This is what a Professional Seller would do
1. Preparation Professionals prepare their presentations and submissions outside of working hours wherever possible. Evenings and weekends are a good time for this.
2. Never Say No If you take the problem away, analyse it and think it through, there may be another way you can sell your product or service rather than rejecting the prospects count often out right.
3. Meet Your Customer Requirements At times you may need to fight for the prospect, which could mean you may need to plough through some of your own companies bureaucracy. But a word of warning here, do not override any policy (no matter how minor) without the written consent of you superiors. That way you maintain your professionalism in everybody’s eyes. Your prospects and your company’s.
4. Do What You Get Paid For Where a customer is concerned, its the little things that count; it the little things that make them feel special, and its the little things that keep them coming back. So do those little things. Solve their billing problems; drop off parcels from time to time; personally follow through on urgent orders and so on.
5. Be Thorough If you know the positive side of your competitors product, these can be used to advantage everytime. This knowledge can also help you improve your presentation. On the other side, where their product fails, yours can be shown to be super successful by comparison. But a word of caution: NEVER KNOCK THE COMPETITOR.
6. Be Superior Dress as if you are a superior product. The better you present yourself, the better you present your product.
7. Just One More Call At the end of the day, when its time to go home, the professionals make just one or two more calls. That’s an extra 5 to 10 calls a week.
IMPORTANT
A prospect may have heard a thousand sales presentations, and may have purchased hundreds of different products, but today will be the very first time he’s ever heard your presentation.
Live Up to Your True Potential
The absolute difference between living up to your true potential and marginal performance is the realisation of the fact that you have weaknesses that you are doing nothing about changing.
Maximum Results = Maximum Effort
For as long as professional salespeople have existed, so have a million and one that suggested sales short-cuts. However, one only needs to talk to a high earning professional to realise that there are no short cuts. You can only achieve maximum results from maximum effort. There is no such thing as high income for little work.
Every year we hear of Salespeople who become frustrated with the sales profession and either quit or are fired. The invariably are the ones that wrongfully believe they can achieve maximum results with minimum effort.
Because of this, they do not develop a right mental attitude towards work and subsequently cannot develop the desire to achieve excellence. Subsequently, their sales production is inferior to the results they are capable of.
This false hope in most cases starts when one looks towards the easy way out, attempts to take short cuts and still perform. And just like almost every get rich quick scheme, these people rob themselves the joy of achievement through careful planning, goal setting and the desire to succeed with excellence as their driving force. If only they knew they were cheating themselves out of all the many rewards that come from professional salesmanship.
Control Your Reaction
The economic climate is always changing. For much of the time, the changes are caused by outside factors that we’re powerless to control. But we can control how we react to a situation.
The Buyer Needs to Feel in Control
The one doing the buying is the one in control of the sale in the initial stages. From that point onward the seller is under pressure until he/she can turn the situation around, with the prospect still believing they are still in control.
Your Prospect Doesn’t Care About You
Professional salespeople know that the most important person at the time of contact, at the time of presentation and at the time of closing the sale is the prospect … not the salesperson. In fact, professionals realise that prospects don’t even care about the salesperson.
The salesperson is the person that can help provide a product or service they have come to understand they should consider purchasing. Most don’t have any interest whatsoever about you, your likes, your dislikes, your achievements, your problems, your family and your opinions. Especially your opinions. Professionals know that the prospect only cares about himself or herself and the things that effect them directly and always talk only in terms of the prospects interests. Then if the prospects asks about your opinions , likes, dislikes, achievements, problems or family, answer the prospect briefly but courteously and get back on what matters the most at the call – the prospect.
Don’t be Caught Idle
If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that the good master should ashamed that you should catch yourself being idle. ANON
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This Article is by Peter Collins – In a sales career spanning more than 50 years, Peter Collins has focused on helping and bringing out the best in others – whether it involves training or mentoring salespeople, managers, business consulting to SME’s. Since the 1970’s Peter has built a reputation as a Nationally and Internationally Published author, and has 65 books to his credit, but he is mainly known for one book based on the Audio Tape series of the same name, Over 50 Ways of Closing the Sale. In his personal life, Peter has been sought after as an encourager and motivator that has given of his time and talents freely despite his busy schedule. Subsequently, he has assisted churches, pastors, community and charity groups, as well as individuals through his teaching, training, development and on-going mentoring. Copyright Peter Collins, Profit Maker Sales, Sydney, Australia, 2015, all rights reserved. Peter can be contacted through his website – profitmakersales.com – Submit your articles to AMAZINES.COM