Does Salesaphobia Prevent You From Selling?

You may be someone who trips over his  own feet to prove to the world that he loves all people equally.  You may be someone who is a bigot and proud of it. You may be somewhere in between.

It doesn’t matter where you fall on that scale. We are all SALESAPHOBES to one degree or another. This prejudice stems partially from our own experience.

• Who hasn’t spent hour upon hour with a time-share representative and their aggressive, never-say-die closing techniques, so we can get two free movie tickets or a night in a $12 – dollar hotel.
• Perhaps you are still driving a 1987 Ford Escort because you can’t endure driving from dealer to dealer listening to a endless chorus of “What can I do to put you in this car today?
• Maybe your next door neighbor joined an MLM and you have started only going outside to get your mail at midnight to avoid hearing him try to explain to you that “This one is different – you need to come to a meeting.”

When you add in a lifetime of watching movies like Death of a Salesman, Glengarry Glenn Ross, Boiler Room etc. it’s no wonder that you’ve developed a bad taste in your mouth for people who want to sell you things.

So it’s not a far stretch that our own image of salespeople gets in the way of selling our own products or services. You don’t want people to think that you are one of THOSE people.

It’s a real conundrum though, isn’t it?  After all, if you don’t sell the thing you do, then no one is going to buy it and your vocation goes back to being a hobby.

The cure is to realize that you do not have to change who you are, or compromise your values or alienate people in order to sell what you sell.  Just allow your own personality and your passion for what you do come across.

Be yourself.  Learn how to articulate the value of what you sell in your own words. Identify prospects who benefit by having what you sell.  If you do all of that properly you will never have to pressure people into making a buying decision – they’ll make it on their own.

If you sincerely believe that what you sell will be helpful to people, you just have to let that show through.  If you don’t believe that what you sell will be helpful to people then you may want to rethink your line of business.

Presentation at Networkers Anonymous Today

I’ll be at Rocco’s Restaurant in Brookfield today speaking to Networkers Anonymous, an open networking group that anyone can attend. Come by for lunch, networking and to listen to my incredibly engaging and relevant talk on Entrepreneurial Selling.

Starts at 11:30, with networking and lunch until around 1, at which point you can hang on my every word for 30 minutes.

Like an ocean cruise except there’s no boat, no water and you don’t actually go anywhere

One of my pet peeves is when sales or marketing type people fall into a syndrome that I call “Why use one word when you can use ten?”

It seems to be a pretty rampant tendency to ignore the fact that a prospect is not likely to evaluate a product based on the cleverness of the slogan or sales verbiage.  In fact, a long, cutesy explanation of something can often miss the target because it doesn’t simply let your audience know what it is your product does.  It can even appear somewhat deceptive.

The best example of this that I’ve ever seen is a scene from one of favorite movies of all time – The Muppets Take Manhattan. As they say on the  talk shows “let me set up the clip

Don’t Make Stuff Up

I was having a discussion recently with a friend.  We were the trying to figure out where the tipping point is regarding statistics in a business presentation.  When it does become overkill?   He said to me at one point “Quoting statistics is pointless anyway. Everyone knows that 95% of statistics that people quote are fabricated – made up on the spot”.

When we both stopped laughing at the paradoxical ludicrousness of his statement we moved on to deciding when we should meet for lunch.

Later on, it hit me that a lot of people make all kinds of stuff up in order to support their position.

Now if you want to do that in your personal life, that’s your prerogative but if you do it when you are trying to make a sale it can be very costly to in the long run.

HOW SO, JEDI MASTER?

MAKE MORE MONEY BY INVERTING YOUR PHONE CALLS

I know the title may sound a little odd but it means exactly what it says.   The way most of us tend to make business calls is completely backwards in terms of productivity. This applies as much to other business calls – not just sales but I am specifically addressing sales calls here.  It will create happier clients which ultimately will earn you more money.

The good news is that it’s an easy fix.

When we first meet a client we put a great deal of effort into building a relationship which includes getting to know them as people – not just clients.  This is a good thing.  We learn things about each other such as hobbies, family and a host of other things.  They don’t necessarily become close friends but they do become more than strangers.

So in addition to business stuff our phone calls usually include some kind of non business chit-chat. You know, asking how they enjoyed their recent holiday trip – or they ask us about ours.

There’s nothing wrong with doing that. It helps

COLD CALLING IS NOT PART OF A SALES REP’S JOB

This is neither an endorsement nor a condemnation of cold calling.  In some models, it makes sense, in some it doesn’t.

This post isn’t just about cold calling – it is about all lead generation activities.  Lead Generation is a marketing function.

I draw a distinct line between marketing and selling.

• Marketing: Reaching out to potential buyers with the goal of having them raise their hand and say “I’m interested in discussing your product.”
• Sales: Working with those folks who raised their hand with the goal of closing a sale.

Once you embrace this concept, you’ll see that the time spent on lead gen (or any marketing activity) means that the individual working these activities is NOT working on sales activities.

Sales activity is the part where revenue is generated.

That’s all fine and good but what if you are a small organization

WHATCHOO BUYING THAT THING FOR?

There are two ways of increasing the size of a particular order.

1. INCREASING QUANTITIES (this is usually based on volume discounts)
2. SELLING ADDITIONAL ITEMS

The second item is much easier than it seems  but a lot of folks do it wrong which results in the impression that it’s difficult.  This is human nature. If you try something and it doesn’t achieve the desired results, it must be an ineffective strategy.

In addition to being more effective, doing this right way demonstrates to the customer that you really are interested in him.  Remember the core principle of selling organically is to care about the customer.

Below are two scenarios – the first represents the most common