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1. Break the pattern with your opening.

Do you ever think about what those first couple of seconds of an interaction are going to be like for your prospect?

When you get someone on the phone, or when you sit down with someone face-to-face, the first couple of seconds will dictate how they feel about you for the rest of the interaction.
 
2. Tell them the reason for your call.

Once you’ve asked, “How have you been?” and gotten a response, it’s time to follow up with, “The reason for my call is ________.” Fill in the blank with the reason for you call—it’s as simple as that. In most cases, the reason for your call is to get a sense of what’s really going on in their world.
                               
3. Give an overview of the challenges you're seeing right now.

When most salespeople get a prospect on the phone, they go immediately into their pitch. They start talking about all the features and benefits of their product, or how great their company is.
                               
4. Get prospects to tell their story.

Powerful new data shows that when we can get a prospect to talk for around 100 seconds about their story in that initial call, we have a much higher likelihood of ultimately getting that meeting.
                               
5. Understand the upside.

Most salespeople skip this step. To understand the upside, you need to engage prospects in a conversation about their challenges.

Once you’ve gotten them talking about their challenges, they start to see value in a solution. But there’s no tangible value until it’s actually been stated what solving those challenges will mean to them in dollars.                                

6. Make it personal.

So often, we want to focus on the business side of the challenge. But the data shows, and psychology has taught us, that every single buying decision has some personal motivation behind it.
                               
7. Budget is everything.

The data shows that top performers are having the budget conversation later in the interaction with prospects. They’re talking about budget later on in the buying process.
Average performers typically start talking about price early on in the conversation.
                               
8. Understand the decision-making process.

Research shows that one of the biggest complaints that prospects have about salespeople in general is that they don’t take the time to truly understand the prospect organization’s decision-making and buying process.
                               
9. Make clear and scheduled next steps.

There’s nothing sadder to me than watching a salesperson do everything right, and then at the end of a conversation, say, “Hey, would it be OK if I followed up with you sometime next week?”Then they leave the prospect with a wishy-washy, unclear next step.  
                              
10. Only present to their challenges.

Have you ever been in a selling situation where you’re giving a presentation, and you’re feeling great about how it’s going, but then you go off on a little tangent...and you can see you’ve lost the prospect’s attention?Then, for the rest of the conversation, you’re thinking, “Did I just hurt that sale?” The answer, of course, is that you did. You did hurt that sale.
                               
11. Keep it under 60 seconds.

Recent data shows that top performers almost never talk for more than 72 seconds without re-engaging the prospect in that conversation.
                               
12. Use feedback loops.

Feedback loops are the best sales technique for re-engaging prospects back into any conversation.
                               
13. Get bored of using the same process over and over—then do it again.

You’re probably thinking, “What is this guy talking about? Get bored?” That's exactly right.The best salespeople are highly systematic. It’s not about getting creative in the sales process; it’s about using the same exact system over and over and over again. And then starting it over once more.

So, there you have it. There are 13 sales techniques you must know right now. I want to hear from you. Which of these ideas did you find most useful? Be sure to share below in the comment section to get involved in the conversation.