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“If you were put on trial as an expert,

Written by: Sam Allman

Article Overview: “If you were put on trial as an expert, would there be any evidence to convict you? The fourth characteristic of high performing salespeople is expertise. Expertise is the element of the law of authority. The law of authority says, “if you are perceived as an authority or expert, trust is enhanced.” We trust experts. We trust experts who testify in court. We trust doctors who have been trained well and are experienced in their field. How would you feel if, while seeing a doctor, who said to you, “You need an operation, I’ve never done this one before, but I think I can do it?”

“If you were put on trial as an expert,

Expertise makes us feel safe because it alleviates our need to study and learn; we can depend on someone else. Have you ever had a customer say to you, “You’re the expert, just tell me what I should do.” We look for salespeople who can answer our questions. We want to be smart buyers, but frankly there just isn’t enough time or energy to make an educated decision for every one we make. We look for short cuts to this process. An expert can facilitate the decision without our getting overly stressed or using an inordinate amount of time.

The foundation of expertise is product knowledge, experience and wisdom. Wisdom? Yes, wisdom. It’s not just knowing about your product, it’s knowing how to specify your product, i.e., where it will perform best and how to take care of it. Wisdom is the proper application of knowledge. This is the struggle that young salespeople have conveying expertise. Their age is sometimes seen as a strike against them. Women, sometimes, have the same problem conveying expertise to a man, especially in technical sales.

Expertise means knowing your product cold. It means even knowing about installation, and what that entails for the customer. Salespeople, who are seriously interested in becoming master sales people, may spend days or weeks with an installation person learning the process.

Experts in an industry will also learn about other industries that affect their industry. They stay connected with the current news and the latest industry trends.

All of this wisdom, experience and knowledge are not necessarily meant to be shared with the customer. They don’t need to know all we know. They only want to know enough to make a decision. To tell them all, is the tendency of new salespeople who have recently attended product training. This can actually sabotage the sale. When the customer is told too much and becomes confused, they will be unable to make a decision. It’s called “cognitive dissonance”. Confused buyers don’t buy; they leave.

In the Bible it says,

“Samson killed 10,000 Philistines with a jawbone of an ass.”

They say the same amounts of sales are destroyed everyday by the same method. Do you have a tendency to throw-up all you know about product over the customer?

So what’s the point? Why expertise? Your customer wants to buy from experts they trust. In one study, sixty-eight percent of customers left the store because the salesperson was unable to answer a question about the product.

Expertise is for them, but it’s also for you. Clearly, expertise will give you confidence. When customer perceives your confidence, it makes them feel safe. Confidence touches the emotions and sensations of the customer. They will sense your conviction without your saying a word.

Expertise also gives you the ability to ask good questions. There is no other skill more important to a salesperson than the ability to extract information from the customer. “Rookie salespeople lead with price. The professional leads with questions.” Asking good questions actually builds more trust and rapport. What would you think of a doctor who without examining you or asking you questions said, “Here, take two of these pills and call me in the morning?” And you say, “But, doctor, these are birth control pills. I came in for a headache.” The doctor says, “Yes, I know, but we’ve got them on special.”

“Prescription before diagnosis is malpractice.”

Clearly expertise is a critical aspect of selling. But using your expertise indiscriminately can sabotage your sales. Here are some of the common mistakes of experts:

• Explaining product using industry jargon – this confuses a customer.

• Overloading the customer with information – this also confuses the customer.

“Rule of thumb, tell the customer only what they need to know to help them make a decision.”

• Since experts think they know it all, they tend not to listen or they will talk down to the customer – this makes her feel stupid and destroys trust.

“Arrogance is now a sure sign of incompetency.”
Cornell University

• Experts tend to have favorite products. These favorites cloud expert’s ability to listen. They think, since they’re the experts, that everyone should like what they like. The problem is that when expert’s thoughts are clouded by favorite products , they don’t listen as intensely and start the presentation phase of selling too soon – this makes the customer feel that her feelings do not matter.

“It’s about finding a product for a need, rather than a need for a product.”

How about it? “If you were put on trial as an expert, would there be any evidence to convict you?”

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Article Tags: amount of time, cognitive dissonance, current news, industry trends, product knowledge, proper application, salespeople, short cuts, smart buyers, struggle, tendency, wisdom



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