What does it take to make the sale?   I’m not talking about probing, presenting and overcoming prospects’ objections. I’m talking about the big picture. I am talking about strategy.  If you have no strategy, you walk into a sales call and robotically go through a bunch of rhetorical questions and statements that will ultimately lead to your customers asking, “How much is it?”

Having a strategy means you understand what it takes to get customers to want to buy.

Most salespeople have no strategy when they go into a sale.

Below are the 8.5 strategy steps that will lead to a buying decision, rather than a forced sale or, even worse, a price sale.

1. What answers do I need? The first thing you need to know in any selling situation is what it will take to make this sale from the buyer’s perspective. You already know your stuff. The bigger question is, what answers do you need about their stuff? Here are a few: their productivity, their return on investment, their previous history of use, their present financial situation, their structure.

2. Do you know what actions it will take to complete the sale? Will you have to give a sales presentation? Will you have to give a bid? Are there letters involved? Are there demonstrations involved? Is this sale like others you’ve had before?

3. Do you know who the real decision maker is? Is that whom you’re talking to? If not, revise your strategy.

4. Do you know how the decision will be made? Are there committees or people you need to influence? Is there an elimination process? How are you involved at each stage?

5. What obstacles will you face? Is it your competition or phone calls that aren’t returned?

6. Do you have a plan to overcome each obstacle?

7. If you are in a bidding or proposal situation, can you change the structure of the bidding process so that you can win on something other than price? Regardless of your strategy, lowest price always means lowest profit. One strategy could be that you meet with the customer or the prospect and say; “Mr. Jones, all of the prices you are going to receive will be within 10 percent of one another. Could we possibly add a clause that says if all prices are within 10 percent, then you retain the right to choose the company you think will provide the best product, the best value and the best long-term service?” A prospect will be hard pressed not to choose that path.

8. Are you ready to make the presentation? How you do research and how ready you are with ideas for the customer beyond your product will determine how that customer perceives you as a person. The more highly they regard you, the more highly they will regard your product and your company.

8.5. How much do you believe in your company? How much do you believe in your product or service? How much do you believe in yourself? If the answers to those questions are not over the top, then the real strategy you need is how to get your own belief system to a point that will support the rest of your sales structure. In short, the higher your belief rate, the more you’ll sell, and vice versa.

Well those are some thought-provoking and painful questions about how to get ready to earn money. If you noticed, there’s a common theme. It’s unspoken, but it runs throughout each of the principles above.    It is this: How can you better help customers or prospects so that you can win business? How can you prove yourself to be a caring person so that customers will want to develop relationships with you rather than just purchase something from you?

Strategy is not about making a sale for a day. It’s about making sales forever.

Free GitBit: My sales philosophy helps me determine my strategy. Want it? Go to www.gitomer.com. Register if you’re a first-time user and enter the word PHILOSOPHY in the GitBit box.

President of Charlotte, N.C.-based Buy Gitomer, Jeffrey Gitomer gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service. He can be reached at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com.