Learn To Read The Buying Signal

Marketing is different from sales

The goal of marketing is to raise awareness, brand name, curiosity and impression of your product/service/opportunities. The goal of sales is to turn a buyer’s vagueness into clear solutions. The master of sales never forgets that the buyer is looking for the best solution, delivered in an effective and pleasure manner.

Buyer’s Perspective

Buyers are multifaceted, and when they shop, they weigh the many pros and cons of a potential purchase. Some of these they will share with the seller, while many other thoughts they will keep to themselves. Learning and adapting to the issues and whims of the buyer while moving the sale forward to a conclusion is the responsibility of the sales professional. Therefore understand your prospect’s personality traits will help a great deal.

Internationally-known speaker and sales trainer Dani Johnson modifies DISC system to one called GEMS. A self-made millionaire at the age 23, Dani has certainly proven that she understands people’s buying motives.

Here is a brief peek at each GEMS in Dani Johnson’s system:
1. Rubies are risk takers, go-getters, and like challenges. They like to win, be right, and are fast paced. They need control, authority, and thrive on commission. Their bottom-line approach helps them make quick buying decisions.
2. Sapphires are stimulating, enthusiastic, and on-the-go people. They like fun, being the center of attention, and receiving tons of recognition. Enjoying people, influencing other’s decisions, and being popular is their style. Skip the details with them, just make the buying process easy, fun, and spontaneous.
3. Pearls are patient, relational, and incredibly harmonious. The quality time they spend with others is seen as supportive. Their relationships are longstanding and oriented to helping the team. Don’t push them from their low-key approach, or your sales style will overwhelm and scare them away.
4. Emeralds are effective, thorough, and detail-oriented. Their behavior of following rules, collecting data, and completing tasks pushes them toward excellence. These are the detail people who need to carefully conduct their research before making a buying decision.

All prospects like to be communicated with in a manner that is most familiar to them, understand your prospect’s personality trait help the seller customize a sales approach for each unique individual.

Reading The Signal

The seller’s job is to recognize and interpret the prospect’s signal and move on to the next phase at the right moment. If a seller does not recognize the prospect’s readiness to move on to the next phase, he/she might continue negotiating when the prospect is ready to close.

Common buying signals are: positive attitude, tone, questions, recognizing the product’s value, or transitional language from resistance to acceptance. A prospect might mask his/her indecisiveness about buying with a stated objection such as, “The price is too high” or “I need more time to think about it”. Seasoned veterans know that even a strong objection might be a buyer’s coded signal for specific information necessary to overcome a final concern before announcing their buy decision.