When your pipeline is full – with business coming out of your ears – the notion of people asking for a discount will sound hilarious, because you’ll already be at capacity
We all need salespeople who help people with the same enthusiasm shown by a small child describing the best Christmas present EVER
Get up in the morning on a mission to save prospective clients from the shabby, ill-fitting, overpriced and worthless alternatives that those charlatans – who are your competition – are trying to get away with flogging them.
The salesperson you’d ideally like to be and the salesperson you’d like to encounter as a customer should roughly be the same, shouldn’t they?
Salespeople who think that it’s all about price aren’t required: If it can be sold on the internet at the lowest price, you can take the huge cost of a sales team out of the equation.
We all need salespeople who understand the problem and can deliver a solution that works brilliantly for both sides.
We all need salespeople who deliver value that wasn’t there before they arrived.
I can’t and won’t promise you magic sales fairy dust or the Jedi Mind Trick for salespeople – they simply don’t exist.
Remember: when you walk into a DIY store to buy a drill, you don’t want the drill. Your end goal is to make a hole and, in order to achieve this, you have to buy the drill.
Your target market are more bothered about whether what you sell will get them promoted, sacked, recognised, accepted, praised or laid.
Don’t tell me you’re passionate about your job – show me that you’re passionate about helping people like me.
If what you sell doesn’t help me then why are you knocking on my door?
We all need salespeople with humility, honesty, integrity, empathy and an old-fashioned work ethic that ensures the job gets done.
Ignore the people who say that the sales industry needs to become professionalised: it already has.
For all salespeople – Driving around and talking to people for a living, with no recognisable return for the time or money spent by your employer – is a job description that belongs in the past.
If you sound like a contestant from The Apprentice or if the customer believes that they are being sold AT, you have already failed.
If you don’t earn their trust at the beginning, they sure as hell won’t trust you with their money at the end.
In this wonderful modern age, if you know what you want, you can just reach out and, with the click of a mouse, take complete control of your entire buying and shopping experience.
22% of current business-to-business salespeople will be replaced by search engines within the next five years.
We all desperately need brilliant sales professionals far more than ever before – to help us, guide us, keep us informed and stop us from making diabolically stupid buying decisions.
Salespeople need to “Earn the right” to become suppliers more than they ever did before.
Trust me. If you do not decide where you are heading, and refuse to take the appropriate action, you will end up being shaped into what others would have you become. Then any change will not be made for your benefit but for theirs.
People submit too easily to change from others. And yet, for some reason, whenever they consider changing themselves, the focus is always on what they are giving up, never what they are about to gain
Everything you desire is always just outside your comfort zone, dear boy. If it wasn’t you would already possess it, would you not?
Allowing yourself to be a conduit for opportunity requires a brand new outlook on life. Lady fortune cannot enter a locked door, you know. And contrary to that well known saying, she has rarely been known to knock
The fact that you wish to become extremely successful must mean that you currently do not see yourself as such. Therefore, you need to change. The question you should be asking is what do you need to become?
Success would be a fairly boring and uninspiring dish if anybody could create it with a single ingredient, however difficult that ingredient was to find. No, success has several layers to its pallet. This is just the beginning
If I can make you feel the same way that I feel about my product or service we’ll have a meaningful conversation about it and how it can help. The trouble is that most sales people don’t feel anything. Nothing at all.
Listen to people from your heart, as if your life depended on it, and you will find that in turn people will listen to you with all of theirs.
The choices you make from this day forward will lead you, step by step, to the future you deserve.
Spend your time designing the greatest reputation a man could possess.
What you deserve will be down to you, and you alone.
Destiny and fate are of one’s own making, and riches and happiness are rarely found at the end of an easily-traversed path.
Make sure everyone, who works with you or for you, feels the need to tell others about the incredible experience.
Adopt the positive in everything you do, for there will always be positivity there to find, if that is what you seek.
That which is currently beyond your capabilities now, does not have to be so forever
My intention was, only, ever to help you see the light shining brightly in front, and inside, of you.
Tell your good news as an evangelist would. Do so with a passion driven by a need to help and solve problems that some people didn’t even know they had.
Embrace the fundamentals like the closest of friends, for they will be the foundation of your future success.
Whilst people have answered questions, I have only heard my own voice thinking of the next question.
I was so sure that I knew what they needed and what I wanted to sell them that I never stopped long enough to find out what it was they wanted to buy.
In this world of half-jobs and liars, I will prevail.
Everything would have been for nothing just because I simply didn’t listen.
I should become happier at what I do and leave others happier than before they’d met me.
Speaking from the heart is simple. Listening wholeheartedly, however, is much, much more difficult and most rare.
You must have realised by now that when one really cares, really tries to help, the other party recognises the fact and, therefore, easily sees the logic in working together for the greater good, for the mutual benefit of both.
What is the true cost of a purchasing decision that goes wrong?
In the past, I have all too often listened without hearing, asking questions when I had no intention of hearing the answer or understand my customer’s requirements.
Like an ant, I will find my way round any obstacle. Like a child, I will persevere with pinpoint focus.
I will not let those, who cannot recognise how I can be of service, dissuade me from showing them how I can help.
I will look the part. I will act the part. I will deliver that which I have promised to deliver.
I will design myself a reputation, in which prospects can place their trust, and customers return to and recommend.
I will design my reputation and my resolve shall be absolute. I shall not give in when I know I can help.
It saddens me to note that there will always be con artists and charlatans in the world. Men who aim to fool the public by clothing themselves in the robes of experts.
Listening is a discipline. It’s all about being present at that moment in time.
I want you to start realising how far away you are from being able to listen professionally.
You listen like an amateur and fool yourself into believing it is enough when it is not.
Sceptics are persuaded by a good reputation, for it is an unspoken statement of proof.
Reputation is the panacea for those who lack confidence in their own decisions.
How we feel about those we give our business to is of vital importance.
Who would be willing to put up with less than the desired result, if they could afford to have it done properly?
The confidence felt, when dealing with genuine reputation, often outweighs the simplicity of price.
In the past, I have bargained myself away, believing that price was more important than cost, quality, reliability, or reputation. In the past, I was clearly wrong.
In this world there are those who enjoy giving people balloons and there are those who take great pleasure in popping them. And I wish to be remembered as being firmly in the first party.
Most men have professions, yet few act like professionals.
If you woke before dawn one morning with the formula for a vaccine, which would cure the most ghastly disease currently known to man, releasing millions from an agonising death, would you roll over and resume sleeping until daylight?
There can be no success in sales without tenacity.
Mark my words. Perception is reality and how someone perceives you is their reality.
Let your customers and prospects recommend you to each other and let you competition wish they were you. That is our mission.
Sometimes, if you get too close to a subject you can miss what’s most important.
You look green, immature. A young boy playing at business, dressing up in the manner in which he believes an actual grown-up would. Your viewpoint of business attire is one of wide-eyed wonder from the nursery door.
Perception number one, how you want people to think about you when you arrive and perception number two, how you want them to talk about you once you have left.
In short, the difference between you and your doctor is that he has a well-designed reputation and you do not.
If your doctor told you that you needed immediate surgery could you perform it yourself?
Trust me. In a very short time, you will become sought out by those in your network. Initially for your sound advice, but soon after as a provider of service. Few people seek advice about a subject that doesn’t require a solution.
Each step of your current journey will take you to new and interesting worlds of opportunity and as every intrepid explorer knows, when one visits strange new lands one must be aware of their customs.
Young man, your problem and the reason so many like you fail, is simply because you allow yourself to give up far too early.
Fascinatingly resilient the tenacity of a child. Not yet conditioned by society to give up when instructed to do so.
We must design how we wish to be perceived, and then we must work even harder to continuously recreate and re-evaluate that perception.
If you honestly know how you help people, then you should become passionate about sharing it, spread the good news, give everyone a chance to share in the solutions that you can provide.
From today onward, you will learn how to become evangelical about the many ways you help people.
Think upon the numbers I have been sharing with you. Of your competitors, five out of ten will do little more than take their customer’s money immorally. A further three out of ten will leave them dissatisfied.
You should feel so driven to help the world that it would weigh you down if a single person received anything but the best.
And so it must be with the energy you muster for your own work. Get out there and convert the unconverted. Save them all from the charlatans and the nearly-men.
Understand why you are different and how you help, recognise your target market, and give them something they might not even realise they are missing.
To my shame, I had never thought to ask anything of the future, and yet woke each and every day embittered because it was never what I needed it to be.
Unwittingly, I have sailed through my entire life, so far, with neither direction nor destination.I had a vague instinct to reach dry land every once in a while for supplies, but never anything more than that.
It has nothing to do with the time being right or wrong. Storms just happen.
The reward for living my life in this manner? An existence like that of a seagull picking up scraps from the back of a fishing boat. Surviving day to day. Nothing left for tomorrow and no idea what tomorrow should be.
Respect, wealth, property, friendship, even love. Did I expect to simply fall over each of them as I strolled aimlessly through the years? Was I expecting my whole life to be some form of lucky accident?
I see what I have to become and I recognise the time it will take.
You can’t plough a field by turning it over in your mind. Either you get out there and plough it or it doesn’t get done.
Plans are easy to make, dreams are easy to dream. But putting your back into it? A little bit of hard graft and discipline? That is just too scary and far too much effort for the masses
Ready? No one is ever ready, my boy. But some do what they plan to do and some never will. The difference between the two is that the first group understand that they need to start somewhere, so they do so. Straight away
And by making that plan you have differentiated yourself from more than ninety percent of the population. You are one of the few, who has a clear direction, a decisive plan of action.
You see continuous movement is the important thing here. Those who remain in one position and then lie to themselves about their progress are the ones in real trouble.
Currently, you are approaching each opportunity with a single possible outcome and when that doesn’t happen you fool yourself that there was nothing more that you could have done.
The future is a fabulous place to bury your success.
Don’t allow your imagination to colour events as lesser men would, and see movement in motionless things.
All these ships are currently safe at anchor but that is not what they were designed for is it? Your job is not to remain anchored and safe. Your job is to move closer to your destination at every attempt.
Until you take the first step forward, failure remains reassuringly impossible.
No one can mock your meagre achievements or inability to accomplish the simplest of tasks, if they remain figments of your imagination. You can revel, again and again, in the glory of a fairy tale doomed never to appear in reality.
As soon as I can find the courage to put my plans to action, I will turn from being a “maybe man” into someone whose future success lies completely in his own hands.
Falling has become far more terrifying to me than rising.
You can only see your current horizon. Every time you move nearer to your desired destination, new horizons will become clear. New, previously hidden, opportunities will come into view.
I will ask questions that are so wide and open they will feel the need to speak for a week. Then from the information that they give to me, I will mould solutions designed specifically for them.
Could trying your hardest, but never being quite good enough ever be acceptable to anyone? Is that what your dreams are made of?
Most people haven’t set themselves any course with regards to their life. They have no idea whether or not they are being blown in any useful direction whatsoever. They are just at the whim of wherever the winds of life take them.
I’ll record what I’ve learnt on the subject of what I sell. What it actually is means little to anyone other than me, but what it does and how it helps, means everything to those who require it.
Moving continuously forward doesn’t necessarily get us to where we want to be, just somewhere other than where we started.
If you have designed your last day on earth, if you have decided how you wish to be thought of on your deathbed, only then can you start to plot a course to that point, to your ideal final destination.
It’s your own personal statement of who you want to become, based on how you wish to be remembered.
You know, I have never met a young man who recognises the true value in this exercise, and yet I have met hundreds of old men who wished someone had shared it with them in their youth.
I must turn myself around so that I am viewing life as my prospects see it. Only then can I start addressing their issues, help to prevent their pain, and advise on solutions to their problems.
No one ever reached the top of a mountain by digging underneath it.
You have your whole life to become what you wish to become. As long as we know where we are going, we can prepare ourselves for the journey. That which is currently beyond your capabilities now, does not have to be so forever.
Can a farmer plants his seeds and then demand the crops to grow before harvest?
If you put in the effort and focus towards a goal, you will get there quicker than most.
You cannot become something new without putting in the appropriate effort, can you? Just as a seed cannot grow into an ear of corn without the appropriate time, sunlight, water, and care.
Men constantly miscalculate what they can do in a day, and grossly underestimate what can be achieved in a year.
One of the biggest problems with your average sales call is that the salesman doesn’t know what he is trying to achieve. He hasn’t worked out the end of the journey. So he sets off and just hopes he walks out with…something.
I have set my mind to make sure I am prepared to accept success, whatever the trials ahead, whatever the work required.
So open questions to understand. Closed questions to confirm and gain commitment.
If you wish to sell to anyone you must earn the right to do so.
So you can speak, can you? Well, that’s going to stand you out from the rest of the crowd, isn’t it? No. Sorry, my boy. The ability to speak does not a salesman make
No, I’m afraid your overconfidence, as with most young men who dream of becoming successful, can quite quickly become the Achilles’ heel of your continued mediocrity
Did you sell to them or did you simply facilitate their buying from you, hmm? Very different scenarios, my boy, very different indeed.
Remember this. We are always looking for problems to solve, and to solve problems we need to be ready for clues. And you will never be in the receiving frame of mind if you – never – shut – up!
I shall not waste any of our brief time together flattering your ego, as others have done before, with all this nonsense about skills and talents that do not help, or worse, that you do not actually possess
But without a need, even the finest piece of beef is merely a piece of dead bull is it not?
Why do so many salespeople talk to customers about the product and not the result?
Customers do not want a lecture from you and they certainly don’t want some juvenile in a bad suit forcing his wares upon them
You are discovering the conversation that the customer wants to have, instead of the dreadfully limiting presentation you would have given him. And in doing so, you can help him to make a truly wonderful buying decision.
Now you learn about the greatest tool available to any salesman. I’m going to give you an introduction into something that will help customers recognise the value of your offer all by themselves.
This next nugget of salesmanship cannot be perfected in a single afternoon. However, once you have it mastered, your competition will continuously believe you possess some mystical customer attracting formula
For some reason salesmen spend most of their time asking questions they already know the answers to. They rarely ask to discover anything new.
I am aware that it can be easily missed, but once you have the ability to uncover and clarify real needs – the things that really matter – you can discuss in detail how you meet each and every one
That’s what marks out the successful from the nearly-rans. Focusing on what makes people itch rather than continuously presenting an entire catalogue of scratches.
You – help – people. You are an expert in your field, who genuinely helps other human beings. Take pride in that, stop hawking your wares, and get a bit of respect for your profession, and earn some from your prospects.
It’s not how I view being a salesman. It’s how I live being a salesman.
Focusing on Earning the Right will have an incredible effect on the success of every single sales call that you will make from this day on.
Solving the problem means helping the customer to understand why you’re the best person for the job
Everybody sells something to somebody every day, whether it’s a product, a service or just a case of making sure that they get their own way.
Asking the appropriate questions means understanding exactly what your customer is trying to achieve
Executing the solution means gaining customer commitment and delivering on your promises
Earn the Right – Ensure you put this chunk of Sales Tetris in place first and all the other pieces just take their own positions naturally.
The commitment gap is the massive distance between “yes” and “maybe
If customers don’t trust you to help them at the beginning of the sales process, they certainly won’t trust you with their money at the end of it.
Earning the Right is a commitment to be the sales professional that your customer really needs
The ability to close sales effectively has never been confined to the last few moments of the conversation.
Why do customers (and that includes you and me) find it so difficult to recall more than a couple of occasions when they felt that they were treated exceptionally by the salespeople who dealt with them?
Customers get exactly what they need, while you hit your sales targets and become incredibly successful – fair deal.
Great selling involves helping people to make great buying decisions.
In many instances, the words “sell” and “influence” are completely interchangeable.
I have been like a mediocre concert pianist playing in front of a tone-deaf family, who applaud out of duty rather than for accomplishment.