The 10 things I wish I had known as a young salesman
6/22/2009 9:35:04 PM
There was a young 18 year old on this week’s open sales training course who really made me think. In a group of 12 sales people of mixed experiences I felt he really stood out, maybe because the average age on the course was mid to late 30’s but probably because his hunger to take on board new information, ideas and tactics was exhilarating.
I would love to say it reminded me of myself when I first started in Sales at the age of 17 over 30 years ago, I would love to but it didn’t, I was quite happy to put my suit on get in my car and stick with what I knew, some good successes, sure, but a lot of missed opportunities too.
A good 7 years passed by before I ventured on to my first training course, and with that my eyes were suddenly opened to a whole new world of possibilities, there was another way, the potential customers who had been saying NO and worse than that MAYBE, could now be persuaded.
The young guy on my course made me think about the things I wish I had known then because I know it would have made a terrific difference. As time travel hasn’t yet been invented and I am not able to go back and tell my younger self (Michael J Fox style) i thought I would take the opportunity to tell others via this blog.
The 10 things I wish I had known as a young salesman:
1) Write out your Goals, aspirations, objectives.
Not just for the call you are just about to do but for your Life as a whole, your business aspirations. Be specific with these goals. Use the S.M.A.R.T. criteria, S – Specific, M measureable, A – Achievable, R – Relevant, T – Timed. The more specific you are about what you want the more likely your subconscious will be able to find a way to achieve them, They should stretch you but still be achievable. Make sure they are relevant to what you REALLY want out of life/business, and lastly put a time on them. So they don’t just drift on and on to finally disappear. Having these goals and objectives is not good enough on it’s own you have to write them down, the human brain is like a sieve, if not written down they get vague and then lost. Research of students at a university showed that only 5% of them had written goals, however 25 years later that 5% were worth 10 times more than the other 95% PUT TOGETHER. Napoleon Hill in his book ‘How to think and grow Rich’ wrote, to be successful you must have definiteness of purpose.
2) Manage Time effectively
We all have the same amount of time but successful people use it much more effectively. I used to waste an inordinate amount of valuable time on tasks that really didn’t generate anything like the results I was looking for and retrospectively they were never going to either. Brian Tracy wrote a great book Eat that Frog, and I would recommend that to anyone who would like to get more out of their time. Essentially it’s about listing (writing down) the things you have to do every day and prioritising them, and we know the most important task isn’t always the easiest or nicest task of the day either. The most important task of that day though will be your biggest ugliest frog. We could look at it all day but it’s not going to get any tastier is it? The best action will be to get up in the morning and gulp it down as quickly as you can, nothing else later in that day will be as bad, and you won’t have to keep looking at the big ugly brute and worry.
3) You get what you focus on:
Think positively about what you want rather than about what you don’t want, If I said to you DON’T think about a pink elephant.... what did you think of. I don’t want this buyer to say NO. I don’t want this buyer to focus on the price. Yes you guessed it; that’s exactly what they do. Our subconscious without us knowing it leads the buyer down the path we are thinking about with non word communication. Taking into consideration 93% of communication is non-word that gives it a lot of opportunity. Our subconscious cannot understand the concept of don’t etc it only hears ‘pink elephant’, ‘focus on price’ and ‘say NO’. Annoying isn’t it?
4) The Pareto 80/20 rule:
Linked with the first three, this is very powerful. Pareto, an Italian industrialist realised 80% of the wealth was with 20% of the people, he then subsequently discovered the 80/20 rule applied to many other elements too, including 80% of your business is with 20% of your customers. Find those 20%s and spend more time with them and you will increase your sales dramatically. 80% of the value in anything you do will come from 20% of your activities. Identify this and use it.
5) Rapport is the KEY:
People buy from people they like, once you have rapport you are well on your way to success. Some people you naturally get rapport with, but it’s the others that when I first started in sales used to give me the problems. If I had known then the techniques I know now I shudder to think what that would have done to my conversion rates and sales figures.
6) Customer Service:
Always look at it from your customers’ perspective, what does whatever you are doing or saying mean to them? I like the adage ‘under promise, over deliver’ go that extra mile for your customer and they will repay you 100 fold. Do it without thought of immediate return, karma is a great force in sales. Remember current customers/clients are the best source of new customers that you have got.
7) MAYBE’s Are No Good:
When I first started in sales I felt quite happy to get a maybe! Much better than a NO I thought at the time, I knew a YES would have been better obviously but perhaps a maybe was a yes in the waiting room. As it turns out I now realise a maybe is really a NO, it’s not in any waiting room at all, if it’s any where it’s on a life support machine that’s just about to be turned off. Maybe’s are very consuming, draining time, effort, energy, and money away from the real high value prospects. I know we all like Yes’s, in fact some of the best things that have ever happened to us followed a YES, but don’t be afraid of the NO either
8) Don’t be afraid to make mistakes:
We’ve all heard the phrase, the man who doesn’t make mistakes doesn’t make anything haven’t we? However we still seem reluctant to take chances on some occasions. We need that safety net of being very sure, sometimes even a safety net for the safety net. If I could go back to my 17 year old self I would say try and make twice as many mistakes tomorrow as you did today and learn from them. Have sensory acuity to look at the feedback, expand what works and change or scrap what isn’t.
9) ACTION not Procrastination:
Every day take massive action, don’t let your good ideas go to waste, try something different every day, eat the ugly frogs quickly and eagerly then look to see what else you can do. Much of what will make you successful is easy to do, however it’s also easy not to do. Successful people are successful because they do the things failures aren’t prepared to do.
10) PASSION:
If you’re passionate about something you will be good at it, if you’re lukewarm the results you get will be hit and miss. Make sure you find out what you’re passionate about and DO IT! Stop now anything you’re not passionate about!
I’d urge you to scribble down a few notes on anything in this article that stood out for you and place it somewhere prominent. Don’t just bookmark it with a view to looking at it in the near future, TAKE ACTION, take a minute to think how any of this applies to what you do on a day to day basis and WRITE IT DOWN!
If you have any of your own revelations you’d like to share, drop a comment in the box below.
Cheers.
Nigel
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