“I’m a salesperson!”

It’s a sad fact, but true, that the very thing that sales people fear is the initial gut reaction that the other person will have on finding out that they are a salesperson. And so they should because the vast majority of people have been put off by old, tired out and sometimes dubious sales tactics and now recoil at the very mention of that name.

This is not  a new phenomenon by any stretch of the inagination. Monty Python were bang on the money way back in their hayday with this:

Would your sales prospects rather see you as a burglar?

In the modern selling world, it is by your actions and not your title that you can differentiate yourself from the instant recoil that many have when hearing the term salesman. Quite simply put – don’t do what the rest of the pack do!

• Do your market research and know your Industry backwards
• Develop an Information and educational approach to selling
• Never, ever, use the old cliched opening lines that poorly trained, underskilled and pushy salespeople use
• Understand current research into buying psychology and why people make the choices they do
• Develop a long term focus rather than a short term gain perspective to sales relationships

Above all – be a good human being!

Next time you are sales prospecting ask yourself  “Am I an Encyclopedia Salesman?”

Most people in my sales training or sales consulting can do a lille bit better when defining their sales process. It isno surprise, because there is not much attention generally paid to teacjing salespeople about sales processes in companies.

Very often when there is no sales process in place the salesperson might end up wityh one or more of the following types of  situations by default:

• Prospect Selling: The customer leads the sales process and the salesperson follows.
• Experience selling: This is the process of hoping that past experience will lead to future success.
• Catch-up selling: The competition directs the sale and then you have to play catch up all the time
• Bad sales manager selling: The sales manager enforces the “do it like I did” method.
• Situational selling: The sales person is “winging it and praying” on every call.

If this type of thing happening in your company then there is a huge amount of things you can do to take control of your sales process and dramatically increase your sales effectiveness:

• Spend time understanding your marketplace and why and how people buy. Traditional sales tactics focus on developing the sales approach with very little understanding of why people buy. Don’t fall into that trap and work out what the buying process is.
• Map out graphically the process that most people go through when they buy from you and ask yourself at every point – “How can i ethically and positively influence this step to ensure the sale hapens?”
• Don’t be afraid to put some tough qualification questions in beginning part of your sales process such as “Do you really think ???????? will achieve what you are looking for?”  or “why are you looking at this now?”
• Spend time understanding the motivations of your buyers as well as the process they go through.

Todays top performers in sales spend much of their time understanding how people buy as well as the more traditional ways of selling such as closing techniques and objection handling.

The star prize for creativity went to Guy Portelli who managed to face the dragons and walk away with more money than he was asking for.

The dragons seemed a bit surprised that this proven sculptist would be asking for £70,000 for an almost guaranteed return of £250,000

It became clear, however, that Guy had his own plans. He had put his creative side to work and had thought about how he could launch his collection at the least cost to him and with the most control. Typically, art dealers would ask for 50% commission for the artist to use their premises, experience and marketing to gain access to people willing to pay around £20,000 per sculpture. They remained in control.

Guy had other ideas. His creativity led him to offering the dragons a deal that seemed to be too good to be true. However, he knew what he was doing:

• He gained access to a network of some of the worlds ‘high rolers’ who would be personally invited by the three dragons who invested
• The dragons would have a vested interest in getting as many financially capable ‘buyers’ as they could through recommendation and at little or no cost
• Guy could gain control of his exhibition and put on the “show I always wanted”

Is there something you could do to inject some creativity* into your business life?

Creativity —- “The process of having original ideas that have value”  — Sir Ken Robinson