Designing your sales process to focus more on your customer’s needs and wants and less on you can help you be more successful. It lowers the customer’s natural resistance and can help you sell more and make more profit. There are 10 key ingredients to making this happen.

A Positive Attitude

Much has been written about the importance of maintaining a positive attitude and I will not rehash all of that here. A positive attitude is your armor against taking set-backs and rejection to personally. It is important to remember that a positive attitude shows in many ways; what you say, what you do and even in your body language.

Commitment

To be successful, you must be committed to being successful. That seems to be a “no-brainer” but we can all think of people we know who profess loudly to wanting to be successful in providing their customers with a sales experience based on the customer’s wants and needs but are unwilling to do what it takes to make that happen.

Conviction

Conviction and commitment are closely related but they are not the same thing. You can be committed to giving your customers a sales experience that is focused on them but if you are not convinced that this is the best way, you will not be able to do so to the best of your abilities. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, don’t do it.

Confidence

A strong belief in your ability to provide this type of experience for your customers is essential to doing it right. It requires you to believe that your customers need you and that you can provide them with a buying experience second to none. That confidence comes from knowledge and we’ll cover that in a few minutes.

Empathy

Empathy involves looking at the situation from your customer’s point of view rather than your own and then helping them to find a way to solve their problems. Assisting them in finding a solution to their problem becomes the focus of your presentation.

Initiative

Too many sales processes stifle initiative. To truly focus on your customers and their needs, you must be willing to think outside the box and to go the extra mile to find the right solution for them.

Open Mindedness

There is an old quote that says, “If you’re not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you’re determined to learn, no one can stop you.” To focus on your customers, you must be willing to listen and to learn. It’s amazing how much we can learn if we really listen.

Enthusiasm

You must start by building enthusiasm in yourself. If you are not enthusiastic about what you do, you will never be as successful as you could be. Then you must use your enthusiasm and skills to build that enthusiasm in your customer. Your enthusiasm is the carrier of knowledge from you to your customer.

Caring

Another old saying is, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” You show how much you care by learning as much as you can about their situation, listening to their wants and needs, showing empathy and helping them make the right purchase to satisfy those needs.

Knowledge

There are five layers of knowledge you must have to serve your customers properly:

a. of present situation and needs – we gain this knowledge from asking questions and carefully listening to the answers

b. of your product’s features, benefits and advantages – you sell yourself by proving you know your product and your business

c. of your store’s services – sell the added value your company provides and the value of maintaining an ongoing relationship

d. of selling skills – focus on skills that help you ascertain a customer’s needs and help them feel more comfortable; not tricks and shortcuts

e. of your competition – you don’t need to know every detail about every competitor but you should know what products competitors have in the same general category and price points. Most of your customers already do and you don’t want to appear to know less about the business than they do.

Learning each of these ingredients and making them a part of your daily life will not only make you more successful; but will also make you a more confident enthusiastic person. Practice these traits every day and you will be amazed by the results.