What a Sales Professional Needs to W-I-N

Here is a list of what a professional needs to succeed:

Intelligence – listen and talk to others and you can gain the intelligence of the world. Read and study your trade.

Compassion – act for the sake of the other and put his or her needs before your own. Use nonmanipulative selling techniques.

Discipline – do what is natural for you, but do it well.

Courage – grit your teeth and go for the close.

Voltaire said that common sense was not common and in fact it was really rather rare. It is common sense to be natural as a way of producing sales. Therefore, by paraphrasing Voltaire, I like to say that common sense is not in common use. If it were, then salespeople would make their sales calls every day before doing anything else so that they could continue to generate business on a daily basis.

Here are some commonsense rules that will increase your sales this week:

Work hard but effortlessly. This means you can put in lots of smart hard work but take the sacrifice and victim act out…If you can’t enjoy it…don’t do it.

Integrity is the quality or state of being complete or undivided. It means you are complete in everything you do. Every note you take, phone calls returned on time. Complete all those things that have loose ends. An airplane limps in when it has lost integrity and the same thing happens to people in sales.

Never make your client or customer feel wrong or stupid. Never leave a message that you called and then when the client calls back, start selling him on his quarter. He will feel stupid and conned. Never leave a job for your customer to do. Don’t you know he already has plenty to do without having to call you? You should call the customer back and make his job easier.

Common sense is always in common use with me so it seems to me we should give you some ways to make these rules work.

$ Check yourself to see if your sales job reflects the real you. If you really like your job, just do it better. This means never complain and don’t say negative things about your company or your product. You are the one who works there.

$ Act as if you are having a good time… then let the good times roll. Everybody hates a complainer.

$ Get rid of all those business cards that you keep around to prove that you have leads.

$ Call all the old ones first and if they say a definite yes, great! If they stall, put them in the circular file.

$ Think of 10 new places to get good leads. Fresher leads will make you more alert.

$ Never say, “How are you?” on the first cold call. This is like raising a flag and saying, “I’m about to take your money.”

The professional salesperson is a straight talking person who always uses nonmanipulative sales skills and if you believe in that, my friends, you’ll double those sales.

Judy McKee specializes in sales and telemarketing training. For more information, write to McKee Motivation, 21721 Tahoe Lane, Lake Forest, CA 92630, or call 714/837-4030