STRAIGHT TALK ON SELLING

If you make your living from selling and if you want to be in the top 1% then I want you to pull up a chair, lay down your phone, remove your Bluetooth headset, look into my virtual eyes and listen.

Listen closely.

To be a dynamic, respected and wealthy salesperson, you must possess a certain mindset. This is the mindset of possibility thinking and a mindset of big dreams and tenacity. You must be a goal setter and a believer. 

No matter how lofty or crazy the goal; when no one else on the planet believes in your vision, you must maintain your faith in yourself and your ability to achieve your goals.

There is a certain “warrior” quality to this mentality. You must always be thinking in an aggressive manner and with a sense of ownership. You must be tireless and never, ever be satisfied. 

After a lifetime of learning “street fighting” sales, I’ve collected over 15 rules to maintain a winning sales mentality. They aren’t pretty or come with a cute app. But they do represent some STRAIGHT TALK on what it takes to be a sales animal. 

Here is my list of sales rules to live by if you want to be in the top 1%.

1. Don’t worry about sales you didn’t close. You can’t get them all, but you should worry about the sales opportunities you didn’t even know about.
2. Now, worry about sales that you proposed but lost. Always take the time to understand why the sale was lost and then what adjustments that need to be made.
3. Never lose a customer…but if you do, it is imperative to find out why they left and learn from it and once again, then adjust.
4. Never “accept” your share of the market. Always ask yourself, “Am I happy with what I was handed; phoned in, or always get.” You should never be satisfied. You should always be prospecting, asking, digging and pushing to find more and bigger sales.
5. Always establish a value for everything that you offer, whether you are charging for the product or service or not. Even if elements are free, there must be a value attached to it.
6. Never, ever, accept a NO from someone who can’t say YES!
7. Finding new clients is always nice but remember to focus as much energy on strategies and sales skills that will help you sell 20% to 50% more of the people you already have in your pipeline. 
8. Set aside specific time each day to focus on upselling your current customers. These are people who already know you, like you and trust you. Research has consistently said that a full 50% or more of your new annual revenue should come from your existing clients, so ask them to spend more.
9. Improve your numbers. What adjustments must be made for you to make just two more sales meetings per day or week? You improve your odds of closing more simply by talking to more prospects.
10. Never become the conscience or the account for your prospect or customer. Let them decide if the price is right or too high. Let them make the buying decision. Never make it for them.
11. Never be happy with “your share” of the budget. You must have the attitude that the customers entire budget is yours to lose and to make that happen you must ask questions; gather information and do some solution selling. You must be possessive of your prospects budget.
12. You Must be rabidly possessive about your client! They are yours and yours alone to serve. You must believe that you are doing the customer a disservice if you are not caring for them.
13. You must be absolutely, positively sure that you know every single person within your prospects business that has a budget to spend. Don’t be satisfied with making one contact and thinking you’ve got the customer covered. It is your responsibility.
14. Ask for referrals. Your clients know you and hopefully trust you as a valuable resource, so ask them to introduce you to their valued business contacts. Believe it or not, they may be waiting for you to ask and when you don’t, they might believe that they are not important enough for you to ask about their network.
15. Set goals bigger that you’re ever asked to achieve. Don’t worry about any competition, compete with yourself and drive yourself to reach new heights. 
16. Remember, in sales, no matter how great you were yesterday the reality is, “What did you sell today?”

In future articles I will write about each of these points in more depth. In the meantime, go sell something!

I would love to connect at [email protected]. Visit my website: https://ow.ly/Sxhi50zdd7R