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 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 stated here. When you realize
your first successes, you will truly know that "salesmen
are MADE - not born".
By:
Hamoon Arbabi
Source: http://homebusiness.nexuswebs.net/ |
