Making people buy from you online is harder to achieve than selling off line. When selling online it is often harder to find and engage objections, there's no body language to pick up on and customer feedback sometimes doesn't get through on time. Here are couple of tips to make people buy from you.

1. Offer multiple means to contact you - Selling online successfully is often the case of appearing available to people who are unsure and dealing with objections. The more types of communication means you are able to offer, the more this availability will help convince people of your service and products.

2. Lead with customer service - If you want people to buy from you, you will first have to make people trust you. Leading with customer service and successfully resolving possible issues has the potential to reach people who haven't yet bought from you, but have heard of your customer service.

3. Appear honest and trustworthy - Online shoppers are very smart, if things are too good to be true, most will know they are. Look to describe your products as accurately as possible, encourage customer reviews and show both the glowing and the not so glowing reviews, and of course take feedback on the chin and react quickly.

4. Offer choice and ensure availability - People reaching your online store expect to find the perfect product for them and buy it then and there. Therefore, it makes sense to ensure you offer plenty of choice and that this choice is available to purchase. Plan well ahead and look for new trends. 

5. Always stay competitive - Smart shoppers go online to because of the choice, the ease of ordering and... the price. If you want people to buy from you, on top of ensuring choice and availability, the price must offer excellent value for money. Check your prices regularly to ensure you haven't lost that competitive edge.

Article contributed by specs sellers Glasses Direct. The UK's largest direct seller of prescription glasses and spectacles.

When a customer begins to express objections (or as I prefer to call them concerns) during the selling process this can be very, very good news!

Firstly, they may be genuinely considering your idea and as they are thinking about it some possible hurdles spring to mind.

And secondly as you will see far too many salespeople give up at the first sign of resistance leaving those of use who are comfortable handling customer concerns with the business!

There are a number of ways to deal with concerns expressed by customers.  The first important point is that you mustn’t panic.  It is quite rare for a sale to go through to completion without the customer expressing at least one concern!

The fact that a customer has raised a concern does not mean that they are not going to go ahead.  Relax- the sale is not lost!

Professional sellers understand that customers raising concerns is just part of the selling process and they prepare to handle them with persistence.  This puts them into a different league.

A piece of international research into the reaction of salespeople to customer concerns revealed that:

•    44% of salespeople gave up after receiving the first customer concern

•    22% of salespeople gave up after receiving the second customer concern

•    16% of salespeople gave up after receiving the third customer concern

•    10% of salespeople gave up after receiving the fourth customer concern

This leaves just 8% of the salespeople still selling after the fourth concern.

The other startling conclusion from the survey is that 73% of the customers voiced five or more concerns before being sure enough to place an order!

Combine the figures together and the research tells us that just 8% of the salespeople will win 73% of the business that’s available.  

It is therefore vital that unless you want to join the ranks of the sales no hopers that you need to get really superb at handling customer concerns.  Being able to do this will place you into the top few percent of all of the salespeople competing against you.

Truly great salespeople enjoy eating customer concerns for breakfast!

As stated earlier I view customers expressing concerns as a good sign.  They can mean that the customer is really starting to think about going ahead and are starting to consider the practicalities involved.

Or they can indicate that there is some aspect of the product or service that the customer is seeking more information about.  You can reframe all expressed concerns as being requests for further information.  The customer is looking to you, the salesperson to answer this request.

Initial Response

How you initially respond to the customer’s concern is important.  You want to appear calm, professional and unruffled but also grateful and even delighted that they raised the concern.  For example, after hearing the customer express a concern say,

“That’s a good point.  I’m glad you brought that up.”
“That’s an important point and it’s the initial reaction of some of our best customers.”
“I’m really glad you raised that point”

Once you have initially responded in this manner you can then move onto handling the concern in a variety of ways.

Drill further into the concern

It is often necessary to drill further down into a concern to understand it more fully.

You can ask, “I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for raising that concern.  Can I ask what it is?”

This will result in the customer expanding upon what lies behind the expressed concern so that you can deal with it more effectively.

So rather than get concerned about concerns – learn to love them!

Simon Hazeldine is the bestselling author of four business books that have been endorsed by famous business leaders including Duncan Bannatyne from BBC TV’s ‘Dragon’s Den’ and multi-billionaire founder and CEO of Dell Computers, Michael Dell.

Simon is in demand as a keynote speaker; performance consultant and facilitator in the areas of leadership, organisational performance and sales force effectiveness.  He has a Masters Degree in the Psychology of Performance and extensive international business experience.

After fifty years of studying businesses of all kinds Dun & Bradstreet (the world’s leading provider of financial information on companies – their database holds information on 100 million companies!) concluded that the entirety of business wisdom can be summarised in one statement: “Businesses succeed because of high sales; businesses fail because of low sales.  All else is commentary.”

Therefore the most important thing you can do if you want your business to survive and thrive is to learn to sell.  Selling is a skill that can be learned by anyone.  You just have to follow some simple procedures and obey three simple rules.

Here are those three simple rules.  If you follow them then your success in selling is guaranteed.

Rule 1: Your customers (and customers to be) are not stupid.
In today’s world people are more educated and informed than ever before.  People are more sophisticated and discerning.  People just don’t fall for blatant and manipulative tactics.  I get a little frustrated when I am told that “the sale ends on Friday”.  I know, and you know, that it is immediately replaced with a new sale that starts on Saturday!
People know that there is no such thing as a free lunch.  No-one is very surprised when they get selected to enter the Reader’s Digest free prize draw.  The successful salesperson treats their customers and customers to be with respect.

Rule 2: Sell how you like to be sold to.
When I ask people how they like to be sold to, I always get some very similar responses.  People like to be treated with respect and courtesy.  People like to be listened to.  People like the salesperson to be interested in finding out what they want.  People want the salesperson to put their interests first.  People want to be helped to make a decision that is right for them.  Why then would anyone attempt to sell any differently?  To a certain extent you already know what good selling is!

Rule 3: People are convinced that salespeople want to sell them something.  They are right, so tell them!
Perhaps because of previous encounters, people can be rather suspicious of salespeople.  In the back of their mind they are worried that the salesperson will try to push them into buying something.  To overcome this fear, just tell people what you are doing.

Tell them that your company exists by engaging in commercial transactions or relationships with customers.  You provide products and / or services to customers and they pay money for them.  However, what you do first is to understand what is important to the prospective customer.  When you understand this, you will see if your products and/or services can help them.  If they can, then you will recommend an appropriate solution.  The customer can then decide to say “yes” or “no” to the proposal.  By being up front with the customer you remove any fears they may have and establish trust with them.

Mastering the art and science of selling is one of the best investments you can ever make to ensure your business succeeds in today’s competitive modern marketplace.
Secure your future prosperity and become a master of selling.

Simon Hazeldine is the bestselling author of four business books that have been endorsed by famous business leaders including Duncan Bannatyne from BBC TV’s ‘Dragon’s Den’ and multi-billionaire founder and CEO of Dell Computers, Michael Dell.

Simon is in demand as a keynote speaker; performance consultant and facilitator in the areas of leadership, organisational performance and sales force effectiveness.  He has a Masters Degree in the Psychology of Performance and extensive international business experience.

For more valuable information on leadership, sales, negotiation and persuasion including sample chapters from Simon Hazeldine’s bestselling books please visit http://www.simonhazeldine.com

What separates the real persuasion professional from the amateur is the quality of their planning and preparation.  Amateurs blunder into sales calls without having planned and prepared correctly.

One of the vital things to consider is: How  well do you know your  customer / potential customer? Some things to find out before you visit are: Financial information (turnover, shareholders etc) Key personnel (board of directors, senior managers, buyers), Management structure, Number of employees, Details of their brands, products, services, Major competitors, Current suppliers, and Recent press exposure.

How much time and effort you devote to this research will depend upon how potentially important this company could be to you.
The internet gives easy and fast access to information in a few minutes (try a Google search on the company for example).  A visit to your local business library can also be a useful investment of times.  You will find a host of business directories that you can use for research purposes.

A common approach from sales people is “Tell me about your company”. I recently met the Managing Director of a large organization who told me that when salespeople ask him that question he replies “No—you tell me about my company!”  
Could you answer that question?

Simon Hazeldine is the bestselling author of four business books that have been endorsed by famous business leaders including Duncan Bannatyne from BBC TV’s ‘Dragon’s Den’ and multi-billionaire founder and CEO of Dell Computers, Michael Dell.

Simon is in demand as a keynote speaker; performance consultant and facilitator in the areas of leadership, organisational performance and sales force effectiveness.  He has a Masters Degree in the Psychology of Performance and extensive international business experience.

For more valuable information on leadership, sales, negotiation and persuasion including sample chapters from Simon Hazeldine’s bestselling books please visit http://www.simonhazeldine.com

By Simon Hazeldine

How many sales are you missing out on?  How aware are you of the errors that could be costing you orders, commission and profits?  

In the course of training and coaching salespeople I see the same mistakes being made time and time again!  Review your performance against these seven areas and make sure that you are not making mistakes that are costing you sales.  

Seven of the most common mistakes that people make when selling are :

1.    Not planning and preparing
As obvious as this may appear very few salespeople plan and prepare thoroughly enough.  Far too many salespeople go into a sales call without having fully considered what they are going to do.  Have you conducted background research on the customer?  Have you set very specific objectives for the call?  Have you got all of the information and materials that you may need during the call with you?  Have you anticipated what the customer may ask you?  By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.  The elite of the selling profession are properly planned and prepared before every sales call.

2.    Not getting rapport
Psychological research shows that people are more likely to buy from someone if they like them.  Learning how to develop unconscious rapport with your customers is a powerful way of helping them to like you and to want to do business with you.  Utilising the technology of Neuro Linguistic Programming is a very powerful way to do this.  This approach is far more effective (and genuine) than pretending to be interested in what the customer is interested in.  Many people make the mistake of thinking that rapport is something that you “do” to another person.  True rapport emerges from the interaction between the salesperson and their customer.  You have rapport with the customer and they have rapport with you.  In this state communication flows easily and the salesperson is able to understand what the customer wants and needs more effectively.

3.    Not listening to what is important to the customer
Having established rapport it becomes easier to properly understand what is important to the customer.  Far too many salespeople are focussed on themselves and their agenda.  You must get your attention where it should be - on the customer.  

It is only when you understand what is important to the customer that you are in the position to sell them anything!  Attempting to sell before having done this is a waste of time.  

Your job is to firstly understand what is important to the customer and then secondly to see of your products and/or services can help them.

4.    Talking about your product or service too much
Sorry to be blunt but your customer isn’t actually very interested in you or your product or service.  What they are interested in is what your product or service will do for them.  

Far too many salespeople spend far too much time talking at the customer about their product or service.  A lengthy one way speech about all of the features of your product or service usually results in a rather bored customer. Telling is not selling.

You need to focus your presentation about how the specific benefits that your product or service possess help the customer to solve their specific problems and help them to get exactly what they want.

If you don’t fully understand the customer’s individual and specific requirements then you shouldn’t be talking about your product or service at all.  It is only after you have this understanding that you are in a position to know if the customer may need your help.

5.    Not understanding how much money the customer has to spend
If you don’t know what the customer’s budget is, you don’t know how much money they have to spend with you. You need to know specifically how much money the customer has available to solve the specific problems or challenges you have identified.

For a salesperson to be in a position to close the sale you need to know that your customer needs, wants and can afford your product or service.  Tackling the subject of money quite early in the call will also help you to separate the customer who is likely to buy from the customer who is just looking for lots of free advice at your expense.

A sale is not a sale until the money is in your bank account!  Make sure you understand what the customer’s budget is!

6.    Not closing the sale early enough
If you aren’t closing frequently then you aren’t selling – you are having a conversation.  Research shows that firstly it can take several closing attempts to finally close a sale and that secondly the customer expects the salesperson to ask for the order.

Perhaps due to a fear of rejection salespeople don’t make sufficient efforts to close.  Instead they rely on carrying on talking about their product or service in the vain hope that the customer will eventually offer to buy something.

By trial closing throughout the call (“Does this make sense so far?”), you get constant feedback about the customer’s readiness to proceed. You can then move up to test closing (“If you were going to install this where would you site it?”) before moving onto the final close (“Shall we get the paperwork done then?”) and signing up the order.

You must be a strong closer if you want to prosper in today’s competitive world.  If you walk out of the sale without having closed you may find out that your competitor didn’t make the same mistake.

7.    Not following up after the sale
How to lose sales and annoy customers in one easy step – don’t do what you said you were going to do.  Accuracy, or salespeople doing what they said they were going to do, was one of two factors identified by extensive research as being the most important contributors to customer satisfaction.

The salesperson that does exactly what they said they were going to do, follows meetings up in writing and delivers the goods is a rarity these days.  

If you always ensure you follow up you will get very happy customers.  A happy and satisfied customer is almost impossible for your competitors to sell to.   On the other hand an unhappy customer is very easy to sell to.  Make it hard for your competitors – follow up!

The commercial world may be getting more and more challenging.  However, far too many salespeople are making basic errors that are costing them business.  Please make sure that you aren’t one of them.


Simon Hazeldine is the bestselling author of four business books that have been endorsed by famous business leaders including Duncan Bannatyne from BBC TV’s ‘Dragon’s Den’ and multi-billionaire founder and CEO of Dell Computers, Michael Dell.

Simon is in demand as a keynote speaker; performance consultant and facilitator in the areas of leadership, organisational performance and sales force effectiveness.  He has a Masters Degree in the Psychology of Performance and extensive international business experience.

For more valuable information on leadership, sales, negotiation and persuasion including sample chapters from Simon Hazeldine’s bestselling books please visit http://www.simonhazeldine.com