How to Sell

Succeeding in a Noble Profession: The Complete Guide to Prospecting, Selling and Negotiating to Win

Charles Fellingham, Andre O'Brien

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781630478315
• Topic: Développement personnel
• Subtopic: Réussite personnelle

"How to Sell: Succeeding in a Noble Profession" charts an effective path that professional trainers use to transfer skills that work from the training room to the marketplace. It includes twelve time-tested human relations principles that are essential for any business professional to expand their business and acquire more loyal customers. The principles are linked to consultative processes for selling, prospecting, negotiation and customer service. "How to Sell" is an easy to read guide applying the most successful selling behaviors that produce immediate sales results. Nothing happens until something is sold. This cliché was true yesterday, it's true today, and it will be true tomorrow. As sales professionals, the true success of our business rides on our shoulders. We are placed front and center with all eyes on us, and this position requires us to be smart, strong, creative, and true leaders within our organization. Charles Fellingham and Andre O'Brien wrote this book for you. They realize how important it is for you to be wildly successful and they are confident that you will achieve much by living the principles they discuss and by following the processes they outline. They look forward to developing a strong and lasting relationship with you–and to make this possible, they have provided free tools to support your efforts, courtesy of their website shared in the book.

CHAPTER 1

Mind vs. Muscle

Everything starts with our attitude. It is the inner game that sets the great sales professionals apart from the good ones. By ‘inner game’ we mean the attitude required to push past verbal obstacles, criticism and complaints. It is the mental state that overcomes rejection and barriers to our deals from inside or outside of our own organization. The inner game drives our efforts to a successful outcome, drawing upon innate instinct and skill. A strong attitude presses us to write the winning email, create follow through plans, prepare the presentations, schedule and conduct meetings with winning results, even if the client has decades more industry experience than us. And our attitude presses us to develop the will to do all of these things at an accelerated pace.

Attitude is in a class by itself. We cannot simply call it an emotion or feeling. Attitude goes beyond that. It is underpinned by the deepest beliefs we have about our self and our world. It is the thing that changes the world and relentlessly strives for more and better. Without a positive winning attitude, we drift. With it, we drive. It allows us to balance competitiveness with cooperation and gives us a strong will to win, and simultaneously evokes patience, enough to wait for the winning moment.

Salespeople worth their salt are expected to execute the basics well. We call this selling “muscle”. Yes, we are expected to be outgoing, likable, self-motivated people with good communication and organizational skills. We are experienced coaches and can easily predict the dimly lit future of those aspiring salespeople lacking muscle and confidence in fundamental sales skills. Be assured, that challenges can be overcome and your capabilities can be strengthened with developmental skills training. Our training helps you build selling muscle every day. Visit www.salesuniverse.com for additional information on our virtual workshops and video series.

The process part of this book is designed to build selling muscle. Yet without the right attitude, we cannot expect any training to stick, nor would we expect the salesperson to have a successful longstanding career in this challenging profession.

To quote a sales coach from our past, “You won’t deliver your ‘A’ game until you understand your ‘Y’ game.” By this, we mean that we need to know what we want to gain from our efforts in the sales game. What is in it for us? This is the inner game that provides the juice for our progress.

Maybe your “Y” is monetary gain. You may be more excited about achieving a goal or conquering a challenge. The attitude that says, “don’t give me the tee shirt or trophy; just give me another challenge to conquer!” Many of us are absolutely jazzed by simply helping others solve problems or, maybe it’s the relationships with clients and industry peers that matters most to you. And there are those of us that visualize the sales role as a stepping-stone to executive management. If there was ever a time when we must be comfortable with our own motivations, this is it. Our ability to focus on our “Y” will be very helpful during the difficult moments that are sure to present themselves in our profession.

We must be self-motivated. The first thing on our to-do list in the morning should be to focus on creating a positive attitude for the day. Something as simple as a quote or phrase that becomes a mantra that can carry us through the day is an excellent practice. We have witnessed salespeople have great success by putting a symbol of monetary or a physical reward in a visible place in their work or living space. It could be monopoly money or a picture of a desired automobile, some have even created an entire “vision notebook” with affirmations and pictures of their new life. Whatever direction you choose, we highly recommend the daily exercise of taking a moment to visualize yourself enjoying the fruits of your success as though you have already attained your desired outcome.

Can we develop and maintain this inner strength and ineffable attitude, or do we need to be born with this ability? Certainly those born into situations where they already had a natural persuasive ability and enjoyed the support and nurturing of gregarious parents or relatives who served as strong role models would have an advantage. But we are not in competition with them, only ourselves. So we must set out by doing the work to strengthen our attitude as a first act. We are not trying to overcome pre-adult inhibitions or deficiencies, but rather build on the strengths we possess now. At our most fundamental state, we must have faith in ourselves and our abilities. Many successful professionals came from lessor beginnings and a thicket of obstacles, only to overcome them on the road to their success. They did, so can you. There are no excuses for us, only inspiration to drive beyond our self-assigned deficiencies. William Hutchison Murray was a Scottish mountaineer and writer. He wrote the following passage in his book, The Scottish – Himalayan Expedition, while spending 3 years in a German prisoner of war camp during WW II:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Success in this profession is birthed in a great love affair. Fall in love with yourself and your ability to perform. Everyone benefits when you allow yourself to genuinely love the idea of working with people and doing all you can to help them solve their problems. Daily recognize your love for your company, its products and the ability you have to add value to the lives of others.

Being in sales requires an attitude that supports a love for the profession. During a Saturday morning workshop for commission salespeople called “Warming up to the Cold Call”, Adam, an aspiring sales professional at only 16 years of age, entered the room and filled the space with his personal energy. He spent the first few hours of the workshop sitting on the edge of his seat, leaning forward and clinging to every word. When given the opportunity, he expressed that he was there because he wanted to learn more about selling. He said that he had always wanted to be in sales and always will be. He had a paper route with his older brother and was an award winning subscription sales leader in his territory. His attitude and passion for the subject was contagious. At the end of the workshop, seasoned sales professionals spoke with him, giving him encouragement while also feeding on his energy and enthusiasm for the subject. In a way, this young man reaffirmed to the other professionals in the room “Y” they were in the profession. We can always tell when we are in the presence of someone who has that type of commitment and enthusiasm for the proud profession we are in, because their energy is electrifying.

Maintaining a positive outlook and attitude is our challenge. We have endeavored to give you a way to sustain it while keeping a keen eye on the best behaviors which will predict a high level of success. Our twelve principles of selling can become your anchor and can be used together or separately in the right moments to accelerate your results.

The “Law of Attraction”⁶, states that the energy that we put out in the universe comes back to us, be it positive or negative. How do we apply the Law to Sales? We must diligently engage with the expectation of success for our customers and ourselves to support the law. We are constantly playing the inside game of sales, which involves visualizing the steps necessary to move people in our pipeline from prospect to customer. Winning at this game requires a higher level of energy and intention. We must act on our inner drives, feelings and desires. This outward action creates a universal reaction. Since the law of attraction suggests equivalence between energy expended and energy received.

When we leave our home to go to our office or a client meeting, it is “game on,” and time to perform. We must engage at “performance level”, just as an actor would engage when the curtain goes up. It’s time to be genuine, natural, relaxed and confident. Be authentic, but remember we are performers. Performers operate at a different level of energy than most of us. Our customers are looking to us to lead conversations, open meetings, tell stories and offer advice. They also expect us to be active listeners and demonstrate genuine interest in what they are saying. So when we engage our prospects and customers, remember; “lights, camera, action!”

CHAPTER 2

The Twelve Principles of Selling

Sales is human nature amplified. Let’s face it, when we are engaged in selling, we are communicating, understanding and being persuasive at the highest possible level. We are intentionally fostering and sustaining relationships with people or groups. Planned acts of kindness and providing goodwill are the norm. While we are expecting something in return for all of this goodness, we are genuine and sincere in its delivery. We made it a practice to call buyers when their favorite sports team won and we forwarded unsolicited articles to prospects because we knew they would value its content. We might only do these things for our best friends, yet top salespeople conduct themselves this way as a standard. What makes the sales profession so noble is that the top salespeople exhibit the best human values consistently.

Carol is one of the most successful sales professionals I know. She works out of an office in New York but sells her company’s services throughout North America. I can confidently say that she exhibits the best human values. She is reliable, honest, open, positive, cheerful, credible and unselfish. From day one, she made me feel more like a friend than a business colleague. I believe she is so successful because she stays true to her own values that are communicated, outwardly, to her clients. When we are transparent as communicators, those close to us know what we believe and feel because we are able to authentically communicate our deepest truths in ways beyond just words. We need to be fully aware that our feelings and beliefs do signal our listeners. Carol is able to build trust in her relationships by living the way she does, which comes naturally to her, so her clients feel she is entirely genuine.

So what are the best human values? You know them. Think of what they are and write them out. To get you started, here are a few; be honest, be reliable, be kind, empathetic and helpful to others… you see where we are going with this. So, we in sales are doing these things all the time at a high level. This is why sales is such a noble profession.

Through the years, we have discovered that living a life based on sound principles gives us focus and creates a clear path for consistent behaviors that have benefited us enormously in our business relationships. They are a kind of reliable fuel that powers our behaviors. We have fed on principles from some of the best sources, Dale Carnegie’s 9 principles⁷ for becoming a friendlier person and Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People⁸ (which were really principles), just to name a few. So we developed our list of principles for professionals to live and embody. The 12 principles of selling are a result of conversations with thousands of salespeople from over a combined 35 years of sales training workshops and combined 50 years of selling success.

The 12 Principles of Selling

1. Stay enthused and passionate, always

2. Rejection is a state of mind; conquer it

3. Be Charismatic

4. Build your personal brand

5. Be Naturally Curious

6. Every Moment Counts, be in the moment

7. Every person counts, let them know

8. Manage your time

9. Manage your relationships

10. Take care of your customer

11. Know your products

12. Know your competition

Principle 1: Stay enthused and passionate, always

We have ranked this principle number one for good reason. Simply put, we sell ourselves first, then our company and then our products or services. Should you be lucky enough to have people immediately say that you are consistently passionate and enthusiastic, you will win most of the battles you face in life and be more successful in making first impressions and selling yourself. It will also enable you to make friends easily and you can expect to be offered leadership roles throughout your life. It is the strongest of personal brand traits and why we feel it is so important to adopt as part of the formula for personal success.

Being consistently enthusiastic and passionate requires intentional fortitude. You need to wake up in the morning with a positive outlook and endeavor to sustain it throughout every day. Owning this principle will enable you to perform the other eleven principles with greater ease. It will enable you to have an optimistic outlook which permits clear communication and stronger relationships. There is a physiology component involved with enthusiasm and passion. We don’t know whether the endorphins and adrenalin are released first and we then feel and exhibit the euphoria, or whether we experience or manufacture enthusiasm and our body’s chemical reaction follows. Let’s just assume that they happen simultaneously and that we can create it through intentional mental process.

There is an old story of a wealthy man with twin sons. One son was an optimist, the other, a pessimist. The father was convinced that his sons needed more balance in their lives so he decided on very unique gifts for their birthday. For his pessimist son, he purchased a $5000 top-of-the-line road bicycle and placed it in his room. For his optimist son, he had a truck full of horse manure placed in his playroom. The father visited his pessimist son expecting to see a vibrant, excited 12 year-old. Instead he was shocked to see his son’s reaction. His pessimist son was very upset.

He shouted, “Father, I thought you loved me? How could you do this to me? Do you know what this is; it’s a top-of-the-line road bike. I can’t ride this. If I ride it, someone will surely punch me in the nose and take it from me. If I do make it to school on this bike, all the kids will hate me because I will look like a show off. Oh, what a horrible birthday!”

The father understood that he missed the mark with that son, so he went to check on his optimist son. He figured there was no way this son could be happy with his gift. When he arrived at the playroom, he heard hysterical laughter from inside. He opened the door to find his son sitting in middle of the pile of manure laughing, playing and throwing the manure all around the room. He asked his son, why he was so happy. His son shouted, “thank you so much daddy, I love you!!! This is wonderful, I could not be happier. With all of this manure, there must be a pony here somewhere!!!”

This joke is well over 100 years old and it has changed much over the years, but the message has remained the same. We do not see the world as it is; we see the world as we are. The sales profession is not for the faint of heart. It can be a very difficult job and we must be diligent when managing our attitude daily so we can always engage our world with enthusiasm and passion.

Our sales activities are really a series of communications through various means. The objective of this communication is to match client needs to our solution. To convince a client, we always need to make a logical argument. To move a client to take action, we need to make the emotional appeal. Both logic and emotion work in tandem and are essential to all decisions and actions. The word “emotion” has its own Wiki page that highlights its essence and primal origin at the brain stem, the “ancient” part of our brain. The word is derived from Greek, and literally means, “move to action.” Influencing our client to have a positive emotional response is a necessary element to gain their trust and complete the sales process.

Do you want to put a sense of urgency in your clients’ actions? Passion becomes the catalyst for that result and an important part of any communication. We must have passion for our company, products, services, our colleagues, our clients and ourselves. We cannot give what we do not have. We are transparent as communicators and our clients know our belief level because we demonstrate it loud and clear through our words and actions. Here is an easy exercise to help you maintain your enthusiasm when needed:

• STEP 1 — Make a list of every activity and experience that makes you smile and consequently helps you “feel great”. For example, listening to music, spending time with specific family members, thinking about your last sales win, hitting golf balls, praying, exercising. Make the list as long as possible and keep...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Mind vs. Muscle
• Chapter 2 The Twelve Principles of Selling
• Chapter 3 The Sales Process
• Chapter 4 Embrace the Prospecting Process
• Chapter 5 Master Your Negotiations
• A Final Word
• Bibliography