Episode 177 – The Truth is… Now You’re in Sales

Custom Apparel Startups

Episode 177 – The Truth is… Now You’re in Sales

This Episode

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Mark Stephenson & Marc Vila

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customapparelstartups.com

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CAS Podcast

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ColDesi

You Will Learn

• Sales tips and techniques
• Great closing techniques to help you close more sales – faster!

Resources & Links

• Colman and Company Blog
• ColDesi Learning Center
• Leasing Equipment

Episode 177 – The Truth is… Now You’re in Sales

Show Notes

Being a business owner means you wear many hats.

Project Manager. Production Manager. Financial Officer. Customer Service.

And yes… Sales Person.

Chances are you aren’t starting your business with a full time sales person on staff. You might be fortunate and be a natural born sales person. Or maybe your business partner is the sales person for your company (husband, wife, sibling, friend).

However, if you don’t come from a sales background there is a lot to learn.

One of the core parts of sales is Closing Deals, in other words, getting customers to say yes and pay you.

It’s easy to fumble the close. Saying the wrong thing, letting customers always postpone the deal, losing out to competition.

Today we are going to discuss traditional closing techniques and how you can use them.

The Now or Never Close (Create Urgency)

• This is a close where you offer a special deal or limited offer based on signing up right now.
• Right now my vendor has X shirt on sale. If you buy it today I can save you 10% or $200.
• I’ve got 50 of these shirts in stock on a deal, once they are gone I cannot sell them for that price.
• Prices all over are going up. The supplies I have in stock are at X price, but I’ll run out soon.
• I’m looking to fill up my production as I have a lot of jobs next month, but room for one right now. So if you buy now I can deliver faster, but if you wait, it will take longer.

The Recap Close

• This is where you recap everything the customer is going to get in a brief summary. Describe everything in detail so they are excited at the idea of getting it. Then ask for the business.
• You are helping them visualize the deal.
• You are getting 50 shirts and 20 hats with your logo. Plus mugs you will get to give away to your clients (which they will love you for.) So we can get those in production this week. Do you want to put the deposit on a credit card?

The Quid Pro Quo Close

• Your customer may ask for a Deal. “Can you take $300 off?” This means you’ve got an opportunity to present a “favor for a favor” to close the deal now.
• Sure. Let’s do that. But in return, I’d like to sign you up right now. I’ve got to be very efficient to give you that price so I want to get the process started right away.
• Yes I can do that for you, but I’d like a favor from you too. I don’t normally pass out a deal like that, and don’t prefer quotes like that floating around. I can say you strong armed me with a promise to pay today.
• My partner doesn’t like deals that slim. They are a challenge with maintaining profitability. However, if you close now, I’ll have the excuse that I had to make an executive decision.

Question Closing

• This is where you ask a question that the customer agrees to, and therefore the deal is good for them. If they don’t say yes, then you need to dive deeper into helping them or understanding their needs.
• “Will this order meet your needs and fit within your budget?” Yes. Then let’s get it going so you can move on to more important things.
• “Have I covered everything you need and answered your questions? Does it all look good?” Yes. “Let’s close this up and get to production.”
• “In your opinion, will this provide the solution you need for your business? Then let’s move forward and get your promotional goods in process.”

Assumptive Close

• This is the power of confidence and positive thinking. Just assume they will say yes.
• “Ok, so I can send you the invoice right now and you can pay on your phone.”
• “Do you prefer me send the payment via PayPal or with a credit card form?”
• “Let’s go ahead and look at the calendar to pick an estimated delivery date and time. Then I can collect a deposit and get to work for you.”

The Takeaway

• This is when a customer isn’t sure of the price you are charging. So you remove something to make the deal fit their budget. Some people will then begin to think about what they aren’t getting and want to close the deal.
• “Well, if this isn’t in your budget, we can go ahead and remove those mugs you talked about giving your clients. That should save you the money you need to fit your budget.”
• “We can go with a less premium shirt. It won’t be quite as comfortable and long lasting but it will save you money and fit your budget. Not everyone buys the premium shirts.”

Tips:

• Never lead with your cheapest product. Start a medium (better) quality shirt, or front and back print or 15 oz. mug. This way if you need to lower the price, you can sell a reduced feature item.
• Have wiggle room. If you have to make a min of $500 on this deal, don’t offer a price where you make $500 right away. Start with a $600 profit or a $700-800 profit, so you can negotiate if needed.
• Never take the first ‘I’ll think about it’. If they have to think about it, just politely ask them what they are considering or what concerns they have. They may have a concern that you can answer right away.
• Be confident. Be sincere. Be Honest.

The most successful sales people just work hard, and take time to learn the craft. Just like anything else there are little things you can do to help get more deals handed to you!

Transcript

Mark Stephenson:
Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 177 of the Custom Apparel Startups Podcast. This is Mark Stephenson.

Marc Vila:
And this is Marc Vila. Today we’re here to talk about the truth, The Truth Is… Now You’re in Sales.

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. I mean, welcome to the club and we both feel very sorry for you.

Marc Vila:
I mean, let’s just face it. What it is, is if you’re listening to this, you probably have a startup business or about to start up a business, or maybe even been in business for years and you already know this. But small business owners, when they first start up especially, wear a bunch of hats. You’re the project manager, the production manager, you’re the financial officer, you’re customer service, and oftentimes you’re the salesperson.

Mark Stephenson:
Right. Just like with all those other things, I mean, you had to learn how to use your equipment. You’ve got to learn how to take care of the books. You have to learn about maintenance. You’ve got to learn how to do all the paperwork involved in your business. If you’re doing your own taxes and accounting, all those are skills that you have to learn, but probably one of the most overlooked ones that you will deal with hopefully on a daily basis is bring up your skill level in sales.

Marc Vila:
Yeah. It is one of those things, because I put all these things in the same category, right? Like sales, public speaking, writing, and plenty of other things.

Mark Stephenson:
Being on video.

Marc Vila:
These are all things. Yeah, being on video even. These are all intuitively, they seem like they’re intuitive of what you have to do so there’s nothing really to be trained on. How do I sell? I tell the person what I’m offering them. I tell them how much it costs, and they say yes or no, and then I get money. Right?

Mark Stephenson:
Right.

Marc Vila:
Or not. But with everything that exists on earth, period, that humans do, it can be optimized. I think this episode is going to be a little bit about optimizing how you can help close more deals, how you can get more people to say yes without necessarily having to be different than the personality that you currently are now.

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. I mean, if you think about your last few interactions with your potential clients and your existing ones, there’s that dialogue. You speak, you already probably speak differently to your customers than you do your kids, your parents, and your neighbors. If you’ve got a retail spot, you probably say, hi, welcome to the store. You’re probably real proud of the place. You want to show them around. You’re being very friendly and very helpful. Not to say that you’re not that way all the time, of course. But you know, if you go to a market or something, you’re already taking a different posture when you’re dealing with your customers versus everybody else. Whether you know it or not, you’re in sales mode. What we’re going to go through today is just some of the really standard things that sales people do to encourage people to make a decision in favor of their products.

Marc Vila:
Right. And some of what they’ll say in sales books and sales experts and gurus, and there’s plenty of stuff you could watch on YouTube. Tons of great books out there. I recommend just read or watch a bunch of them and you’ll learn some stuff. But one of the things that I’ve heard before is that there’s an inclination to not make decisions in people. Right? Decisions are finite, finite things cause fear, they cause anxiety, so it’s easy to not make a decision. It’s easy to say, I’m thinking about buying a new car. Maybe I won’t or will, I don’t know. You know what, also, if I’m going to buy a car tomorrow, that just feels, it feels, especially when-

Mark Stephenson:
It’s easier. It’s definitely easier.

Marc Vila:
It’s easier because you didn’t actually have to do or change anything. Tony Robbins, Anthony Robbins, I don’t know which the right way to say his name.

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah.

Marc Vila:
Both.

Mark Stephenson:
The big guy.

Marc Vila:
The big guy. And if you haven’t heard his stuff, you should. He’s got a bunch of cool stuff out there. But one of the things he talks about is the power of making decisions and how decision making is so powerful, but you have to train yourself to do it. Right. So on one side of it, people need to train themselves to make decisions. On your side of it, you’re going to help to do things to help people to make a decision, and that decision is to do business with you.

Mark Stephenson:
I think what you just said was, is that you are not really selling against, typically you’re not selling against someone else or something else, you’re selling against inaction.

Marc Vila:
Yes.

Mark Stephenson:
If you’re in a market and someone just walks by, they might look at your custom t-shirts or your embroidery work, your gifts or whatever. And they might really like it, but they’re very likely to just keep walking because they’re already walking, it’s the easiest thing to do. It may not be the best thing for them. I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve been going to shopping at malls with the same person for about 35 years now. And this person, when we go and we look for deals, that person may find something that they really like. And then they’ll say, “Oh yeah, maybe I’ll come back for it. I’ll come back for it.” And if you run a market or if you’ve been in a retail store, you’ve heard that a thousand times. Literally no one ever goes back.

Marc Vila:
It is a very low percentage that it’s true.

Mark Stephenson:
That’s just a good example of it’s a strategy not to take action that your customer, your potential customer is employing. What we’re trying to do is figure out some ways where you can break that pattern and get them to reach into their wallet for you.

Marc Vila:
Yeah. And so this is going to be true of if you met somebody at an event and they say, “Yeah, I probably need some shirts. I’ll call you on Monday.” And then on Monday they give you a call or they email you and they say, “I need X, Y, and Z. I need shirts and mugs and a sign and stuff like that.” And you say, “Great, this is what it’s going to cost.” And they say, “Oh, okay, great. I’ll let you know.” And that’s the end of it. Right? I think specifically, these principles can be applied in a market. They could be applied in an email. They could be applied in an in-person meeting or in a phone call. They’re a philosophy, they’re a theory, they’re concepts, and they work everywhere if you can figure out how to put them together. I’m ready to jump into first one. How about you?

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. There you go. You may recognize these and may love to hate some of them, but they’re all standards because they work. The first thing that we’re going to talk about is the now or never, right? You’ll hear this talked about, we already said that people tend towards inaction, so you have to give them a reason to do something now. And that reason could be a lot of different things. It could be a lower price, could be a deal. You’ve got some great examples here, Marc.

Marc Vila:
Sure. You could say something like, right now, the vendor where I buy t-shirts from, the wholesale place or manufacturer, they’ve got this particular shirt on sale. If you buy it today, can actually save you 10%. It’s not going to be on sale come Monday.

Mark Stephenson:
Right.

Marc Vila:
What you’re letting them know is, and this, I’m a fan of honesty, right? I’m a fan of honesty.

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah, absolutely.

Marc Vila:
I’m a fan of honesty. This should be a true statement, but you do what you want with this information. But the vendors that offer apparel, oftentimes the prices drop and they go back up, right. The world fluctuates, markets fluctuate and the price of goods fluctuate. So if you do have a shirt that you like to use and it’s currently being offered at 10 or 15% off, you can pass a savings like that over to your customers. And it is true that they’re not necessarily going to tell you the end date, or they may tell you the end date. So share that information with your customers, especially if you’re selling one of those items that’s on sale to let them know that the price will go up if they don’t purchase right away.

Mark Stephenson:
Right. This could also be something that you manufacture yourself. For example, let’s say, and we’ll just keep using the market as an example. Let’s say you go to the market once a month and you make something special to sell there. Maybe it’s an embroidered pillow case that you’re just going to sell at the market during this couple of days. Maybe it’s a polo design or printed t-shirt design or something like that and you’re just doing a limited run yourself. Came up with this design, you really like it. You’re only going to do it for a little while. Maybe it’s not going to come back until next year. So the now or never is a scarcity close where you say, look, you can see I’ve only got 10 of these. Definitely, of course you don’t have to buy them, but you know, by next week I won’t be offering them again.

You know, this is a seasonal thing. It’s not coming back until next year. Places like Starbucks with the pumpkin spice cappuccino and things like… I mean, these guys are really good at the now or never. There are things that you only get for a certain period of time. And whatever the reason is or whatever the benefit for the customer is, thinking about your business that way in little chunks like that so you can motivate somebody to make a decision is good business.

Marc Vila:
Yeah. We’ve discussed before about doing promotions or sales or offering something that you have in stock that you can offer at a deal. So shipping shirts is actually, if we’re using shirts as an example, but these could be… Shipping a lot of customized stuff is generally not cheap to do. Mugs are 11 ounces a piece, so 30 mugs is a really heavy box. It’s expensive to ship. T-shirts are the same way. They weigh a good amount a piece. If you have some stuff in stock, oftentimes you don’t have to absorb a shipping cost into the price that you resell to the customer. If you’ve got things in stock like you have 50 shirts or mugs in stock and you’re selling that to somebody and they say, “Let me think about it.” You can let them know, “I’ve got 50 of these in stock. You’re looking to buy 30. Once they’re sold, though, they’re sold. Then I’m going to have to reorder.” Whatever words you use.

“I won’t have these anymore. Once I don’t have these, the price will go up a little bit. So I just want to let you know that this is a limited time deal. You can secure them now, or if not, the price will go up probably about 10 or 15% at that point in time because I’m offering you a limited stock.” There’s another one that’s interesting, which is relevant for today’s times, by the way, summer 2022. Inflation is happening. Prices are going up in various markets all over the world. So you could say, you could just talk about that, “Hey, I want to let you know that this price that I’m quoting right now, I can’t guarantee this price in the future because prices are changing on me on this stuff every day sometimes. So this is the price today. If we secure the order today, we’ll get everything locked in for you today and that’s the price. If you choose to wait, the price may or may not change. Just so you know.”

Mark Stephenson:
And that’s fair, but it’s also a really soft now or never. I also like what you have here about filling up production time. This is great if you do have a busy shop, you could look at your schedule before you go to an event or the day before you start making your sales calls. You could look and say, maybe there’s a time period in a week where you don’t have anything to print, or you have some space in your schedule. You can use that for a now or never close. You can say, “Hey, listen. Normally I’m very booked up this time of year, so if you want those 27 shirts, I actually do have two production days next week open. If you get them now, I’ll slot you right in and your delivery time is no problem. If not, it’s going to be a stretch. I may have to delay or it may not get done till the next week.”

Marc Vila:
If you’re looking to get it done sooner than later, we want to book it now. I would be as forthcoming as you can on this. If you actually have two more people you have to follow up with that day who might order and you have a customer who’s in a rush, you could just tell them that. Say, “The way I do it is when a deal is closed, when somebody pays their deposit, I put them in line because it’s only fair to put everybody in line as they come. I’ve got two more meetings today. I know you said you’re in a rush. If you put your deposit down today, if you sign off today, if you buy today, then I’m going to put you in line right now ahead of those other folks. If they decide to buy today and you call me tomorrow, I will have to put you after that. So I need to let you know that.” Figure out how you want to say this. Especially when it’s true, it’s almost a disservice to the customer to not tell them this. Really, you know?

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. I would say that occasionally it happens to our sales people where they will tell somebody that right now it’s a 10 day delivery if you order. And then someone comes back in a week and orders and is very upset when it’s 21 days. That happens in our business quite a bit. But really, so as you’re thinking about these things that Marc and I are talking about, like the now or never close, it would probably be a good strategy for you to just think about the conversations that you have for customers and the kinds of things that you would say now or never to encourage them to make a deal right now. Because it’s going to be better for them.

Marc Vila:
Yeah. And then if you don’t have a really good excuse per se, because maybe there’s no sale, maybe you don’t have anything in stock. Maybe you’re super slow, there’s nothing busy, you have no other appointments, you can also just offer them a deal for signing right now. You could just say, “Listen, I’m trying to book up business and I want to encourage people to make a deal. If you’re willing to commit to me today, I’ll take 10% off right now.”

Mark Stephenson:
If June has been a crappy month for you, feel free to say, “You know what, I’m behind on my production schedule, or I’m behind on my sales projections for the month. 10% off if you order right now. Help me get back up to square one.”

Marc Vila:
And then maybe later you will offer that or not. But this is something you could say, “If you sign right now, I’ll give you this deal right now because I could use the business.” Whatever words you want to use. So that’s the now or never, or the creating urgency close.

Mark Stephenson:
I feel like this one is a little bit more esoteric. Why don’t you take us through the recap close, Marc?

Marc Vila:
The recap close. I think this one’s great. I naturally do this. I didn’t even realize I did this until one day I read about it and I was like, I do that. But it’s the recap close. This is when you summarize everything that the customer is going to get, again, and then ask for the business after that. So you’re visualizing them everything that they’re going to get. So you say, “All right, great. That was a great call. So what we’re doing is you want 50 shirts with your left chest logo on it. You want the logo on the right sleeve as well. Then we’re going to do 20 hats and then we’re going to do 20 mugs because you said you wanted to deliver mugs to your clients, which people love that. They’re going to love you for it. So we can get those in production this week. Do you want to use a credit card?”

What the psychology behind that is they are now for one, they understand everything they’re getting, which is nice and clear. It’s great for communication. And then they’re visualizing themselves. I’m thinking about myself in that shirt. I really do want a new shirt. You may even catch people doing things like looking down at the shirt that they’re wearing that’s not nice and they’re going to visualize handing their customer that custom mug. And their customer being like, “Oh, wow, thanks.” You know? It’s a cool thing to do and it’s proven to work.

Mark Stephenson:
I like that. I like the visualize thing that you said, because I can see how painting a picture would be helpful. Maybe it’s if they’re 50 logo shirts and hats for his employees, then maybe it’s, “Okay, so you want to see 50 of your best employees dressed in these really clean, nice clothes with your logo on it and the cap with your logo on it.” You want to see them closing deals in front of their customers. And then you want to see those same customers getting the mug with your company logo on it as a thank you, and they’re very appreciative and they’re telling their friends. That’s kind of what we’re about to do. Right?” You know? Yes. All that is absolutely right.

Marc Vila:
Okay. “So great. Do you want me to send you a PayPal invoice or do you prefer credit card? I can set it up in my Stripe right now and send it over to you.”

Mark Stephenson:
There you go.

Marc Vila:
So that’s one of those things where it’s, you don’t even have to be too salesy on this one. I like this one a lot and you don’t have to think of anything interesting. You just make it a point to recap what they’re doing. Be sure to use visual words, remind them of why they wanted it. “Okay. You want 20 t-shirts and that sign, because you said the t-shirts that your staff is wearing don’t look good anymore and the sign is all faded from the sun so we’re going to replace those.” You’re reiterating what they told you. They know you understand. There’s so much behind it. They understand that you understand their feelings. There maybe some empathy that you’re putting in there. I understand what it’s like, how it feels for a sign to not represent how good your business is, which is why we’re going to make a new sign. So there’s empathy there. You can build excitement. There’s visualizations. There’s so much you can do when all you’re doing is just recapping what you guys talked about over the past 15 minute phone call or something.

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. I like that a lot.

Marc Vila:
Okay. So next.

Mark Stephenson:
Next is the quid pro quo close. I like that you put a little Latin in there. I think that’s very classy.

Marc Vila:
I did.

Mark Stephenson:
It’s very classy. What it really means is the exchange of small favors, right? It’s the customer asks you for a deal, that means you have the opportunity to ask for something in return.

Marc Vila:
You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Right. What do they do? “Hey, Mark. I think this is a great deal. Yes, everything you said is right about those shirts and the hats and the sign and all that stuff. I was really hoping to spend closer to $2,000 and you’re at 2,300. Do you think you could take 300 off?”

Mark Stephenson:
Yep. And I would say, “You know, I think I may be able to do that. Let me dig into the numbers a little bit. If I do, is there any chance that you could do give me a five star review on Google and Facebook?”

Marc Vila:
Okay. So that’s a pretty good one. That’s a pretty good one. I like that. So in that case, you’re giving them a deal and you’re asking for something in exchange for that, meaning like specifically asking them for a favor outside of the deal. Another way I was going with it was, “Yes, I think I can do that. Let me do some math real quick. Let me think about this. If I can do this, can we put a deposit down on the deal today?” Ask for something in return, ask for the deal to close right away. What you’re asking for is, “Hey, you’re asking me to make less money on this deal. What I’m asking for in return for that is to get started now.” To not linger.

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. I mean, you can actually use this, use a lot of different things. I actually offer, I make it a point to make sure that vendors know that I will give them a great review if they give me a deal and they do great work. I think that’s a great quid pro quo, which is really hard to say sometimes, because you can actually do it and it’s pretty easy and it has a high impact on your business. But whatever that is, it could be. “Yeah. You know, I can do that if you do two things for me. The first one is let’s do it right now. And the second one is pick a friend in the crowd out there and bring him over here and let’s see if we can do two of these deals.” You know what I mean? Just like try something else. You deserve to ask for something in exchange if you’re going to offer them something special.

Marc Vila:
Yeah. I think that’s great. Honestly, when I was looking at this, I didn’t even think about the other things to ask for in exchange. So I actually love that you brought that up because you can sometimes ask for two or three things. One of them is closing the deal, right. If they’re asking you for money off and you say yes, generally speaking, the deal is closed at that point in time.

Mark Stephenson:
Yes.

Marc Vila:
Generally speaking. But you want to lock that in. You want to lock it in by saying, if I say yes, are you going to say yes? That’s just clear communication. If I say yes, are you going to say yes? Yes? Yes? Yay. The other thing is, well, I kind of already know they’re going to say yes if I say yes, because that’s why they’re asking for the deal. While I’m at it, I’m going to throw in. “Yes. I’ll do that if you’re going to say yes and I’d love a referral. If you can promise me one referral, whatever that means to you, I would love that from you.” Another thing with that, I think there’s a little bit of combining some of these things together. The quid pro quo and the now or never, you can combine that and you can say, “Okay, yes, I could do that for you but I’d like a favor from you. I don’t really pass out deals like that because my business can’t afford to do that all the time, so I don’t want a deal like that, a quote like that floating around in the world. I want it closed. If I can get this done for you, are you willing to just wrap it up now, close the deal, and nobody ever has to know.”

Whatever you want to say with that. And then I have one other little comment here, say you work with somebody, you have a partner, husband, wife, brother, sister, business partner. You could just say something like, “Well, my partner is not really a fan doing deals that slim because they are a challenge to maintain profitability with. If anything goes wrong or if we have any hiccups, it’s more of a challenge. However, if we can wrap this up right now in this conversation and close it up, then I’ve got an excuse to just go back and say, “Hey, I had to make an executive decision and they were willing to make a deposit right away, so I did.”

Mark Stephenson:
There you go.

Marc Vila:
And then a lot of times they’ll understand that. They’ll visualize, “Yes. I also have a business partner. And yes, they don’t like those decisions.”

Mark Stephenson:
They’re pain in the butt too.

Marc Vila:
“I don’t want to ask permission for those. I just do them sometimes. You understand?” “Yeah.” “Okay. Let’s just do it then.”

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. I like that. And then the next closing technique that you’ve got down here is question closing. I like this because it almost, it works really well as a checklist. Especially if you’re dealing with somebody that is looking for a decent quantity of shirts or promotional products or whatever it is. Is that while you’re talking about it, you’re listening to them, listening to what they’re looking for and you’re making notes of the specifics. If Marc Vila and I are having a conversation, and Marc, what I heard you say was that you’re looking for polos very professionally done, good looking polos for 50 of your employees. That you’re looking for 50 hats with the logo on to go with them, that you’re looking for delivery in this period of time. And then all that is because you’ve got this event coming up and you want everybody to be dressed the same and look great. You even mentioned it may end up making a little bit more money because you’re doing some good branding there. So that’s five things.

If you’re taking notes during the call, then the question closing is just going through those things and saying, “Hey, remember we talked about this and you said you wanted this and we’re going to do that.” “Hey, remember we talked about that. You also wanted that. We’re going to do it.” I’ll go back to furniture salesman and car salesman do this great. You know, it might be, “Huh. You know, when we first met, you were looking for a 90 inch modern style sofa. You wanted something that was really comfortable. You were looking for a durable fabric and you wanted something that could fold out into a futon or something. Right? Okay. So this one here does all of those things and it’s in the price that you set that you were interested in. Hand me your credit card.”

Marc Vila:
Well, and it is important to phrase it into a question. Right?

Mark Stephenson:
Yes. You did say these things.

Marc Vila:
I love the furniture thing because you say, “Okay, you said that it needs to be in this budget, needs to be delivered by this time, it needs to be comfortable, it needs to look good. Does this couch meet all those things?” Then they’ll say, “Yeah. I mean, this one does.” “Okay. Then let’s go for it. Let’s draw up the paperwork if this meets all the needs.” You could talk about say, “Okay, you mentioned the shirt deal too. You mentioned the polos and this and that. Okay. Do you think everything I’ve offered you meet those needs and fits in your budget?” “Yeah, I think that it does.” “Okay. Let’s wrap this up then. I know you got plenty of important things to do. I’ve met all the needs. You can move on to more important things. because I know you’re a busy guy.”

Mark Stephenson:
That last sentence can be really important. Having a few of those by the way just in your repertoire could just pick something like, “Cool, let’s schedule delivery. I can fit you in my production next week that puts delivery Friday.” Whatever that is. It’s, “Hey, that’s great. Let’s get started. I’ll look for your graphics later on today.” “Yeah. Take the deposit.”

Marc Vila:
Yeah. That’s great. I love that. Sometimes it can be a struggle to find the question to ask. Maybe you don’t have as many specifics or this particular customer wasn’t very an open book to tell you why they wanted the shirt. It’s like you’re struggling to get information, but you want to ask a question of them. So you just say, you keep it simple. “In your opinion, does what we have here provide the solution you need for your business?” If they say yes, then you can ask for the business. Say, “Okay. I mean, I’d love to move forward with it. I think we have a deal.” If the answer is not yes or the answer is, eh, then you can find out what the problem is. It opens up to, “Yeah, I mean, maybe.” “Oh, okay. I understand these things. These decisions can be frustrating. Tell me what’s on your mind. Is there anything particular you have doubts about or you’re concerned with?” And then sometimes they’ll open up.

“You know, I know I said the polos, but now that you ask about it, I know those are also expensive. I was thinking, I’d rather get the employees like three or four a piece. Maybe if I go t-shirts, that could be more affordable. Do you think I could do three t-shirts for the price of one polo?” Maybe you could say, “Yeah. If you do a left chest logo t-shirt, I could do three of those for the price of one embroidered polo. What about that? Is that a better solution for your business?” “I actually feel a lot better about that.” “Great. Let’s wrap it up.”

Mark Stephenson:
I like all those things, especially the question closes are really great when, especially when somebody’s just kind of drifting away from the deal like Marc Vila just said. Somebody says, “Yeah, it’s good. I’ll give you a call if I decide to go ahead.” Things like that. And that’s just like, it’s another way for them to not make a decision. It’s another strategy that they’re using so they don’t have to do something right now. You could say, “I’ll tell you what, before you go, just let me make it really simple for you. What is it about what we talked about today that stands between you just placing the order now and going on with your life? What is it about it? Or it could be, “Great. Is the reason the price? Are these not the t-shirts? Because we had talked a little bit about that. What’s holding you back? So I like all of those things. All these stuff is really important. Even doing any of them should result in a little bit more business. This isn’t an academic exercise guys, we’re trying to figure out ways to help you sell some more stuff.

Marc Vila:
Especially this question one, some of the problems people have with sales, to diverge away from the second and we have two more, is sometimes some folks including myself feel that, well, some sales techniques are manipulative and I don’t want to be a manipulator or a salesperson. I just want to offer somebody a good product, that they want to buy it, they want to buy it and I’m going to do my best. But with the example I mentioned before where the person was questioning whether or not they wanted to buy the polo shirts, this is happening in their head. And maybe they’re not expressing it to you or they’re not sure to say it out loud or maybe they don’t even know if they really want to talk about that. The quick decision in their brain is okay, I’m going to think about that. I’m going to talk to Joan over there about the t-shirt idea. And then I’ll get back with this person later and decide.

But yeah, she’s doing a good job in offering me everything I asked for. I don’t know if I want to talk about the t-shirts yet. And they kind of drift off in their head. That thought happens in like a second in your brain. And when you say, “Tell me about what you’re thinking,” oftentimes people will say, “Okay, since you’re inviting me, I’m thinking about the t-shirts instead.” You’ve helped them open up to you. I’ll tell you, they’re going to love you for that because they didn’t have to go off and think about it and go and have the conversation with Joan about it. They just thought about it with you. They talked it out and they said, “You know what? I feel really good about this now.”

Mark Stephenson:
Plus, Joan wasn’t going to be helpful anyway.

Marc Vila:
She was going to add a third question and further confuse-

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah, she never is. All right. Let’s move on to one of my favorites.

Marc Vila:
Okay. Yeah.

Mark Stephenson:
Because I am, by training a sales guy for a bunch of different things, is the assumptive close. This is where you just approach all of the people that you talk to or most of the people that you talk to with the idea that they’re going to buy something from you. They’re just choosing what. So that’s a good way to think about it. If someone comes up to you at the market and you are a custom t-shirt store and you’ve got custom t-shirts on the table. The reason that they came over is because they’re interested in custom t-shirts. There’s a reasonable expectation that they have the money for a few. So now it’s just thinking that someone’s been looking at the t-shirt and you know, it’s just that, “It looks like you love these t-shirts. Thank you. You know, I do too. Which one did you want?”

Marc Vila:
The assumptive close is definitely one that is, it can induce fear in some folks because you don’t want to be presumptuous and you don’t want to be… Because you may have had the assumptive close done to you and you didn’t like it. Right? The assumptive close, it’s an internal battle for those folks. I think you should get past some of that stuff because they don’t have the confidence to want to say that. They don’t want to seem pushy or assertive or anything like that. But if you just go for it and dive into it, you can let the customer say no. You don’t have to say no for them.

Mark Stephenson:
I’m just trying to think of a non-threatening situation where you might reasonably appreciate the assumptive close. Like if you went to the grocery store. So you go to the grocery store and you’re there for 10 minutes, 15, 20 minutes and you’re leaving with nothing. If there was a manager near the door, they would reasonably say, “Did you not find what you were looking for? Because you came into my grocery store to buy groceries, I think, so obviously you didn’t find what you were looking for.”

Marc Vila:
Not a lot of grocery browsing happening.

Mark Stephenson:
Not a lot of browsing. The same thing goes for your t-shirt shop or your online store or whatever it is, they’re there. You’re the proprietor. They came into your restaurant, they looked at the menu, they hung around for 10 minutes and then they got up to leave. So you would naturally want to know, “Did you not find what you were looking for on the menu? Wasn’t the food good? Were the prices too high?” The assumptive close would be like, if they’re staring at the one menu item, or the t-shirt, or they’re staring there standing at the potato aisle, for 10 minutes just staring. You also might find it reasonable if the person came up, say, hey, do you have a question about the potatoes?

Marc Vila:
Yeah. Can I pick up that sack of potatoes and put it in your bag and carry it for you?

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. Let me carry. Do you just want me to order that for you? Because there seems to be something happening here.

Marc Vila:
No, I get where you’re going with this and I actually appreciate it. Because it maybe helped me get past that thought, how do you deal with it when you feel the assumptive close is too much? An example of an assumptive close is you tried on a dress or a shirt or a pair of shorts at the mall and you walked out and you looked in the three way mirror so you could see all the angles and you say, “This looks pretty good. I like it.” And then the salesperson is over there in the corner and they agree with you, that does, it fits you good. The blue brings out the color in your eyes. And then you say, “Okay, great.” And then they go take it off and they say, “Okay, hang it up over the edge. I’ll bring it up to the counter for you.”

Mark Stephenson:
Assumptive close. Good example.

Marc Vila:
It’s an assumptive close because you just said, “This looks great on me.” Like, “Why are you not going to buy it? It looks good on you.” The salesperson agreed with you. Let’s assume they’re being truthful. And then they said, “Let’s do it.” So if you are talking with a customer and they say, “Okay, you needed 50 mugs and you needed it by the 31st of this month and you wanted them in red. We needed the total order to be under X amount of dollars. And you also wanted some keychains and some headbands. We could do all of that. It’s great. The price is going to be X amount of dollars and your budget was Y. So this is under it by a couple hundred bucks so I think we’re good to go. We can get it delivered to you. Do you want me to send the invoice over via PayPal or I can send it Strike if you want to pay in your credit card.”

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. I like that.

Marc Vila:
And you just say like, “I mean, everything matches up. All the blocks fit into place. I can send you an invoice today and we can get started.”

Mark Stephenson:
It really strikes me that a lot of people do the opposite to themselves. They assume that the person isn’t going to buy now.

Marc Vila:
Right.

Mark Stephenson:
What triggered it for me was that conversation where you said, “Okay, all this stuff is good.” You said, “Do you want me to send you the invoice or you just want to give me a credit card now?” Where a lot of people would say, “Great, let me email you a quote,” or “I’ll call you in a few days to find out if you’re ready to order,” which is the opposite of the assumptive close. You’re actually giving your customer an out or you’re negating the sales process, but you’re probably doing it because it’s more comfortable for you.

Marc Vila:
Yeah.

Mark Stephenson:
You’re doing that because you don’t want to ask for the sale, where this is your livelihood. This is how you potentially feed your family, pay your car payment, buy ice cream, whatever it is. You should be on your side. Just a little bit.

Marc Vila:
That’s good. No, that’s good. You made me think about something. There is something in business. I don’t remember when I read about this so it was a long time ago, but there’s a fear of taking the order.

Mark Stephenson:
Yes. A hundred percent.

Marc Vila:
Because the customer gives you money, now you actually have to deliver.

Mark Stephenson:
You have to do it.

Marc Vila:
And it’s frightening. I still get it sometimes. I’m like, oh my gosh, can I do that? You got to go for it. You got to go for it. The more you do it, the better you feel about it.

Mark Stephenson:
Yeah. It’s a story you tell yourself. You know, I tried but I couldn’t do it, things like that. You just got to change that story.

Marc Vila:
Instead, you say, “Okay, everything looks pretty good. You said yes to the question I asked. I gave you a little bit of a deal that you asked for. Let’s check the calendar and find out what the delivery date would be. Okay. It looks we can deliver it 31st. How’s that sound?” “Yeah, perfect timing.” “Okay, great. It’s a 50% deposit and it’s almost two o’clock so we got to wrap it up because I have another phone call.”

Mark Stephenson:
I love that. I’ve got one more thing to say and then we can move on to another one.

Marc Vila:
Okay, great.

Mark Stephenson:
And that is, if you are uncomfortable or think you’re terrible at all this, or you’re not a business person and you don’t want to do it, then say that to the customer.

Marc Vila:
Okay. All right.

Mark Stephenson:
Just say, “Look, I’m terrible at this, but I’m trying to be better in business,” or “I’m terrible at this.” You did set like, here, the questions, “You said that you liked the shirts and that they were the right price and that the deliver was right. Can you place the order now? You know, I’m awful at this, but it seems like you want to order the shirts.”

Marc Vila:
I would just clarify one thing on that.

Mark Stephenson:
Okay.

Marc Vila:
Okay. I would say, “Let me tell you something a little about me. I’m a great designer. I make really great t-shirts. I do great embroidery. Everybody loves it. What I’m terrible at is this salesy thing so I have trouble asking for the business and all stuff like that. So I just want to let you know, I’d love to do business with you. And I guess that’s the best way that I can say it. And I’m saying with humility. So if you’d like, I’d like to get started, what do you think?”

Mark Stephenson:
Like it.

Marc Vila:
Just humility and the honesty. But be sure to say that you’re good at the other stuff.

Mark Stephenson:
Okay. Like I’m not crappy at making t-shirts.

Marc Vila:
Yeah. I’m terrible at this.

Mark Stephenson:
I’m all right with that. All right. So the last one that we’ve got here is the takeaway. And so I like this both the way that you mapped it out here, Marc. And I also like it when you are crafting an offer for someone. I’ll talk about crafting the offer.

Marc Vila:
Okay. What is the takeaway then?

Mark Stephenson:
So the takeaway is when you specifically put something into a deal so someone can take it out. For example, like I know a lot of people who like to negotiate. Like no matter what price you give them, it could be a smoking deal, they’re always going to… You said that first, so I have to figure out what else I can get.

Marc Vila:
Right. I say, the first offer is a philosophy of some people.

Mark Stephenson:
Yes. You can give someone a takeaway, you can add something that is useful to a deal, but you know, if somebody wants to lower the price or negotiate with you, you can take it away. For example, if it’s a, you know, “Listen, it is a 25 shirt order. That’s great. Because of 25 order, typically you get a free hat. You’re going to want the, I don’t know, the antistatic cling sheets between the shirts. You’re going to want these special labels. You’re going to want this other thing that’s involved in the deal. The whole total is $580.” And they say, “Wow, that sounds like way too much money. It’s more than I wanted to spend.” “Okay. I’ve got here the sheets that go in between the shirts. I could take those out and it would be a little bit cheaper. Then you’ve accomplished a good sale because you designed it that way to be useful, but also not harmful if you took it away. You gave that person the opportunity to negotiate so they feel really good about getting a deal.

Marc Vila:
Yeah. This combines when we’ve talked about in other episodes upselling. We talk about that when you’re talking to somebody about getting them mugs, for example. You’re selling them custom mugs that you should upsell to the custom can coolers, the Koozies. “Hey, by the way, for every mug, I can add a can cooler for three bucks,” or whatever you can do it for. And then they say, “Cool. Yeah.” You’re like, “Yeah. I actually love those because a lot of my clients, they say that the people they hand them out to stick them in their pocket. And then they go to a party and they bring it to a party and then they get handed a beer. They pull out their can cooler that says your logo and pop it in there. I just think every time somebody does that and they walk around a party like this with the logo on it, it’s worth three bucks every time. You’ve upsold this.”

They’re just like, “I need that.” And then they see the final price. “Well, you just added $300 to it.” So you can then take that away. So you say, “Okay, you said it’s a little too expensive. I did tell you about the can coolers. You were excited about that, but that’s not what you came for. Why don’t we just take those out and then the price will go down to where you need it to be?” What will happen is what you hope to happen in the best way is that they’re not thinking about the $300 anymore. They’re thinking about-

Mark Stephenson:
Man, I really wanted this.

Marc Vila:
“But I really wanted those can coolers. I mean, I guess if I have to sacrifice the $300, I just want them now because I like the idea of people carrying them in their pocket to a party.” And then they just turn around and they stop negotiating. They just say, “You know what, I do want them. Let’s wrap it up.”

Mark Stephenson:
I also like what you’ve got down here about the less premium shirt. It’s a good takeaway, if you’ve listened to our other podcasts, if you’re positioning your company properly. If part of what you do is offer people different shirts, then maybe the Bella Canvas is a little bit better than the Gildan and they have different prices and different features. You’ve got the three shirts and you talked about that and they really, you recommended and they went with the most expensive shirt or even the middle option. And then you get down in the end and they’re looking for ways to save money. Then you can say, “Well, I mean, we went through it all and you did pick my best shirt, which I think was a great decision. But if it’s not in your budget, this other shirt is pretty good too.”

Marc Vila:
Yeah. That’s a good takeaway is like down selling the garment. “You know, not everybody goes with the best shirt that we have. I mean, there’s a lot of great reasons to go with the best shirt that we have but not everybody necessarily wants to spend the money on that. If the budget is a little bit of an issue, let’s just go down to just kind of a standard quality shirt,” which is a run-of-the-mill shirt, which people still like. You’ve kind of pitched that. And then I think you win two ways in here. One is you just get the person that says, “Great, thank you. Now it works.” Or the other side is they picture themselves as, “No, I don’t want to be a standard shirt company. I want when people come into my restaurant that we look classy so I want the classy shirts. I guess classy shirts cost a little bit more than I expected or that I read on a billboard when it said $4 shirts.” Something like that.

Mark Stephenson:
I think that the important thing here is when you’re doing the takeaway is you can’t be… So trying to say this in the most positive way possible. There are some of our customers get into the business and basically they look for the cheapest that they can sell their product for. They’re the most comfortable making the least amount of money. Right? Like if I spend $10 making a shirt, I want to sell it for 12. Because you can buy a shirt for $12 other places and I think that’s what it’s worth. You don’t have room for any of this. You don’t have room for the takeaway or anything in that circumstance. You have to build your offer and your product line in order to have the flexibility to do things like this. If you’re doing the takeaway, you could build like medium quality shirts with an add-on and you could offer those as a package.

Like you get the shirt and the hat bundle for $35. Then, “Oh, that’s too much.” “Okay, well, I can take out the hat and I can charge you 30.” You have to be in the business to make money. You can’t be shy about it. You’ve got to build your structure, your deals and your offers and your pricing in a way that’s profitable enough for you to be flexible in all this. Does that make sense?

Marc Vila:
Yeah. I think it does completely, and all these above techniques, they’re mainly about communicating well to the customer, understanding their needs, a little bit of a tit for tat, having confidence. I mean, I think all this stuff just boils down to those simple terms, which is why it seems so just intuitive. Like, oh, you just sell, you sell, you know? But no, if you want to sell, you have to have confidence. You have to have options to give to people. If they want something from you, you should get something back. I mean, that’s kind of a standard human thing. That’s commerce in general. Right.

Mark Stephenson:
You do have to keep in mind that remember, your enemy is inaction. Right? Your enemy is the people not making a decision or just walking away without buying something. You’ve got to give yourself the best opportunity to get them as a customer. They’re going to love what you sell them. They’re going to be happy about it, make them realize that.

Marc Vila:
They’re going to tell other people to go to you. How do I know the proof of this is because the proof is that when we talk to customers time and time again, one of the number one sources for business for startups in the customization business, no matter what you’re selling, whether you’re selling signs or mugs or shirts is referrals from other customers, which means they were happy with what you did. Do them a favor and help them make that decision. And then we have some tips to give, just to wrap it up. But the last bit about it is if the due date is in 45 days when they need these, that’s the drop dead date. If they make a decision today, you have 45 days to handle shipping delays, art changes, all the things that may happen over 45 days.

If you let them postpone two weeks or three weeks or a month, now you’ve got two weeks to deliver the same thing. They could have said yes 45 days ago, either way they were going to spend the money, either way they were going to do the work. So you help yourself out and you help them out by providing a better, a more stress free transaction that’s more likely to have a happy customer. That’s more likely to have a customer that will refer somebody to you. So everyone wins. Now, we wrote some tips, so I think we should just, these all have to do with this. I think they’re good.

Mark Stephenson:
I think we kind of went through them just naturally because the first one is don’t lead with your cheapest, your cheapest product. You really need to build in the profit so you can be flexible.

Marc Vila:
Yep. Start with a medium or a higher quality shirt, if your shirt is what you’re doing. Start with more than one location of a print. Start with a 15 ounce mug instead of an 11 ounce mug. This way, if you need to lower the price, you could remove a feature. Okay. The way we can lower the price is on those polos. We’ll just do the left chest logo. We’ll remove the side logo and that’ll save you X amount of dollars.

Mark Stephenson:
Yep. The same thing as far as pricing goes is make sure that you work a great profit into all of your marketing and all of your sales, all of your pricing. You need to make sure that you’re not starting with the least amount of money that you can make and survive, because then you don’t have anywhere to go. You should get paid well for what you do. If you are and you price things that way and you structure the deals properly, then again, you have the wiggle room. You can make a deal, you can exchange a discount for great reviews or for referrals or anything along those lines.

Marc Vila:
Yeah. There’s a thing to be said about the CarMax approach where, hey, this is the one price and that is it and all that stuff. The problem is that we’re not selling cars, right? Cars are kind of like flattened out over time. What I mean by that is as far as like a dealer goes, all the Camrys are going to sell for this price, and all the trucks are going to be this. If they have four by four, they’re all going to be in this. They all kind of drop into a category pretty quick in a bucket. Custom apparel can get really a bit all over the place because there’s so many factors. The amount of locations, the type of decorating you’re going to do, the quality of the garment, the current pricing of the garment and all of this stuff.

It’s really important that when you’re pricing stuff out, if you need to have a minimum percent that you make or a minimum dollar that you make, and this is the amount that means I’ll profit on the deal enough to stay in business, then you don’t want to live on that line constantly. The goal would be to be a little, whatever the number is. I mean, it would be great to be a lot above that line. But at least a little above that line. When you do have the customer who says, “I’m not going to sign unless you take a hundred dollars off.” Will you do it? You can say yes, because there’s enough profit built in to say yes sometimes when that does happen, or you end up just having to say, no, I can’t do that and they walk away. Because you literally couldn’t do it. Or even worse, you say, yes, you can do it and you don’t make any money.

Mark Stephenson:
And you lose money, which I hate. I also like the, you know, if someone says they’ll think about it or they’ll come back or maybe, maybe not, then again, just remind yourself they’re just looking for a reason not to make a decision. They’ve been standing in front of you waiting for some kind of motivation to make a decision. Again, they came into your shop for a reason. They called you for a reason. They came into your store for a reason. They’re not looking for potatoes. They’re looking for custom apparel. If they don’t buy, if they walk away after a conversation, then you should ask them, what’s up? What’s keeping you back from doing business with me?

Marc Vila:
Yeah. What’s holding you back? What are your concerns? Is there anything? Then you get into like much, this is where you get I think you can step into the high pressure. Right? This is in my opinion where you fall into it, because you ask somebody, “What’s holding you back?” And they say, “I don’t make any decisions like this that are over a thousand dollars without discussing it with my business partner. And that’s the arrangement that we have. I hope you respect that.” Right? Then a polite person might just say, “Okay, I respect that. Can I follow up with you in a couple days?” “Yeah. Talk to you Friday.” And then the pushy person, which is this is where I think you draw the line here. This is when you get into the tactics of, “Why do you need them to make a decision?” You’re getting into manipulation. We’ve never crossed that line in any of these things.

Mark Stephenson:
Right. Very true.

Marc Vila:
Right? So sometimes a person who’s just going to, the first time they say, “I’ll think about it.” You just say, “Why?” In so many words, and then they’ll give you a reason why. There’s two roads from there. One is the reason is because you haven’t properly communicated everything. And then you could say, “Oh actually, we didn’t talk about that.” And then you answer it and they say, “Oh, okay, splendid.” Deal closed. Or the reason might be something-

Mark Stephenson:
They say splendid, then you know that you charge too little.

Marc Vila:
Then the last thing is stuff I already said before, but be confident, be sincere, be honest, ask a bunch of questions, talk to people, communicate. That’s probably the biggest tip of all. If you just do those things, you could do nothing else and you’ll make more money.

Mark Stephenson:
I’m not going to add a thing to that.

Marc Vila:
Great. Then maybe you should do that thing where you say like thank them for having a good business.

Mark Stephenson:
Oh yeah. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to Custom Apparel Startups Podcast. This has been Mark Stephenson.

Marc Vila:
And Marc Vila.

Mark Stephenson:
Have a great sales closing business.

Marc Vila:
Splendid.

The post Episode 177 – The Truth is… Now You’re in Sales appeared first on Custom Apparel Startups.