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Text File
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1995-03-06
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13KB
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241 lines
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.
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, 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 some
thing 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 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 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
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."
________________________________________________________________
End of Report.