Mattress Vs Laptops And How Apple makes you feel special

What a great example from a consultant (not a sales person) from Apple store, who helped me select my first mac book air.   There is a specific reason why i have mentioned a consultant not a sales person in my first line, i will elaborate that bit later.

He said, "we spend 5-7 years on our mattress every night and most of us don't take much time to decide on the right one, adding further to that he said these days we are spending similar amount of time on our PCs during the day, and we don't take our time buy the right one either." I was so impressed hearing this analogy, from this wonderful gentleman who was an avid traveller,using real life examples to help me make the right decision.

There was so much to learn from my experience with apple and the way i was  consulted, questions i was asked about what i use my laptop for, and most importantly made feel special. There was a genuine interest in finding more out about me, than to recommend me the right product. I wonder if i would have got the same experince buying from any other retailer.

For those of you who aspire to be great at solution sales, i would recommend following points to consider as a part of your learning.

1. People don't care about how much you know, until they know how much you care. Your body language will say a lot about you than the words you choose to say as 90% of communication is non verbal.
2. Work on giving real life examples to relate well. This helps create a picture in your clients mind about how you will make their life easy by what ever solution you have to offer. 
3. Your first meeting should always be about building trust, i.e. understanding and connecting with every individual in the meeting at personal level.Getting them to like you. If you can manage to bring a smile on their face, even better, you have already gained an edge with your competition. This is an art that has to practised , i would highly recommend reading a book by John Maxwell, "Everyone Communicates Few Connect".

Back to my first line ,Consultant (not a sales person). In my opinion every individual who works in exchange for money is in sales, as you are selling your services to your employer. But surprisingly ,most of us don't like word Sales, and very reason is , WE ALL HATE TO BE SOLD, EVERY ONE LIKES TO BUY.

So in closing, as successful solution consultant ,your goal should be to make people feel that they want to buy from you. Most of us know what we want, as internet has wealth of information about anything and everything. We need trusted advisers to help us make the right decision. Understanding product is secondary, understanding people always comes first.