Do You Have The Five Key Skills To Succeed In Sales?

The old sales tactics taught and used by many salespeople in the past will not work in the new economy.

If you’re going to succeed in sales during the current economic situation and in the coming three to five years, you’re going to have to adapt a new way of selling.

These skills are not new to the top sales people. They are the same skills I learned and mastered. The same skills that took me from barely paying my bills back in the early eighties to a six figure income in a matter a three months.

The top sales people in the new economy will have five key skills:

* Empathy with their client

* Long-term relationship-building skills

* The ability to work with people in other departments of their company

* In-depth knowledge of the market

* A dedication to customer service

Let’s dive in and look at each one in-depth:

The sales people who will succeed have empathy with their client.

The dictionary defines empathy as; the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

In layman’s terms, it means you need to be able to put yourself in your clients shoes. You need to look at things through their eyes, feel how their feeling and genuinely care about what’s important to them, putting your own ideas and feelings about what’s right for them aside.

There’s an old saying, people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care. So get yourself out of the way and start genuinely caring about what your clients are saying and what their not saying to you.

The sales people who succeed will have long term relationship building skills.

Many sales people and companies for that matter spend more time and money getting a client than they do to keep them. That is so backwards. From the time you first make contact with a client you should thinking long term relationship. Once a client has purchased from you and they like and trust you, they are more apt to purchase more from you and to become ambassadors for you.

When you develop the kind of long term, friendly relationship with your client and they are singing your praises to everyone they know, the business of sales gets so much easier.

As you may already know, it’s a great feeling when the phone rings and it’s a current client calling to give you a referral or better yet it’s the referral calling you want to make a purchase.

The sales people who succeed will have the ability to work with people in other departments of their company.

You need to have good working relationships with all departments of your company. Remember, your all in this together working towards one common goal, to make the client happy so the company turns a profit. People in other departments are not the enemy as many sales people treat them.

You never know when you might need a favor; a faster delivery, so extras added to the purchase, some one to work a little late to get your order out, who knows what you might need from another person in your company some day.

And as the old saying goes, it’s a lot easier to get something with honey, than it is with lemon. So stop being a lemon.

The sales people who succeed will have in-depth knowledge of the market.

There’s no better way to differentiate your self from everyone else who sells a similar product or service than to know every thing that’s going on in your market.

Do you know what your competitors sell, how much they sell it for, or what their customer service is like? Are there any new trends?

Dig in, do your homework and find out everything you can about your market. Many times the sales person will the most knowledge about the market ends up winning the sale, regardless of price.

The sales people who will succeed have a dedication to customer service.

The sale does not end when you collect the check or the order form is signed. It continues on after the sale through the delivery process and for years and years to come.

Remember, your building long term relationships, so get involved in the entire process. Don’t leave every thing up to someone else in your company. Stay involved, even if it’s only to communicate with the client. This kind of follow up will pay off in increase repeat and referral business.

Master these five key skills and you are on your way to being one of the sales people who thrives now and in to the future.

Ignore them and you may very well become one of the casualties of our current economic situation.

These five key skills are the backbone of the way I have sold for the last 27 years and the basis for all my training products and services.

To see the ever expanding list of products and services and choose the ones that are right for you, go to…

http://www.fromtheheartsalestraining.com/products.html

Tags: sales, sales techniques, sales tips, sales training // 1 Comment »

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What Makes Some Sales People So Successful?

Can you imagine closing sales with less resistance from the
prospect? Wouldn’t it be amazing if more of your sales
presentations ended with “where do I sign”? Can you remember a time
when you closed a sale with very little effort?

In the next few minutes you are going to learn exactly why you make
a sale and why you don’t. I’m going to challenge your current
beliefs
about why things happen the way they do.

There are Universal Laws that govern The Universe. These basic
principles have been around since The Creation. Universal Laws
apply to everyone, everywhere. They cannot be changed. They cannot
be broken.

One example of a Universal Law is the Law of Gravity. The Law of
Gravity says that if you fall off of a building, it doesn’t matter
if you’re a good person or a bad person, you’re going to hit the
ground.

Another Universal Law that governs The Universe is the Law of
Attraction. The simplest way to explain this law is “like attracts
like” or “you get what you put your energy and focus on, whether
wanted or unwanted”.

Some ways of expressing The Law of Attraction are:

Birds of a feather flock together

What you sow, you reap

What you put out you get back

What comes around goes around

Grasping a better understanding of how the “Law of Attraction”
works is the first step in creating a life beyond your wildest
dreams. And that includes closing sales and making more commissions
with less effort that you ever thought possible.

To understand the Law of Attraction you first need to understand
that at a basic level everything including you is made up of
energy. And Energy attracts like Energy. I know this whole
discussion may be beyond the scope of anything you’ve ever thought
of before, however, I urge you to continue reading so you can see
that whatever you think about is working in your life and you have
the power to change the results you are getting.

All energy vibrates. Everything has a unique frequency. Remember
everything is Energy, including your thoughts and feelings. When
two vibrations are resonating at the same frequency, they are
attracted to each other.

Let me explain by using an example of an experience you may have
had in your own life. Have you ever thought about a person you
hadn’t seen or heard from in a long time and feeling what it would
be like to talk to them? Then before long they call you or you see
them?

You are attracting a situation that is in resonance with how you
are
feeling or the frequency or vibration you are in at that time. The
Universe will respond in this way every time without fail. And it
does so whether the feeling is good or bad.

So how can you use The Law of Attraction to close sales?

Most salespeople are spinning their wheels and expending to much
energy chasing prospects who are not a vibrational match for their
product or service.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew the effort you were putting out
would attract the prospects who would be ready, willing and able to
buy from you?

Of course it would.

You see many salespeople have limiting beliefs about what is
possible or necessary to be a success in sales. They think that you
have to work hard or be lucky or be in the right place at the right
time. However, these are all limiting beliefs. And when you think
in this way you will attract to you the people and circumstances
that match these limiting beliefs.

In order to close sales you have to change what you are thinking
and
feeling about your sales. If you are thinking and feeling that you
don’t have enough sales, the vibration you are sending out will
attract to you more of the same and you will not have enough sales.

However, if you come from a place of feeling that you already have
the sales, then you will attract what you are thinking or feeling
and you will close more sales.

Think of how you feel when you make a sale. The excitement, the
joy, the sense of accomplishment. Now stay in that feeling or
vibration and you will attract more sales that will match that
feeling.

Become aware of how you are thinking and feeling at all times and
when you find yourself slipping back into your old bad feelings,
decide at that moment to change it and feel how you feel when you
make a sale.

Spend time at the beginning of your day and especially take time
before you pick up the phone or go out on appointments and
visualize how you want things to turn out. Remember to not only see
it but feel how it will feel.

Many salespeople work on autopilot thinking they don’t have any
control over what happens. However, I’m here to tell you that you
are responsible for every thing that happens not only in your sales
but other areas of your life as well.

In closing, I know a lot of this may seem a little out there.
However, that is because not many sales trainers are teaching this
way,because they don’t understand it or maybe they think you won’t.
Now you can continue doing things the way you been doing them and
you’ll continue to get the results you’ve been getting. Or you can
give it a try and see what happens.You have nothing to lose and
every thing to gain.

Developing and maintaining the proper mindset is key to being a
success in sales or anything else for that matter. The top
salespeople spend time developing and maintaining that attitude.
That’s why I have developed a new program called, “The Mindset
Secrets Of Six Figure Sales Professional”.

In this new program you will get the tools and strategies necessary
to take you from an average salesperson to top producer. I am
introducing it at an unbelievable introductory price.

So get your copy before I come to my senses and raise the price.

http://fromtheheartsalestraining.com/mindset-secrets.html

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7 Reasons You’re Not Making The Sale

Think about the last big dollar item you purchased, maybe a car or a big screen television. You probably shopped around and one of the reasons you purchased was because you liked the sales person.

Well recent research discovered 80 reasons why customers dislike salespeople. Here are the top seven. If any one of them sounds like you, you’re probably costing yourself sales.

1. Not listening to customers – Listening is a skill that every sales person should spend time mastering. When I talk about listening I talking about listening to their needs.

Many salespeople go in to a sales meeting having already determined why the customer should buy their product or service. The sales person has preconceived ideas as to what their customers want and need.

When they get to the qualifying phase of the sales process the sales person either glazes over it, not asking the right questions, they ask general questions that only skim the surface of the customers needs, or as the customer is telling them their real needs, the sales person just isn’t paying attention.

It’s so important to ask the right qualifying questions, ones that get to the true needs of the customer and then paying very close attention to what they’re saying and if necessary asking clarifying questions so the you understand exactly what it is they want.

Another reason many sales people don’t listen is because they are thinking about what they are going to say next. They haven’t mastered the sales process and what they are going to say, so while the customer is giving them valuable information, the sales person isn’t listening.

2. Talking too much – To many salespeople talking is selling. The go on and on about how great they are, how graet their company is and how graet their product or service is.

They figure if they do enough talking they will convince the customer to purchase their product or service. These salespeople are convinced that talking is selling, when in fact the opposite is true.

Ask the right questions and let the customer do the talking. There’s an old saying, “they don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care”. People like to buy from people they like and the best way to get someone to like you is to show a sincere interest in them and their needs.

By asking questions and letting the customer talk, you will uncover the customers needs and then be able to present your product or service as the best possible solution.

3. Lack of knowledge – So many salespeople are clueless as to how their product or services really works, what’s happening in their industry and what their competition is selling.

They want to get by doing as little work as possible, while still expecting to make impress their customers and make sales.

If you have not taken the time to learn everything you can about your product, your industry and your competition, you are selling yourself short when it comes to making the sale.

Customers want to purchase products and services from salespeople who know what they are talking about. They want to purchase from an expert in their field.

Spend the time doing your homework and become the expert in your industry and an expert about every product or service like yours and the other companies and salespeople who are selling them.

Become the go to guy or gal in for your particular product or service. What I mean is, when people mention your product or service, your name should be the first thing they think of.

4. Lack of follow-up – Many salespeople kill their chances of making a sale when the don’t follow-up with their customers. You see, some customers judge a salesperson and whether they get the sale by how well they do what they say they’re going to do.

It might be some information the customer requested, something the sales person said they would do or maybe just a follow-up after providing a quote. What ever it is the sales person who follows up is usually the one who will make the sale.

Studies reveal that 80% of sales are made after the seventh contact, so do what you say you are going to do, get the customer the information they have requested and by all means, follow-up until the purchase from you or one of your competitors.

However, if you follow-up with your customers chances are your competitors won’t and you will ultimately make the sale.

Stay tuned for next weeks newsletter when I’ll give you reason 5, 6 and 7.

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7 Reasons You’re Not Making The Sale Part 2

Last week I talked about the first four of the seven reasons why you’re not making the sales.

This week I will give you the last three reasons.

5. Lying – Think of a time when you have been lied to. I’m sure you can think of atleast one or maybe many instances.

Maybe it was the repair man who said he would be there at a certain time and showed up hours later or the mechanic who found nonexitent problems.

It seems in our society lying is acceptable. Many people even think it’s okay to have their kids lye for them when someone is on the phone they don’t want to talk and the parent tells the child to tell them they’re not home.

I sales lying is not acceptable, especially when you consider people want to buy from people they like and trust. How can a customer trust you when you lie to them?

However, the number of salespeople who lie or intentionally mislead their customers is staggering.

The old cliche’, “honesty is the best policy” holds true. Customers would much rather have you tell them the truth than stretch it or out and out lie to them.

It will hurt your credibility and ultimately the amount of sales you make and youir repeat and referral business.

6. Failing to understand their needs – This reason is a byproduct of reason number one and two. When a salesperson talks to much and doesn’t listen well then they tend to miss getting to the real need the customer has.

Finding and understanding the needs of your customer is an important step in the sales process, however, very few salespeople really probe and ask enough questions to understand their customers needs.

Many salespeople think they know what the customer needs so they skip this step and jump right in to presenting their product or service.

Without a clear understanding of the specific needs of each customer it’s difficult to know if your product or service is even the right fit.

When you ask specific questions and get a clear understanding of the customers needs you can better tailor your presentation to show your product or service as the best option to fioll their needs.

7. Refusal to take “no” for an answer – Statistics show that most sales are made after 5-7 touches. A touch is a personal visit, a phone contact, email, snail mail or some other form of communication.

As a salesperson it’s important to understand this and to be persistent in attempting to make contact with a potential customer or in the follow-up. However, there comes a time when you need to accept the word as the final answer from the customer and move on.

There is a fine line between and objection and a condition and it’s up to you as the saleperson to determine that line and to make sure you don’t cross it.

It is often better to walk away a little too early than to alienate your self from the customer and kill any chance of possibly doing business with them at a future date.

Over the last two weeks I have given you some valuable information directly from the customers themselves as to why you might be missing out on sales.

Use this information wisely, make some corrections to your current sales process and see if you don’t make more sales.

Tags: presentations skills, sales, sales techniques, sales tips, sales training // 1 Comment »

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OMP #47: The Biggest Complaint About Sales People

Currently there are people sitting in a 100 km Chinese traffic jam that looks like taking 3-4 weeks to clear.  Spare a thought for them as you spend 20 mins negotiating your way through the A316 onto the M3 this bank holiday weekend.

Chinese drivers aren’t the only ones playing the waiting game right now.  If you are in sales, you know all about waiting.  You seem to spend half your life doing it.  Selling big deals is as much about patience and understanding as it is about action.

You might have 3-4 hot deals at the moment, where all you need is a “yes”.  You might have 5-10 lukewarm ones, where you still need to put in some work.  And you might have 20 or so colder deals that need a lot more grunt.

It’s perfectly normal to panic a bit about the 3 hot prospects with their big cheque books and to try and bring them to a quicker close.  Normal, but not right.  Because the problem is your approach may stray from ‘enthusiastic help’ into ‘pushiness’ to get a result.

Like the Chinese driver banging his head against the steering wheel in frustration, so you rattle the prospect with your phone and your email.  Not because it is going to achieve anything, but because you feel the need to do something.  Anything.  And when the cars aren’t moving, the natural instinct is to keep hooting the horn.

With that in mind, it’s time to reveal the number one complaint from prospects:  “I felt like I was getting pushed into saying yes”.

No-one likes getting pushed around.  And at Natural Training we find that more sales people blow the deal than win the deal.  They blow it by pushing the customer – resulting in annoyance and frustration from both sides.   If most salespeople simply put forward their final, well-considered offer, then did absolutely nothing, they would be better off than pushing for the close.

The point is clear:  push hot prospects less and give them space to breathe, and work harder on bringing the forgotten ones back to the surface.  This strategy pays off for the finest salespeople in the world, and it will pay off for you too.

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For All The Advertising Genius’s Out There (ahem, me included…)

Posted in Presentation skills, Sales Skills by Matt

September 13th, 2010

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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Stagnating or Innovating?

One of Google’s strengths is that they constantly innovate.

If they don’t have the people to deliver something new, they just buy them.

Recently they announced a new Priority Inbox.  Designed for people just like you, who are receiving up to 100 emails a day.  It has some clever technology to sort out what it thinks are your priorities.

And by all reports it is brilliant.  Or as Gen Y puts it, “sick”.

You’re in business.  What are you doing to innovate?  To make your presentations and sales that much better than the competition?

Let me know and I will publish your innovations on our blog.

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