Archives for February 2015

In sales failure is inevitable. No one closes 100%. Weak salespeople run from failure and in so doing unknowingly increase their chances of failure. If you ask the tough questions up front you will determine quickly whether or not you should pursue a prospect or move on to more on to prospects you have a better chance of closing. Stock traders live by the axiom “let your winners run and cut your losses short.” The skill is in determining quickly which prospects have a high probability of closing and which ones you should “cut short”. To do this you need to risk failure by asking questions you are not comfortable with, call higher in the chain of command, etc. in short, get out of your comfort zone and stop running from failure. In sales, failure is like death and taxes … not fun things but there is no way around them. By the way, for me personally this was a tough lesson to learn when I got into sales. Because in my previous career as an engineer, we did not tolerate much in the way of failure. People get testy when bridges fall down or buildings collapse. Luckily for us salespeople, no one ever dies from a bad sales call.

How you feel will determine how you act and most importantly what you say and how you say it. You need to adopt this mindset and be totally present with the prospect at the sales call. If you watch this video you will discover what your mindset has to be. The real trick is to maintain this mindset no matter what else I going on in your life outside of the sales call. If you can’t pay the electric bill, put it out of your mind, if your kid is sick, forget about it for an hour or so. If your company is in turmoil don’t think about it. If you are not confident in any way, imagine what it would feel like if you were confident. If you adopt the proper mindset, you will usually do and say the best that you are capable of and you will win more often than not. In the ART OF WAR the author states “The battle is won before the fighting has ever begun”. This is what he was talking about many centuries ago. It still applies today in your sales career.

Not really!! The process of selling them is the same as for selling anyone else. Their pain may tend to be different … but then everybody’s pain is different. Don’t make the mistake of being intimidated by the technical people you might have to meet with. Ask them what their issues are, then ask them why that is important or how it affects their operation, etc. and pretty soon you will have their pain. If they need an explanation of how you solve the problem then you can bring in the right expert to explain it to them. As all salespeople know, bringing in the technical people too soon can derail the sale as they devolve into geek-speak and pain is nowhere to be found.