Most people are striving to better themselves. It's only natural. People are seeking better lives for themselves and for their families. Most want to improve their standard of living, increase their income, and put aside some money for a rainy day. Check the sales figures on the number of self-improvement books soldeach year. It is an indication of people's awareness that in order to better themselves, they must continue improving their abilities.
To excel in any selling situation,
you must have confidence. Confidence comes
first and foremost from knowledge.
You have to understand yourself and your
goals in order to develop
an attitude of self-confidence. You must identify and
accept your weaknesses as
well as your special talents. This requires a personal
honesty that not everyone
is capable of exercising. In addition to knowing
yourself, you must continue
to learn about people. As you do to yourself, you must
also do toward others. Be
caring, forgiving, and laudatory with others.
In
any sales effort, you must accept other people as they are, not as you
would
wish them to be. One of the
most common faults among sales people is
impatience. When the prospective
customer is slow to understand or make a
decision, too often a salesman
becomes aggravated or overly aggressive. 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. He takes his time. He
listens closely to the other
person. He directs the conversation toward positive
aspects rather than negative
ones. Knowing your product, making a clear sales
presentation to qualified
prospects, and closing more sales will take a lot less
time once you know your own
capabilities and failings, and come to understand
and care about the prospects
upon whom you are calling.
Because our society is built
upon commerce, all of us are selling something all
the time. Even if we are not
promoting a specific product, we are least selling an
image of ourselves to those
around us. We are projecting personalities that we
hope others will accept and
to which they will respond favorably. 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.
Recognizing that we're all
sales people in one way or another--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. Only by applying
ourselves to the never-ending task of self-improvement
will we ever be able to cross
that line from mediocrity to success.
Utilizing the proper tools,
anyone can sell virtually anything to virtually anybody.
While it is true that there
are some items that are easier to sell than others, and
while some people work harder
at selling than others, regardless of what you're
promoting or even how you're
attempting to do it, the odds can be in your favor. If
you make your presentation
to enough people, you'll find a buyer. The problem
with most people is in making
contact and getting their sales presentation seen,
read, or heard by enough prospects.
But this really shouldn't be a problem. The
principle error is one of
impatience. With training this impatience can be
harnessed to work in the salesperson's
favor.
Getting up out of bed in the
morning and 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-- requires a great
deal of personal motivation, discipline, and energy.
But the rewards can be beyond
your wildest dreams. 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 greater your
desire to succeed and the deeper your dedication
toward the achievement of
your goals, the more you'll sell. Thousands of people
the world over become millionaires
each year through selling. Many of them were
flat broke and unable to find
a regular job when they began their selling careers.
Yet, they've created success.
You can do it too!
Selling is the best way to
achieve wealth. You get paid according to your own
efforts, skill, and knowledge
of people. If you're ready to become rich, then
seriously consider selling
a product or service--preferably something exclusively
yours that you have created
yourself. Choose something that you write,
manufacture, or produce for
the benefit of other people. Outside of this, the want
ads are full of opportunities
for ambitious sales people. You can start there, study,
learn from experience, and
watch for the chances that will allow you to move
ahead by leaps and bounds.
Here are some basic guidelines
that will allow you to increase your total sales
and income. I like to call
these tips the Commandments of Strategic
Salesmanship. Look them over.
Dedicate some thought to each suggestion.
Adapt those that you can to
your own selling efforts. You will likely be rewarded
many times over for the brief
investment of time you spend in studying these
suggestions.
If the product you're selling
is something your prospect can hold in his hands, get
it into his hands as quickly
as possible. Include the prospect in the presentation.
Let him hold the product in
his hand, feel it, weigh it, admire it.
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
how and when you should begin to close the
sale.
While handling sales literature,
hold it by the top of the page, at the proper angle,
so that your prospect can
read it as you highlight the important points. You don't
want to cover the text or
any graphic elements in your sales literature that might
help convince the client of
the product's value. Also, don't release your hold on it.
You want to be able to control
the specific parts you want the prospect to read. In
other words, you want the
prospect to read or see only the sections of the sales
material about which you're
telling him at a given time.
When you encounter a prospect
who won't talk with you or provide feedback to
your 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. In most cases, following
such a question, the one who
talks first will lose. Don't say anything until after the
prospect has given you some
kind of answer. Wait him out!
Prospects who are themselves
sales people or who imagine they know a lot
about selling sometimes present
difficult selling obstacles, especially for the
novice. However, these prospects
can be the easiest of all to sell. Give your sales
presentation. 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 if this product can truthfully be of
benefit to you." Then spend
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 simply
have to prove you wrong. When
they start on this tangent, they will sell themselves.
The more skeptical you are
concerning 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 self-centered that it is a
poor use of your valuable
time to attempt to convince them.
Remember that in selling, time
is money! You must allocate only so much time to
each prospect. The prospect
who asks you to call back next week, or who wants
to ramble on about similar
products, prices, or previous experiences, is costing
you money. Learn quickly to
get the prospect interested in and wanting your
product. Then systematically
present your sales pitch through to the close when
he signs on the dotted line
and reaches for his checkbook. You must spend as
much time as possible calling
on new prospects. 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 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
it some thought," you should quickly jump in with a
response. Ask him what it
is that he doesn't understand, or what specifically about
your product does he feel
he needs to give more thought. Let him explain, and
then 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's procrastinating,
or that on the whole you don't
think the product will really benefit him or that it's
purchase will be to his advantage.
Review your sales presentation, your sales materials, and your prospecting
efforts. Make sure you have
a "door-opener" introduction that arouses interest
and compels a purchase the
first time around. This can be as simple as giving
the customer a free item as
an interest stimulator to make him more inclined to
view your entire line. Offer
a special marked-down price on an item that
everybody wants. The important
thing is to get the prospect on your list of current
buyers and off your list of
potential clients. After you have captured the first sale,
follow up via mail or telephone
with the related but more profitable products you
have to offer.
If you have worked hard at
selling in the past, you will readily find the value in
these suggestions. Study them.
Apply them in your own work. When you realize
your first success, you will
truly agree that salesman are made--not born.