Three Steps to Sales Success!
An article by Jim Connolly
If you work in sales or own a business, the key to success is the regular development of good quality business. As any top-achieving salesperson will confirm, your skills as a negotiator will have massively less to do with your success than your attitude to selling.
I know a number of millionaire Accountants and Solicitors, with NO SALES TRAINING WHATSOEVER, who have ‘sold’ their services more successfully than 99% of highly-trained salespeople!
Interesting fact:
Salespeople of similar age, in the same industry, have received almost exactly the same amount of sales training – even though those at the top are outselling those at the bottom by as much as 10 to 1!
Why? Because success at winning business has VERY, VERY little to do with your sales technique! Most people agree that sales technique accounts for around 5% or less of a person’s results – attitude accounts for everything else.
If I have GREAT sales technique and convert 8 out of every 10 people I speak with into a 'sale' - and you have poor sales technique and convert just 3 people out of 10; you will beat me every time - so long as you speak with enough people!
Here are 3 steps anyone can take to immediately and dramatically increase their sales figures:
1. See every sales call and meeting you have as a step toward your major target or DREAM in life.
Forget sales targets, forget keeping the boss happy or paying the bills. These are all negatives and will place you in an endless “stress loop!” Come on, how excited can you get over stress? Once you link each sales activity directly to achieving your dreams; you will shatter all the targets, have a very happy boss and money will never again be a problem! People are drawn toward pleasure and away from pain, so link selling and prospecting to achieving your dreams; your dream home, dream bank balance or the life of your dreams!
2. Treat EVERY prospect with total respect.
Even if they are “hard to love”, you will feel great about them once you realise they are your PARTNERS in the exciting journey to your future success!
3. How much does your TV cost - Not to buy - TO WATCH?
Spend your “TV time” reading or listening to something motivational or educational. Unsuccessful people watch hours of TV programmes and commercials each week, then wonder why their homes are full of useless gadgets and why their lives are an emotional rollercoaster!
My final monthly commission cheque, before establishing my own company in 1996, was for over £70,000 – and that was back when £70,000 was a good months salary!
I managed to become my employer's most successful salesperson ever; even though many of my colleagues could sell and negotiate better than me. There were many who were better educated than me and even a few who were better looking! They knew what to do; yet their attitude stood in their way and blocked their route to success and the rewards that follow!
In truth, wherever you work, whatever you sell, however much sales technique you have and whatever you look like, your success will always be determined by your attitude to selling.
The only way to improve your attitude to selling is to link everything you do to the achievement of your major targets and dreams. Motivation is contagious! When you speak to prospects with genuine enthusiasm and drive, you transfer those feelings into the mind of the prospect, which makes them motivated about meeting you and buying from you.
The importance of feedback
I always tell my clients that they should regard their income (or turnover) as FEEDBACK. If you are unhappy with the feedback from your current sales efforts, something needs to change. The time to make that change is RIGHT NOW! Starting right now, make the decision to put these three easy steps into practice and you will transform your future! If you have a sales-team, stop wasting money providing them with sales training and start working on their attitudes.
To your success,
Jim Connolly
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