Toner Times Extras

This short article is only for those retailers who want and need to increase their sales.

Three things must happen if you want to consistently and successfully increase your sales (especially if you want to go for the big bucks). It doesn't matter if you sell out of your home, your showroom, your web, at their office or home or on the telephone.

You must make a friend. Your enemies certainly won't buy from you. If you allow someone to even stay a "stranger" you will miss sales. Many are selling what you sell, at probably close to your price and all are claiming to have great products and service. Making a friend, by being honest, helpful and understanding their needs will pay off. If everything else is even, when decision time comes, the prospect knowing you "care" will help win the day.
You have to establish a need. If your prospect doesn't feel like they need what you have, neither price, product nor your skills will make any difference. They won't "care." Prospects are no different from you. Someone can talk to you until "doomsday" and if you don't need what he or she offers; you won't buy it. A lot of things can help establish need, but you have to listen. Among many needs are- pride of ownership (status), confidence (in you), and freedom from worry (delivery, for example), satisfaction (they will feel good giving it). Among employees, looking good to the boss (and the reverse) is a need. A business owner will need to know that the product will help their business. There are dozens of others. You have to find one and build on it.
The last "care" test is the most difficult. It involves everything you say or write. It involves one rule. Eliminate the word "I" from your vocabulary and substitute the word "you." When the conversation is about your needs, your desires, your dreams, your wants and even your demands, it is exciting. Listening to me state what I can do, my skills, my products, my company, my yadda, yadda, yadda, is boring. The worst thing that can happen to you is to have someone listen to you ramble on, and think "who cares." If it is an important deal, they will thank you for your time, as they leave or usher you out the door.

You probably are a sincere person but you have to remember to look like it, act like it and talk like it, to pass the "who cares" test. Passing grades mean more sales.