Summary
Sales are an important aspect of all businesses and are pervasive in most areas of our normal day-to-day lives. Whether you are a business owner selling a product to consumers or a just aiming to convince your friends which movie to see or where to take their next vacation, sales skills are essential to your success.
Selling is ultimately about our relationships and people skills. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur and business owner you must hone your sales skills and understand the prime importance of relationship building.
There’s no real mystery or magic involved; these skills are entirely teachable. An investment in your sales education will pay dividends, not only in your business, but in many other aspects of your personal life as well.
The most successful sales people understand the primary importance of relationship building. Professional salespeople treat their clients well and with respect, taking time to get to know them and understand their needs. Professionals seek to establish a lasting relationship so they can provide service and make money with the same clients, time and time again.
A great salesperson takes the time to know who their prospects are. Understanding your customers, their needs, values and desires, will allow you to determine if they are a good match for what you are selling, so that no one is wasting their time. If the match is the right one, closing will come easily and naturally.
Never fear or shy away from customer objections or questions. Use these as an opportunity to address their concerns in a completely honest and direct manner. The less the objections bother you, the less power they have.
Developing your sales skills will ultimately improve your success not only in business, but also in your overall life goals. Spend time learning the basics and putting them into practice, and you will soon begin to see just how truly powerful these skills are in helping you build better relationships, and get more out of your business and your personal life, so that you too can live rich.
Transcript
I was ten years old and looking through an entrepreneurial magazine for ideas on how to make my fortune. And there it was, Chinchilla farming!
Now there’s a business to inspire a young mind. Mom saw it differently. She wasn’t about to allow a basement full of smelly rodents, no matter how enthusiastic I was.
With that idea behind me, I found another in the same magazine – selling Christmas cards. I used my own money to get the cards “wholesale.” All I needed to do was sell them. I was going to go door to door along my early morning paper route anyway so by selling cards along the way I could kill two birds with one stone. I figured I already had a bunch of customers and if they saw my smiling face presenting something with as much universal appeal as Christmas cards they would quickly make me rich. Just the sort of optimistic naiveté you’d expect from a kid, and exactly what made me a good student in the school of hard knocks.
I got the cards and made my first sale, to my mother. I then went up and down the street in my own neighborhood to hone my skills before I hit those along my paper route. I have to say I got more rejection than I thought I would.
However, I had used my own money and I was determined to sell the dozens of boxes of cards. So there I went, after school and on weekends until every box was sold. I don’t remember the profit I made, but I sold them all at the suggested retail price so it must have been decent.
Beyond a Cute Story
A cute story, sure, but what’s the point? Sales happen all around us, all of the time. So much so that we in some ways become oblivious to the extent. The fact is that little would happen in this world without a sale of some kind, taking place. Until I got involved, the purchase of Christmas cards wasn’t on my radar – exactly like the thousands of other things we buy every day. Every one of those was sold by someone to someone else, somewhere along the line. And I do mean sold – the active process of connecting a buyer to a product and convincing them to pull the trigger and pry open their wallet.
Plenty of folks didn’t buy from the scrawny kid who rang their doorbell. But those that did, did so because I showed up and asked them to buy. From me.
A New Skill Set You Must Acquire
I’m a huge advocate of starting your own business, and every business has a sales element somewhere in the mix. As much as we’d like to think it’s just math, logistics or the best price – there’s always personalities involved. No one had to buy those Christmas cards from me. But if they paid attention long enough for me to rattle off my spiel, there was a good chance for a sale. It wasn’t the product, but the idea of a ten-year-old hustling to make a few bucks – who wouldn’t want to help?
In the final analysis, sales flow from relationship building. A two-minute elevator speech or months of knocking on the corporate door – it’s all the same. If you don’t possess people skills, you better develop some if you want to make money as an entrepreneur.
Product knowledge is fine, but with information freely available online, your customers will often know as much or more than you do.
Take this for example. When you visit your hairdresser she sells when you are in her chair. Whether she is selling you the latest hair gel or on her ability to make you look great, you are being sold. If you have ever recommended a movie or restaurant, you were selling. You just didn’t receive any money for it. Selling happens all the time, all around us.
As an entrepreneur and business owner you must understand sales and relationship building. There is the old saying; “Some people are just born to work in sales.” Although I think some people do naturally have better people skills than others, no one is born a salesperson. Sales professionals spend time and money to hone their skills. They learn the craft – and so can you. Sales is completely teachable and you can learn the basics or you can become a pro.
One of my favorite expressions is: “You can’t overpay a salesperson working on commission.” And I adopted it as an entrepreneurial rule: “The amount of business you do is only limited by the sales you make, and there’s no set limit to that at all.”
My sales career started with a paper route, then Christmas cards and eventually on to real estate. It didn’t matter what I was selling, I made sure I studied the basics of sales and I worked on my people skills. I took my first professional sales training course when I was 20. This paid off tremendously as I have won many sales awards in virtually all of my sales positions from the paper route to real estate and a few in between. But I never forgot that first lesson: You are going to buy your Christmas cards from someone. Let me convince you why that someone should be me.
You Don’t Need to Be Unscrupulous
Sales often get a bad rap due to the unscrupulous people that exist; however, they exist in every area of our lives, not just sales. In sales, they just happen to be at the decision making end of the process and so often times “sales” gets a bad rap.
Rightly so in my opinion. Who hasn’t run into the disingenuous salesperson who uses ham-handed flattery and lies about their product? We all have. They thrive in environments where one-off sales are the rule. They live by the mantra, “I can screw this customer because there’s an unlimited pool of suckers.” Wrong, wrong, wrong! It makes my blood boil.
These toads are a blight on humanity. They’ve forgotten (or never learned) that sales are built on relationships. They are confusing the product, the price and their commission, with the experience they should be offering their customers. And the ironic thing? When these same fellows are out shopping, they will immediately, and loudly, complain about their own bad experiences with a salesman doing exactly what they do.
This is where those people skills come to play. Professional salespeople treat their clients well and with respect. Professionals are looking to establish a lasting relationship so they can provide service and make money with the same clients, time and time again. This is what you need to do as well.
Closing isn’t pushing a person to make a decision. Closing is finding the right person for the right situation and pulling them to the point where buying what you are selling makes complete sense. It is actually a very natural and pleasant part of the process when done well.
A Few Skills
One of the keys to effective selling, again of any type, is matching the buyer with the right product. This is true whether you are selling real estate, jet airplanes or dental hygiene. When there’s a mismatch, the relationship is awkward and forced. The sale doesn’t “flow.” This part of the selling process is called “qualifying”, which is asking a few questions of the prospect to determine if what you have is the right for the product for them.
When I was selling real estate this was one of my strengths. I didn’t want to waste people’s time that weren’t interested nor did I want to waste my time. It’s respect. I basically had three types of prospects.
- Those that were ready, willing and able to sell or buy “now.” Usually what they wanted was well defined, attainable and they had a reason to buy or sell now.
- Those that were interested in buying when the right product came along.
- Then there were those people on my mailing list or should be on my mailing list.
You have to know who your prospects are. Knowing you are dealing with the right person at the right time is critical to your success in sales and marketing, whether in person or online. Then, closing is actually an easy and natural process that doesn’t require any of the high pressure or manipulative techniques that make people resistant.
I won’t say the high-pressure techniques don’t work. Heck, a loaded gun “works.” They don’t work for me though, and if you intend to build a real business, something you can be proud of, avoid them like a hot slice of Ebola pie.
Don’t Fear Objections
In sales, we often times fear objections and therefore don’t ask for the sale. Why do objections create such fear? Usually it’s because you think you won’t have the right response or you may feel the need to persuade or manipulate, which makes you uncomfortable. However, really all you need to do is honestly answer their questions in a positive way. It really is that simple.
The less objections bother you, the less power they have. One easy technique is to accept them at face value. Customers are sometimes shocked to hear agreement when they expected an argument. It’s almost magical to then see them overcome their own objection.
“I can get Christmas cards much cheaper at Walmart.”
“Yep. And if you wait till after Christmas when they put them on sale, you could save almost two-dollars a box.”
… pause… quizzical look…
“Well, Ok then. Since you’re here now, maybe I’ll get a couple.”
Questions from the potential buyer are just opportunities to assess the real interest in what you are selling. And once you have answered their question, it’s an opportunity to ask if they are ready to move forward with the purchase. This is called a “trial close” so you can see if there are any more questions.
Knowing How to Sell Will Change You & Make You Money
This is meant to be a mini sales lesson. I wanted to show you that sales isn’t magic; that there’s some real education here, some learning. If I’ve pulled back the curtain even a little, take my recommendation and sign up for a course or do some serious studying on the subject of sales. There are many excellent sales training courses available. You don’t have to figure all this out on your own. You don’t even need to be an expert. But you do need the essential understanding. Dale Carnegie and Tom Hopkins offer some excellent programs. By educating yourself, you invest in yourself and in the money you will soon make.
In closing, I will say this. Don’t underestimate the importance of sales in all areas of your life. At the very least knowing the selling basics will help you relate to people better and help you build better relationships at home, work or socially. Sales isn’t just about selling “something,” it’s about getting better at communicating with people.
When you choose to know and understand sales, great people skills and excellent communication, you will quickly see growth in you and in your business and in reaching your desired goals. And, when a ten-year-old kid shows up at your doorstep, enthusiastic about meeting your Christmas card needs, see if you don’t buy a few boxes. I will.
