The Selling Newsletter for Sales Professionals
“The country is full of good coaches. What it takes to win is a bunch of interested players."
–Don Coryell, NFL Football coach
For Salespeople…
So who are your prospects this year? Do you even have real prospects? I can tell when I work with salespeople when they don’t have true prospects. They can’t define an ideal customer to me. How can you find more prospects like your best customers if you can’t identify who your best ones are? Just as Coryell observed who it takes to win, you have to identify who it’s going to take for you to make your sales numbers. I don’t care how marvelous your product is. You are wasting your time if you’re meeting with the wrong prospects. I’m sure Coryell was great at finding a bunch of interested players. You can start getting good at sales by finding “interested” prospects. That’s how you’re going to win in sales.
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THE BLOG S AND OTHER COLUMNS
I’m now writing The Real Deal, a column on women in business for Allbusiness.com Hope you’ll read more ideas so you can achieve your success in business.
You can get RSS feed for the blog.
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THE SELLING IDEAS FOR THE MONTH TO SELL MORE NOW
Why People Hate Salesmen
Have you noticed how salespeople get no respect? I often say that salespeople are the Rodney Dangerfield of the business world. They don’t get any respect. Where does this wretched reputation come from? It’s salespeople who are doing the damage. They are making people hate salespeople.
Trickery. I just got off the phone with Jim. The call started with a warm greeting of “Hey Maura. It’s Jim. Great to talk with you.” His friendliness seemed sincere. I replied, “Hi, Jim” wondering the whole time who this Jim was. I quickly learned. He was an inside salesman. Once I realized that I didn’t know him, I felt duped. Why? He acted as if he knew me when he didn’t. I felt like he tricked me. That is no way to make a customer feel. Of course I didn’t buy and I didn’t even let him get too many words out after that.
If you have to trick customers into listening to you, I can promise you that your sales efforts will be unsuccessful. Don’t pretend to know people when you don’t. Instead why not actually do some work and create a better introduction that people who don’t know you might pay attention to and listen to?
One strategy when calling is to actually be persuasive. People respond with their emotions so tap into them. They also want to be part of certain groups. If he had said, “I work with successful business owners like you…” at the beginning of his introduction then of course I would have listened. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a group of successful business owners? That would have made me feel good. I might have even bought if Jim said that.
Deceit. You probably know that referrals to prospects are a much easier way to sell. People usually trust the people who refer others to them so you walk in with more trust established. Just imagine a salesman who uses this to get appointments by saying, “John, I was referred to you by Tom” and then leaves a phone number to return the call. Now what would you say if there were no Tom?
I actually heard a salesman say this is what he does. This is called lying. You are lying if you make any claim that you know you can’t deliver. “I might be able to do this” is very different than “I can do this.” Say what you mean to customers. There is no place in successful sales for lying. To this day I pity this salesman’s customers.
Stupidity I once made a sales call with an inexperienced salesman who was anxious to close the deal. His prospect asked many questions to better understand the project. After fifteen minutes of getting questions the salesman responded to another question with, “You don’t need to know that.” The stunned customer looked at him and the sales call was over. If you want a quick way to end the sale then make your customers feel stupid. What you’ll get is no respect—and no sale.
Anyone can claim to be a salesman. There are far fewer who can claim to be successful. The ones who are successful are honest, hard working, and deliver much more than they charge for their products sand services. It was funny for Rodney Dangerfield to get no respect. It’s not funny to get no respect if you’re in sales
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ACTION ITEMS
1. Think about your business. Are you being honest with your prospects and customers?
2. Notice what other sales professionals do to detract from their ethical behavior. Don’t do what they do!
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DID YOU KNOW?
Here’s a tip this week for your sales success.
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Programs
You can check for current programs.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Here are some selling tools to help you sell more now. Click on the photo to find out more!
Monday Morning Sales Tips : A book that has quick ideas for you to be more successful in sales. Real-World Selling: A book with selling skills and strategies that work in the real world of sales. Secrets of Persuasion: Audio CD for the clues to use to speed-read people and close more business.