sucessfull Selling Skills(tips and tricks)

What expectations do you have for your prospects or what I prefer to call them, potential customers? This question was addressed in a posting on sales training by Lushin & Associates of Indianapolis, Indiana. The article essentially stated that the failure to identify expectations early on in the sales process sets a lot of salespersons up to fail (not earn the sale).

Of course these expectations look different depending upon the situation. Recently, I created a business building workshop series entitled Pay What You Can Afford with the first workshop on Internet Marketing, Improve Traffic & Increase Sales. This title alone sets the expectations. In speaking with potential participants, I then ask a series of questions:

Have you ever attended a workshop or learning event, paid tens to hundreds of dollars and walked way complete dissatisfied because the information was poorly presented and had no value to your situation? In fact you might have even thought that you could do a better job teaching than the presenter?
Conversely, have you ever attended a similar event, paid little to nothing and believed it was one of the best learning engagements you ever experienced? (Sales Training Coaching Tip: I have yet to receive a No to these first two questions.)
So can we have agreement is that you determine the value of the workshop based upon your experiences? (Yes, the first three questions are close ended and are required to set the sales expectations and move to the next level.)
If you could have 100% control of that investment, then in what ways would attending such a workshop have value for you? (Sales Training Coaching Tip: Allow the person to share as much as possible and keep track of what has been said.

Upon conclusion of these questions, I share the specific topics to be covered and would they have interest in any of them? Historically for me, delivering public business workshops be it on sales training to customer service are lost leaders in that they generate no additional business with those in the workshop and very few referrals even though I receive outstanding testimonials.

Since the efforts to market them are far greater than any long term rewards, I have refrained from scheduling public business building and training workshops. However, my sense is this approach may generate some new interest given that the expectations have been set up front and there are no surprises. Each participant has been pre-qualified before accepting the registration fee.

By setting the sales expectations up front does create a different dynamic. Of course part of that dynamic is now you must be able to deliver by actually earning the sale.