Top Tips for Persuasive Selling

Persuasive selling isn’t just about convincing someone to spend money with you, or to buy into your ideas. It means developing a connection between you and your potential customer from the start. Ensure you maintain eye contact (without staring) and ask open-ended questions during the conversation. Using small talk, such as asking what they did at the weekend, can help break the ice and uncover shared interests. Mirroring the other person’s body language, certain words and phrases and their tone of voice can also help to build rapport. But be careful not to overdo it, as matching the other person too closely can make them feel uneasy.If you are connecting with someone remotely, e.g. by telephone, then smiling while you are speaking can help inject warmth into your voice. When the other person is speaking, it’s also important to let them know you are listening and engaged using ‘verbal nods’ (the ‘mms’ and ‘ahs’ we make during conversation). [1]

Ask Probing Questions

Effective salespeople know the importance of active listening to really understand their prospects' wants and needs. Bear in mind, too, that what the customer thinks they want may not necessarily be what they actually need. Listen carefully to what they are saying, and ask clarifying questions before starting to describe your product, service or idea in detail, or offering up potential solutions.

Differentiate Between Features and Benefits

The difference between features and benefits is neatly captured in the phrase ‘features tell but benefits sell’. [2] In other words, while your prospect will wish to know some details about your product or service, e.g. ‘this is a low energy, high output lighting unit’, what buyers are often most interested in is the benefits it brings, e.g. 'based on your average consumption, replacing your existing lighting with these units will cut your energy bill by £1,500 a year, and reduce your carbon emissions by 5%’.

Use Social Proof to Build Credibility

People can be strongly influenced by what other clients say about your product or service. This can be particularly true if you are already doing business with their competitors. This type of influence is often referred to as social proof. [3] At the very least, you can build confidence in your organization and what it does by providing a list of current clients.* Even better are written, audio or video testimonials, detailing how clients have used your product or service, and the benefits it has delivered. If you are not sure whether such testimonials are available, speak to your sales or marketing department, if you have one. Entrepreneur and author Tim Eisenhauer has three suggestions for using social proof to great persuasive effect in the workplace: [4]

1. Lead by example - if you want to persuade employees to, say, fill their annual review forms out before the deadline, be sure to role model this behavior yourself.
2. Highlight positive rather than negative behaviors - say '75% of you have submitted your forms already - thank you', not '25% of you haven't done the paperwork yet'.
3. Make it easy to give feedback - that way, your use of social proof can only get better.

Be Honest

While it is important to accentuate the positive, it is important not to mislead the customer or overpromise on what you can deliver in order to secure a sale or to get the go-ahead for your project or idea. Any exaggeration, however slight, may undermine your credibility. Where you are unable to offer particular features to your customer, consider offering similar or equivalent ones instead. For example, ‘While this TV doesn't have built-in Freeview, it can be connected to your existing set-top box, which will give you access to all the same channels.’

Look for Buying Signals

If your prospect is interested in what you are saying, they are likely to exhibit some or all of the following buying signals. Keeping an eye out for these signals can help you to assess how well your pitch is going, and whether it is appropriate to try to close the deal:

• Maintaining eye contact. This usually shows that your prospect is really listening to what you are saying.
• Frequent nodding. This is another sign that the customer is engaged. It can, however, also mean ‘Hurry up, I already know all this’, so be sure to ask further questions to gauge your prospect’s interest.
• Asking lots of questions about your product or service.
• Handling the product or supporting information. Any interaction from your prospect with your product or sales information about your product or service is a potentially good sign.

Consider Making a Limited Offer

Also known as ‘fear of loss’, some prospects are motivated to buy when they know the offer you are presenting is only available for a limited time. This tends to work best when an additional incentive such as a discount or upgrade is applied. Use this approach sparingly with existing or past customers, though, as overuse of these types of offers can lead them to believe that your standard prices are inflated.

Close With Confidence

Finally, all the effort you put into understanding and engaging the customer will come to nothing if you don’t close the sale - in other words, you need to ask the customer to buy. Some tips to bear in mind are:

• Get the timing right - if you try to close the conversation too early this can be seen as pushy and can put your customer off. Leave it too late, however, and an engaged customer may start to lose interest. So keep an eye on those buying or buy-in signals.
• Use open-ended questions rather than closed ones, e.g. ‘The license costs £5,000 for a year. How does that sound to you?’ rather than ‘Would you like to subscribe today?’
• Visualize success. The power of positive thinking can work wonders. Before you even start, it can help to anticipate how you might close the conversation, and to visualize success when you do.

Be Yourself

Finally, people buy from, and buy into, people they like and trust. The best way to come across as credible and convincing is simply to be yourself. You can have all the training you like, but you need to be able to deploy the knowledge in a way that still allows you to be authentic, and feel confident in your own abilities. As with so many other things in life, a bit of trial and error and plenty of practice is the best way to discover the best approach for you.

*Only share details about clients with a third party if you are sure they will be happy for you to do so, or you have gained their express permission.