Most
people are always striving to better themselves. It's the "American
Way". For proof, check the sales figures on the number of self-improvement
books sold each year. This is not a pitch for you to jump in and start
selling these kinds of books, but it is a indication of people's awareness that
in order to better themselves, they have to continue improving their personal
selling ab abilities.
To
excel in any selling situation, you must have confidence, and confidence comes,
first and foremost, from knowledge. You have to know and understand
yourself and your goals. You have to recognize
and accept your weaknesses as well as your special talents. This requires
a kind of personal honesty that not everyone is capable of exercising.
In
addition to knowing yourself, you must continue learning about people.
Just as with yourself, you must be caring, forgiving and laudatory with others.
In any sales effort, you must accept other people as they are, not as you would
like for them to be. One of the most common faults of sales people is impatience
when the prospective customer is slow to understand or make a decision.
The successful salesperson handles these situations the same as he would if he
were asking a girl for a date, or even applying for a new job.
Learning
your product, making a clear presentation to qualified prospects, and closing
more sales will take a lot less time once you know your own capabilities and
failings, and understand and care about the prospects you are calling upon.
Our
society is predicated upon selling, and all of us are selling something all the
time. We move up or stand still in direct relation to our sales
efforts. Everyone is included, whether we're attempting to be a friend to
a co-worker, a neighbor, or selling multi-million dollar real estate projects.
Accepting these facts will enable you to understand that there is no such thing
as a born salesman. Indeed, in selling, we all begin at the same starting
line, and we all have the same finish line as the goal - a successful sale.
Most
assuredly, anyone can sell anything to anybody. As a qualification to
this statement, let us say that some things are easier to sell than others, and
some people work harder at selling than others. But regardless of what
you're selling, or even how you're attempting to sell it, the odds are in your
favor.
If you make your presentation to enough people, you'll find a buyer. The
problem with most people seems to be in making contact - getting their sales
presentation seen by, read by, or heard by enough people. But this really
shouldn't be a problem, as we'll explain later. There is a problem of
impatience,
but this too can be harnessed to work in the salesperson's favor.
We
have established that we're all sales people in one way or another. So
whether we're attempting to move up from forklift driver to warehouse manager,
waitress to hostess, salesman to sales manager or from mail order dealer to
president of the largest sales organization in the world, it's vitally
important that
we continue learning.
Getting
up out of bed in the morning; doing what has to be done in order to sell
more units of your product; keeping records, updating your materials;
planning the direction of further sales efforts; and all the while increasing
your own knowledge---all this very definitely requires a great deal of personal
motivation, discipline, and energy. But then the rewards can be beyond your
wildest dreams, for make no mistake about it, the selling profession is the
highest paid occupation in the world!
Selling
is challenging. It demands the utmost of your creativity and innovative
thinking. The more success you want, and the more dedicated you are to
achieving your goals, the more you'll sell. Hundreds of people the world
over become millionaires each month through selling. Many of them were
flat broke and unable to find a "regular" job when they began their
selling careers. Yet they've done it, and you can do it too!
Remember,
it's the surest way to all the wealth you could ever want. You get paid
according to your own efforts, skill, and knowledge of people. If you're
ready to become rich, then think seriously about selling a product or service
(preferably something exclusively yours) - something that you "pull out of
your brain"; something that you write, manufacture or produce for the
benefit of other people. But failing this, the want ads are full of opportunities
for ambitious sales people. You can start there, study, learn from
experience, and watch for the chance that will allow you to move ahead by leaps
and bounds.
Here
are some guidelines that will definitely improve your gross sales, and quite
naturally, your gross income. I like to call them the Strategic
Salesmanship Commandments. Look them over; give some thought to each of
them; and adapt those that you can to your own selling efforts.
1.
If the product you're selling is something your prospect can hold in his hands,
get it into his hands as quickly as possible. In other words, get the
prospect "into the act". Let him feel it, weigh it, admire it.
2.
Don't stand or sit alongside your prospect. Instead, face him while
you're pointing out the important advantages of your product. This will
enable you to watch his facial expressions and
determine whether and when you should go for the close. In handling sales
literature, hold it by the top of the page, at the proper angle, so that your
prospect can read it as you're highlighting
the important points.
Regarding
your sales literature, don't release your hold on it, because you want to
control the specific parts you want the prospect to read. In other words,
you want the prospect to read or see only the parts of the sales material
you're telling him about at a given time.
3.
With prospects who won't talk with you: When you can get no feedback to
yours sales presentation, you must dramatize your presentation to get him
involved. Stop and ask questions such as,
"Now, don't you agree that this product can help you or would be of
benefit to you?" After you've asked a question such as this, stop
talking and wait for the prospect to answer. It's a proven fact that
following such a question, the one who talks first will lose, so don't say
anything until after the prospect has given you some kind of answer. Wait
him out!
4.
Prospects who are themselves sales people, and prospects who imagine they know
a lot about selling sometimes present difficult selling obstacles, especially
for the novice. But believe me, these prospects can be the easiest of all
to sell. Simply give your sales presentation, and instead of trying for a
close, toss out a challenge such as, "I don't know, Mr. Prospect - after
watching your reactions to what I've been showing and telling you about my
product, I'm very doubtful as to how this product can truthfully be of benefit
to you".
Then
wait a few seconds, just looking at him and waiting for him to say
something. Then, start packing up your sales materials as if you are
about to leave. In almost every instance, your "tough nut" will
quickly ask you, Why? These people are generally so filled with their own
importance, that they just have to prove you wrong. When they start on
this tangent, they will sell themselves. The more skeptical you are
relative to their ability to make your product work to their benefit, the more
they'll demand that you sell it to them.
If
you find that this prospect will not rise to your challenge, then go ahead with
the packing of your sales materials and leave quickly. Some people are so
convinced of their own importance that it is a poor use of your valuable time
to attempt to convince them.
5.
Remember that in selling, time is money! Therefore, you must allocate
only so much time to each prospect. The prospect who asks you to call
back next week, or wants to ramble on about similar products, prices or
previous experiences, is costing you money. Learn to quickly get your
prospect interested in, and wanting your product, and then systematically
present your sales pitch through to the close, when he signs on the dotted
line, and reaches for his checkbook.
After
the introductory call on your prospect, you should be selling products and
collecting money. Any callbacks should be only for reorders, or to sell
him related products from your line. In other words, you can waste an
introductory call on a prospect to qualify him, but you're going to be wasting
money if you continue calling on him to sell him the first unit of your
product. When faced with a reply such as, "Your product looks pretty
good, but I'll have to give some thought", you should quickly
jump in and ask him what specifically about your product does he feel he needs
to give more thought. Let him explain, and that's when you go back into
your sales presentation and make everything crystal clear for him. If he
still balks, then you can either tell him that you think he product will really
benefit him, or it's purchase be to his benefit.
You
must spend as much time as possible calling on new prospects. Therefore,
your first call should be a selling call with follow-up calls by mail or
telephone (once every month or so in person) to sign him for re-orders and
other items from your product line.
6.
Review your sales presentation, your sales materials, and your prospecting
efforts. Make sure you have a "door-opener" that arouses
interest and "forces" a purchase the first time around. This
can be a $2 interest stimulator so that you can show him your full line, or a
special marked-down price on an item
that everybody wants; but the important thing is to get the prospect on
your "buying customer" list, and then follow up via mail or telephone
with related, but more profitable products you
have to offer.
If
you accept our statement that there are no born salesmen, you can readily
absorb these "commandments". Study them, as well as all the
material in this report. When you realize your first successes,
you will truly know that "salesmen are MADE - not born".
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