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Sales Principles

Appendix (for reading content...etc)

Read the passage 'Sales Principles'. On a piece of paper, take notes on the main points of the reading passage.

Reading time: 3 minutes

Sales Principles

Three basic principles have been shown to increase sales. The first principle is to make more calls. To get more orders, it only makes sense to make more calls. In addition to contacting more potential customers, the salesperson will also get better at making calls because of the practice. Although the exact number of calls to increase the volume of sales will vary with the product, encouraging the sales force to add even a few more calls to their goals has produced good results for all types of businesses.

The second principle, contacting people who hold higher positions in the organization, is effective for two reasons. In the first place, it is more efficient to contact someone with the authority to approve the sale. If the call is made to a lower-level employee, a salesperson may be referred higher and a second call may be necessary. In the second place, if the call is made to a person who holds a lower position, that employee will probably have to take the idea up the line to a higher-level supervisor and will probably not be able to make as strong a case for the sale as the salesperson who made the original contact.

Clearly, closing is the most important part of a sale. If a salesperson continues the conversation without closing, the sale may be lost. Rushing the customer is not a good idea, but when potential objections have been addressed, creating a sense of urgency with some kind of deadline or incentive, and doing it earlier rather than later, will improve the chances of making the sale.

Now listen to the passage. On a piece of paper, take notes on the main points of the listening passage.

[audio|src:'\listening\toefl_advanced\SalesPrinciples.mp3']

Professor:

The reading lists three traditional sales principles, and almost everyone who takes even an introductory business course will be familiar with them, but recent research by Neil Rackham and mutually sponsored by several Fortune 500 companies, well, they have called all three into question.

First, let's look at the principle that to get more orders, you should make more calls. According to Rackham's findings, a high volume of calls does correlate with sales for items that cost less, but it doesn't prove true for expensive items. In fact, the opposite is true. Rackham attributes this difference to the preparation that's required for a call. A reduction in preparation in order to increase the number of calls may make the salesperson sound less informed and that could influence the sale of an item that requires a bigger decision, as when the company is asked to make a large expenditure.

Second, it does seem logical to call people who hold higher positions in the organization for the reasons that the reading suggests. Still, the research results reveal the same level of success for an even distribution of calls across the levels of the organizations contacted. And for salespersons who call very high-level executives, the questions that they are obliged to answer are more specific and require a better understanding of the company than many salespersons are prepared to demonstrate... a situation that relates back to the issue of preparation time.

Third, contrary to traditional guidelines, the salespersons who put their effort into conversations early on in the sales... they report that those sales close easily, without pressure or imposed deadlines. Making sure that the customer's concerns are addressed, summarizing the benefits, and proposing a next step is enough to encourage the customer to close the sale without deadlines or additional incentives.

NSummarize the main points in the lecture, and then explain how they cast doubt on the ideas in the reading passage.

sales principles recent research Rackham

make more calls

logical = more contacts

practice = better at calls

high volume ok lower cost item

not true for expensive items

more prep, fewer calls, expensive

item = higher profit

call higher in organization

efficient authority to deal

extra stem lower à higher à sale

sales makes better case

more specific Q? from higher

same success higher + lower

close early

objects first

urgency, deadline improves

early conversations à close easy

next step = close

no deadlines, pressure

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