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HOW TO ACHIEVE EXCELLENCE IN SALES
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 an indication of people's awareness that in order to better themselves, they have to continue improving their personal selling 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. Related Sites 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 salespeople in one
way or another. So whether we're attempting to move up from forklift driver
to warehouse manager, wait ress 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 (prefer ably 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. Related Sites 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 hose that you can to your own selling
efforts.
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
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. 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 de
mand 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 call backs 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 it
some thought," you should quickly jump in and 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
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's procrastinating, or that
overall, you don't think the product will really
benefit him, or it's purchase be to
his advantage.
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
reorders 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 "salesman are made - not
born." Home
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