Page 171 - Marketing the Basics 2nd

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and a quarter of their time selling their product. Keeping this in mind let’s go through a professional sales call.
The starting portion of a sales call is critical and one not to be short-changed. It is the rapport-building stage. The fundamental thought is that people buy from people they like; now that does not mean that you can cheat them, offer them a terrible price or otherwise not be on the ball. For the vast majority of human beings, buying is a social and emotional process. For most buyers sitting and having a coffee or other culturally relevant beverage and having a pleasant chat about football (US or the rest-of-the-world type), or baseball or cricket or what have you, is quite a nice change in their day. Most great salespeople learn to ask for a coffee or water to make room for social chit chat as a way of building the start of the relationship of trust and liking. In the Middle East drinking tea is essential because it is considered good manners.
For someone you have not met before this also critical because during the first five minutes, people’s impressions are being formed; if it is pleasant and positive that image will remain for a long time. This human-to-human exchange will last at least a few minutes; a good salesperson engages in light chit-chat and treats small talk as an important skill. Almost always the customer will signal when it is over and it is time to move onto business. They do this by clearing their throats and falling silent, by picking up a file from their desk and straightening it, or by saying implicitly, ‘let’s get to business’. A few customers will allow the rapport stage to go on forever if you let them. A wise salesperson will themselves end this part of the sales call eventually by saying, with considerable reluctance in their voice, ‘I would love nothing better than to chat about football all day...but my boss’, and then shrug their shoulders to show that they sadly must talk about business. For some professional buyers who see a great number of sales people they don’t want to build rapport but quickly want to move to business, a good sales person realizes that different clients have different needs and pick up clues about the approach best suited to that client and that particular occasion.
The next phase is a brief one, here the salesperson gives his or her initial benefit statement (IBS). The IBS is a short statement saying why you are there and asking the person if that is of