers pay for perceived value and a buyer's perception of value shifts as events move them from one buying mode to another. When a buyer is in the Status Quo mode, their perception of value is the difference between their current solution and your proposed solution. Because their perception of their current solution is so high, their perception of the difference in value between their current solution and your proposed solution is not enough to motivate them to buy from you. By trying to sell to buyers in Status Quo you are likely to spend a lot of time selling with little or no chance of actually making a sale. When an event happens that causes a buyer to believe that their current solution no longer meets their needs, they move into the Window of Dissatisfaction, and their perception of the value of their current solution is reduced. Now their perception of the difference between the value of their current solution and your proposed solution increases to the point where you are much more likely to make a sale. By selling to buyers who are in the Window of Dissatisfaction, not only are you more likely to make a sale, you are also likely to have a shorter sales cycle, and when you win the business it's likely to be at a much higher price. If they are not intercepted by a savvy sales person, another event or a series of events will cause a buyer to become so dissatisfied with their current solution that they pass through the Window of Dissatisfaction and start Searching for Alternatives. Now a buyer's perception of the value of your proposed solution is reduced to the difference between your proposed solution and the solution proposed by your nearest competitor. By trying to sell to buyers who are Searching for Alternatives you are less likely to make the sale and IF you win the business, you are likely to have a much longer sales cycle and a much lower price. The REAL Value of Event-Based Selling The REAL value of Event-Based Selling is selling to buyers in the Window of Dissatisfaction. This is where you are most likely to find your core, loyal buyers who will represent 80% of your profits - those appreciative buyers who are more likely to provide you with a reference and that most treasured thing in sales - referrals. If you miss the Window of Dissatisfaction and try selling to buyers while they are already Searching for Alternatives, you are more likely to get peripheral, disloyal, price sensitive buyers who will represent 20% of your profits and 80% of your headaches! Finding the Events Every day buyers in your target market experience events that put them in the Window of Dissatisfaction. Finding buyers in the Window of Dissatisfaction requires you to identify what events or series of events create buyer dissatisfaction and develop ways to learn about these events before your competition. One way to get to buyers in the Window of Dissatisfaction before your competition is to get buyers to call you first when the event or events occur. To do this you need to spend time on relationship-building activities and become a buyer's Emotional Favorite ? aka 'Go to' person. A buyer's Emotional Favorite is the person a buyer knows, likes, trusts, and most importantly, wants to see succeed! This is the person a buyer believes has earned their business and actually deserves it. The Emotional Favorite is the first person a buyer is likely to contact when an event causes them to shift from the Status Quo to the Window of Dissatisfaction. Creating the Events As long as a buyer's perception of the performance of their current solution meets or exceeds their expectations, they will remain in the Status Quo buying mode and you are unlikely to make a sale. To create motivated buyers you need to create dissatisfaction with their current solution. But how can you create dissatisfaction with the current solution when you can't impact its performance? The solution is to raise a buyer's expectations beyond their current solution. This will shift the buyer into the Window of Dissatisfaction and increase the likelihood that you will make a sale. (You can raise a buyer's expectations of three different things: people, products/services, or companies.) Conclusion Success in sales is seldom an accident. It's the result of focusing on the opportunities where you have timing - are first with buyers in the Window of Dissatisfaction - and developing strategies to repeatedly make timing happen. Event-Based Selling is the silver bullet that can create timing by identifying, finding, and creating the events that put buyers in the Window of Dissatisfaction and repeatedly put you in front of these motivated buyers before your competition. --------------------------------------------------------------------- For almost 20 years Craig Elias has used timing strategies to be a top sales person at EVERY company that hired him. Craig's expertise also won him a $1,000,000 prize in a global Billion For almost 20 years Craig Elias has used timing strategies to be a top sales person at EVERY company that hired him. Craig's expertise also won him a $1,000,000 prize in a global Billion Dollar Idea contest, and has resulted in coverage on NBC news, in The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Call 403.313.0412 or use this link https://www.plaxo.com/add_me?u=25770307927&v0=1000385&k0=740938012 to contact Craig when you want training, coaching or advice on how to sell more by identifying, finding, and creating the events that will repeatedly put you in front of buyers in the Window of Dissatisfaction -- before your competition. http://www.shiftselling.com --- END ARTICLE --- Get HTML or TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of This Article at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/e/silver-bullets.shtml#get_code ..................................... TERMS OF REPRINT - Publication Rules (Last Updated: May 11, 2006) Our TERMS OF REPRINT are fully enforcable under the terms of: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR: ..................................... *** Digital Reprint Rights *** * If you publish this article in a website/forum/blog, You Must Set All URL's or Mailto Addresses in the body of the article AND in the Author's Resource Box as Hyperlinks (clickable links). * Links must remain in the form that we published them. Clean links should point to the Author's links without redirects having been inserted into the copy. * You are not allowed to Change or Delete any Words or Links in the Article or Resource Box. Paragraph breaks must be retained with articles. You can change where the paragraph breaks fall, but you cannot eliminate all paragraph breaks as some have chosen to do. * Email Distribution of this article Must be done through Opt-in Email Only. No Unsolicited Commercial Email. * You Are Allowed to format the layout of the article for proper display of the article in your website or in your ezine, so long as you can maintain the author's interests within the article. * You may not use sentences from this article as an input for any software that steals sentences from others in order to build an article with software. The copyright on this article applies to the "WHOLE" article. *** Author Notification *** We ask that you notify the author of publication of his or her work. Craig Elias can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** Print Publication Reprint Rights *** If you desire to publish this article in a PRINT publication, you must contact the author directly for Print Permission at: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ..................................... If you need help converting this text article for proper hyperlinked placement in your webpage, please use this free tool: http://thephantomwriters.com/link-builder.pl ===================================================================== ABOUT THIS ARTICLE SUBMISSION http://thePhantomWriters.com is a paid article distribution service. thePhantomWriters.com and Article-Distribution.com are owned and operated by Bill Platt of Stillwater, Oklahoma USA. The content of this article is solely the property and opinion of its author, Craig Elias http://www.shiftselling.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX --------------------------------------------------------------------- *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* To have your article appear in this distribution list, you must absolutely be a client of thePhantomWriters. We offer a paid article distribution service, and this is one of the more than 60 groups where we submit our client articles. To learn more about our program, visit: http://thePhantomWriters.com/x.pl/tpw/index.htm Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thePhantomWriters/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thePhantomWriters/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
