CHAPTER 1

Part 1Sales Made Simple

What Is Selling?

"To really get to understand how you can dramatically improve your sellingskills, Charlie, it's necessary to first understand what selling is. Well, Iknow you already know that, but let me tell you the way I see it. Let me giveyou my definition of selling."

"OK, Brad, I'm curious. I'll bet it's not what I expect. I'll bet it's notsomething along the lines of being able to convince someone to buy what it isyou're selling."

"You're nearly there, Charlie. Listen to what I say it is, and note where theemphasis falls. Selling is nothing more than professionally helping other peopleto buy. Get it?"

I could see he was a little surprised.

"The key word here is 'professionally.' Yet how many professional salespeopleknow how to sell? They may think they know, but do they really? How good arethey? To answer this question, we really need to know a little bit more aboutthe individual salesperson."

"But that's ridiculous, Brad. How can we know anything about a salesperson? Howcould we possibly know about every single salesperson out there?"

"The answer to that, Charlie, is to analyze the different types of salespeople.That's a lot easier because they all, in some way or another, fall into one ofthe following four basic groups:

• The Order Taker.

This person waits for people to ask if they can buy.

• The Product Pusher.

This person talks about nothing more than the product.

• The Problem Solver.

This person helps the customers find what they need.

• The Over Seller

This person promises the world just to get a sale.

"Are you with me?"

"Yeah. I follow what you're saying. I'd never thought of it that way. But tellme about these different types—I'm intrigued."

The Characteristics of a Good Salesperson

There's another characteristic professional salespeople have in common: theytrain. They train continuously. And they keep training. They do this for anumber of very good reasons. First, they want to keep up-to-date with the latesttrends and techniques. And in today's fast-changing world, this can be a bit ofa challenge. Second, they want to keep motivated. They want their energy levelsreplenished on a regular basis. One of the best ways of doing this is to rubshoulders with successful salespeople on a regular basis. You see, one of thepowerful benefits of doing this is to hear from them what works and whatdoesn't. It also helps keep them focused on the bigger picture, on what isachievable, and on how they can lift their game by emulating the best in thebusiness.

To be successful in sales, you need to have strong beliefs. You need to havesomething you believe to be true. But more particularly, you need to hold astrong set of beliefs about salespeople in general (and you in particular),about your customers, and about the product or service you sell.

You need to understand that, when customers are making up their minds whether tobuy or not, those decisions will be based on a mixture of fact and emotion. Thisis due to our human nature. We can't get away from it. But the important thingyou need to know, when faced with a customer in this situation, is whatpercentage of the decision will be based on fact, and what percentage onemotion. If you knew that, you'd be in a far better position to help with theprocess. Of course, this varies according to the type of product beingconsidered, but on average, the decision is a mix of 20 percent logic and 80percent emotion. How powerful is this to know?

To be successful at selling, you also need to hold strong beliefs about money.What does it mean to you and what role does it play as a motivator? It's prettyimportant to most salespeople, because their very remuneration package usuallyhinges on their performance. The more successful they are at selling, the morethey earn. It's as simple as that.

Money seems to feature prominently in the life of a salesperson. And so itshould. But what is money?

Let me give you my view.

Money is an idea backed by confidence.

Different, huh? That's right. To succeed out there, you need to see thingsdifferently. If you don't, you'll be no different from the rest. Understandthis: If you see things just as every one else does, you'll get the same resultsas they do. And we all know most salespeople don't make a fabulous living.

So let me run this past you once more. Money is an idea backed by confidence.This is where I get back to what I mentioned at the beginning of this book.Remember when I said the sales process starts with you? Long before you have aprospect to convert, and long before you are at the stage of selling a productto a prospect, you only have an idea. You have the idea that you'd like to sellthis or that to someone. Of course, you have this idea because it's what you dofor a living. You need the income to get by each and every month. But you don'tonly have an idea. You have something more. You have confidence. That's right.Because you are a professional salesperson, you have confidence in your abilityto sell. At this stage, you might not know who you will be selling to, orprecisely what, but you'll probably have a vague idea. For instance, if you sellreal estate, you probably know you'll be selling some house to someone duringthe course of the week or month. Just who to and which one might not be known,but you will be confident of achieving that before the month is out. Now, whenyou combine the idea with the confidence, the end result is money. The moneywill follow. Get it?

Now if you see money as I do, the way you set out to get it is by harnessing thepower of the following four words: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

You need to focus your attention on your goals. You then need to have a stronginterest in achieving these goals. Mix this with a strong desire to achieve, andyou'll be spurred into Action. You'll rise to the occasion and perform.

Every salesperson needs to be a good communicator to succeed. Communication isthe lifeblood of business, and when it comes to sales, it's vital. It has adirect relationship with sales. You see, the better you are at communicating,the better your sales results will be. You can almost measure the one with theother. Actually one could be thought of as a barometer for the other. Let me putit another way. True communication is the response you get. So if you're notgetting the response you want, you're not communicating properly.

Let's look at this in more detail. Communication, as far as sales is concerned,isn't confined to the words alone. It's far...