I was talking with a colleague this morning. We were actually doing some back and forth sales role play. Yes, even though I’ve been training and coaching sales for many years, I still do role playing to keep my skills sharp. It never ceases to amaze me how resistant most people are to role play. It is the single most effective way to synthesize all of your skills into a consistent and cohesive approach to sales.

Anyway, that’s not actually the topic of this blog. Perhaps it will be a future topic. As Jeff (my colleague) and I were working, it reminded me of the “two gates” concept of selling. In a sales situation, if we remember that we need to get through these gates sequentially, and not try to get through them in the wrong order, we’re going to stay on track.

GATE #1:  THE PROBLEM  The first gate is to ascertain that the prospective customer has a problem that he would like to solve. It sounds simple, but all of your early questioning must be focused on how the customer is currently trying to accomplish whatever set of problems you help your clients solve. What is going well? What might they like to change or improve? This step has nothing to do with the solution you are selling. It’s all about the prospective customer and his problem or challenge.  It is critically important to get through this gate prior to moving on the Gate #2.

GATE #2:  THE SOLUTION  Once you have successfully gone though Gate #1 — in other words, the prospective customer has acknowledged that she has a problem she would like to solve, or at least she would like to make some improvements over what she is currently doing — then, and only then, do you move to Gate #2. This is the point at which your conversation turns to why your solution is the best way to solve that problem.

Too many times, salespeople jump right to Gate #2. They immediately jump to why their solution is the best, without first establishing why the prospective customer would want to take any action at all in the first place.

Put yourself in the customer’s position. This is what he is thinking as you walk with him through these two gates:

- Gate #1: I have  a problem I would like to solve. I am willing to invest some combination of time, money & effort with somebody to solve it.

- Gate #2: I believe that Solution X is the best investment of my time / money / effort to solve my problem.

These two gates are the true gates to success in sales!

When I work with a sales team, a sales person or a business owner we focus on a style of sales that is often called Relationship Selling. It is also called Consultative Selling, Question-based Selling or a phrase I like to use, Supportive Selling. There are a couple of aspects that are characteristic of this approach to selling. This first is the ability to build rapport. There is a true effort to create a personal relationship with the customer. The second is the quantity and quality of questions that the sales person asks. The central theme of Relationship Selling is that it is about asking, not telling.

How do you actually put this into practice? First, always start your meetings with some personal rapport-building questions. Ask customers about themselves. But make sure you are sincere in your interest. People will appreciate the sales person who takes some time to make a personal connection with them. Too many sales people still launch into their agenda way too quickly. If you’re looking for a good way to get this part of your meeting started, ask the other person how long they’ve been in their current business or position. Then ask them how they got into that line of work, and follow that line of discussion.

After some discussion about the other person, you can transition into asking questions to determine the needs of your customer. During this part of the discussion, ask the following 4 questions, organized into 2 main areas:

IMPACT QUESTIONS

1) What are the negative outcomes if action is not taken to change the current situation, and what positive things could happen if the issue is fixed?

2) Who will be affected by these potential negative and positive outcomes?

ACTION QUESTIONS

3) What has been done in the past, and is currently being done, to address the current challenges?

4) What research has been done to look into potential future actions to take, and what is the result of that research so far?

There are many reasons why this line of questioning works – far too many to discuss in a short blog entry. Suffice it to say that when you organize your questioning in this sequence, and along these lines, you end up gathering the exact information you will need to make a recommendation that will be viewed by your customer as being tailored specifically for them. You will be able to demonstrate that you have listened to your customer, you understand their situation, you respect their knowledge, and you are truly interested in collaborating with them to solve their problem.

Give it a try. Take those exact 4 questions above and reword them so that they are comfortable for you and the way you speak. Then, the next time you’re in a sales call early in your sales cycle, use them to guide your sales inquiry. I would love to hear back from those of you who decide to try this. I know it works because I use it every day, and so do my clients. It always creates success. And remember, strong closers are just people who have asked the right questions in the right way prior to asking for the business.

Peter Bruening is a professional sales coach, trainer, speaker and author. He helps his clients increase their passion for sales, and in the process, their sales performance and revenue.  Please visit his web site at: http://www.sellingpointsgroup.com

Did you know that it is estimated that at least 80% of all resolutions for the New Year are either forgotten or are simply discontinued by February 1? And some estimates put the number at closer to 90%! And the three most common resolutions are: 1-Lose weight; 2-Quit smoking; and 3-Make more money. I don’t work with the first two, but I do know some excellent life coaches who can help with those objectives. My work is to help my clients with the third one.

Whether this is a forgotten resolution for you, or it is just something you’d like to focus on this year, there are three steps to make it happen.

• FIRST: At the top of a blank sheet of paper, write “My objective for 2010 is to grow my yearly earnings from $X to $Y”.
• SECOND: Write down specific actions that you can take to make it happen. Develop the most comprehensive list you can think of. These actions will likely include things such as sales & prospecting activities to fill your business pipeline, networking activities to create referral relationships, training & coaching for you (or your staff), getting a new job or promotion, etc.
• THIRD: Prioritize your list, and break the top 5 actions into small measureable steps. Than make sure your weekly plan includes at least one of these measureable steps for each of your 5 priority actions. Do this every single week, and hold yourself accountable.

By December of this year, you will be amazed at the progress you’ve made by taking small but consistent actions. That money you want to earn is out there, and it is yours for the taking. You just need to put a plan in place and take consistent action!

Peter Bruening is a professional sales coach, trainer, speaker and author. He helps his clients increase their passion for sales, and in the process, their sales performance and revenue.  Please visit his web site at: http://www.sellingpointsgroup.com

Sales & business professionals spend a lot of time talking with other people. Sometimes these are customers & clients, sometimes they’re prospects, and sometimes they’re current or potential referral sources. The most common topic of discussion in these conversations is what each person does in their business.

The most frequent error I see made in these discussions is to answer this question – “So, what do you do?” – too literally. Too many people view this as a throw away question, and they miss the opportunijty to differentiate themselves with their answer. Let’s look at some examples of some typical answers to that question:

“I’m a financial advisor.”  The other person is thinking … ‘Who cares?’

“I own a printing company.”  The other person is thinking … ‘So what?’

“I’m an account rep for an industrial lubrication firm.”  The other person is thinking … ‘Better you than me   …’

“I’m an estate attorney.”  The other person is thinking … ‘Time for another drink.’

Etc, etc, etc.

One thing you’ll notice about these responses is that they all start with the word ‘I’, and they are all focused on the person who is answering the question: YOU – as opposed to the person who asked it: THEM. Also, they are boring, mundane and relatively meaningless.

Let me give you a simple tip to answer this question in a much more interesting and meaningful way. Instead of making yourself the focus of your answer, turn it around and make your customers & clients the focus – specifically, make what you do to HELP THEM the focus of your answer. Again, let’s look at some examples of some better answers to the question – “So, what do you do?”

The Financial Advisor:  “You know how people who are within 5 or 10 years of retirement are usually concerned about making the right moves with the money they’ve saved during their working years?” Pause here for a response. “Well,I help them make the right decisions to set them up for their retirement years.”

The Printing Company Owner: “You know how companies are always trying to make sure they put their best image in front of their customers and prospects?”  Pause here for a response. “Well, I own a company that helps them do that.”

The Industrial Lubrication rep: “You know how manufacturing companies are always trying to make sure their plant is running efficiently, and that they don’t suffer any downtime?” Pause here for a response.  “Well, I represent several services and solutions that allow them to do that.”

The Estate Attorney: “You know how people like to ensure that their estate is going to be handled properly, and that their assets passed to their heirs the way they want – rather than having the state government make all of those decisions?” Pause here for a response.  “Well, I help them to do that.”

You get the picture. These answers engage the other person with a leadoff question. In other words, they create a conversation. And they allow you to paint a picture in that person’s mind of what you do to help your customers.

Put some answers to this question in writing. Play around with them and practice saying them. Have several of them that you can switch up depending on who you’re talking with. This will also to make it more interesting for yourself when you’re in these sales and networking situations. Believe me, the vast majority of sales and business professionals do a woefully poor job of answering this question. And that’s a shame, because every time you are asked what you do, you have an opportunity to either differentiate yourself and your business, or not. You WILL stand out from the crowd with this approach!

Peter Bruening is a professional sales coach, trainer, speaker and author. He helps his clients increase their passion for sales, and in the process, their sales performance and revenue.  Please visit his web site at: http://www.sellingpointsgroup.com

I hope your year was as exciting and fruitful as mine was! As I look back on all of the wonderful people I’ve met this year, and the outstanding clients I’ve been privileged to serve, I’m so thankful, and I’m enthusiastic about having another great year in 2010!

This blog not only closes out this year, but also closes out a 4-part series. In my most recent 3 blogs I discussed the first 3 of the 4 M’s of a Stellar Sales System:

• Market: Who are you selling to? Why would they buy from you? How will you reach them?
• Metrics & Measurements:  What are your Result Targets? What are your Activity Targets that will drive those Results? How will you measure and adjust your Activities and Results?
• Message: What is the real value that you provide? How can you most effectively communicate that value in your spoken and written word?

The fourth and final of the 4 M’s is, unfortunately, where too many sales training programs start: Method. Too often in sales training programs I’ve taken through the years – and in over 20 years of sales, I’ve taken hundreds of hours of sales training – the training starts with Method and focuses only on this area. It is very important to remember that the time and effort you put into mastering your Method will be much more worthwhile if you have spent the time to first master the other 3 M’s.

That being said, Method is extremely important. Method can be broken into three main areas:

1. Process
2. Tools
3. Skills

Process is the documented step-by-step process that a prospective customer goes through to become aware of who you are, to engage with you, to work through their decision process and to finally buy from you. There is an ideal set of steps that every business can define that is an outline of their ‘base’ sales process. While each actual buying process will be as unique as each individual buyer, it is very important to start with an ideal process. As with a football play, or a game plan, you start with an ideal ‘script’ of how things will go from the first step through to the buying step. From there, you learn how to adapt and improvise to the variations that normal life and business will bring.

Tools are next. Once you understand and document your process, you can identify the supporting tools you need, and then create them.  Examples of sales tools are cold calling scripts, 30-second commercials, marketing collateral, value questions that you will ask in a sales interview, documents you will use in your sales recommendation, etc. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients and while each set of tools has similarities, each of my clients needed me to help them develop a slightly different set of tools based on their industry, or the way they approach their sales process. It is very important that you go into the field each day with a customized set of tools that creates confidence as you move each sale toward closure.

Skills are the final component of Method. Skills are primarily your ability to smoothly and consistently use your tools to competently implement the steps of your sales process. Your skill is your ability to pull together your tools and process into a coherent sales flow that makes sense to the customer, and most importantly, that allows your customer to develop a level of comfort and confidence in you and your company. There is an inverse relationship between a buyer’s level of comfort & confidence, and their level of sales resistance. As your skill in creating comfort & confidence increases, your prospective buyer’s sales resistance decreases. But as soon as you begin to give that potential buyer reasons to be less comfortable or confident, their sales resistance will increase. And sales resistance is the killer of all sales. It may come in various forms, but it exists within every sales cycle, even ones that successfully conclude with a sale. The ability of the sales person to identify and neutralize sales resistance is the single most important factor of consistent sales success.

Spend some time on these three areas: 1-Process; 2-Tools and 3-Skills. Perfect your sales Method, and remember to continually adjust it. Your market and your customers are always changing, and you must continually adjust your Process, Tools and Skills to accommodate that change. In sales there is no such thing as staying in one place. You are either doing the work to move forward by continuing to learn and adapt, or you are falling behind and losing ground to your competition.

Embrace the 4 M’s in 2010! And if you want to share your ideas, or if you have some questions, just let me know. I look forward to talking with you again next year!!

Peter Bruening is a professional sales coach, trainer, speaker and author. He helps his clients increase their passion for sales, and in the process, their sales performance and revenue.  Please visit his web site at: http://www.sellingpointsgroup.com

More than a month since my last entry?!?!  I hope you will understand my tardiness – many of you have been asking me for a new blog entry – but Autumn is my busiest season, and this year was no different. Clients, clients, clients – I love ‘em!! But they do tend to keep me very busy.  That being said, it has slowed to a normal pace as we enter December … and I’m back!

In my last blog I discussed the second of the 4 M’s of a Stellar Sales System: Metrics & Measurements (I know, I know – it’s actually a double M.)  As we all know, what gets measured gets done. And there isn’t any way to know how you’re doing unless you set some activity and result metrics as targets, and then commit to measure yourself against them.

Once you’ve spent some time on the first two M’s . . . 

     - Market: Who are you selling to? Why would they buy from you? How will you reach them?

     - Metrics & Measurements:  What are your Result Targets? What are your Activity Targets that will drive those Results? How will you measure and adjust your Activities and Results?

     . . .  it’s time to move on to the third M: Message. Putting the Message together is, to me, one of most enjoyable aspects of sales and marketing. In this step, you craft the way in which you will communicate your value. There are a couple of important points to remember as you put your message together. First, nothing you do in sales will work unless you master the Message. In sales, you are a professional communicator. Your compensation is determined by your ability to communicate the right message to the right person in the right way at the right time. That is the art of professional communication. Really, that’s all sales is. Easy, right?  No so much. Professional communication is a powerful skill that takes time and effort to master. So, the first thing you need to do is understand that you must master the Message. Make a decision to commit time and attention to constantly package and re-package the way you talk about your product or service, your company and yourself.

Second, you must remember that you don’t sell a product (or service) – you sell a promise.  The more you focus on your product or service, the more you will find yourself talking about features. Features are dry and lifeless. Features describe what your product or service is, but not what it does for the buyer. Features don’t motivate buying behavior. Instead, when you focus on the promise – or what your product or service will do for your customer – you find yourself talking about benefits and proofs. Benefits and proofs are meaningful to your customer. Benefits and proofs position you and your product or service in terms of their specific positive impact on the customer. That is what your customer wants to hear: WHAT are you promising me? HOW will it impact me? WHO have you helped in similar situations to mine in the past? And most importantly, how will I FEEL as a result of using it? (The more your message taps into feelings and emotions, the more effective it will be. Emotion is the major motivator behind all human behavior.)

Creating and refining your message should be an iterative process. You will never complete this task. I am continually repositioning and repackaging my message as I learn what works in the “real world” with “real people”. I urge you to create a Message file – handwritten or on your computer – of customer proof stories, benefits, value statements, 30- and 60-second commercials & “elevator pitches” and other ideas that describe you and your product or service in terms of the value you provide. The more times you go through the exercise of documenting your thoughts – and then delivering those thoughts as verbal messages to customers, prospects and networking contacts – the better and better you’ll get at communicating them. And the better you get at delivery, the more confident you’ll be. When you reach the point of being able to combine confidence, sincerity and a well crafted message, sales becomes tremendously fun and rewarding!

Stay tuned for my next blog when I’ll discuss the 4 M’s of a Stellar Sales System – #4.

Peter Bruening is a professional sales coach, trainer, speaker and author. He helps his clients increase their passion for sales, and in the process, their sales performance and revenue.  Please visit his web site at: http://www.sellingpointsgroup.com

In my last blog I discussed the first of the 4 M’s of a Stellar Sales System: Market.  Once you define your market, you can move on to the next M: Metrics & Measurements. This is really a business planning element. I always try to emphasize with sales professionals that they should view their profession as if they are a business owner. In other words, let’s say that you are a sales person for a company, and you are in charge of a certain geographic territory. Rather than engaging your sales responsibilities from the mindset of a “sales person”, create a mindset of entrepreneurial business owner. This change in perspective will change your thoughts and, as a result, your actions.

One of the first things you would do if you were to start a company is to create a business plan. And this business plan would require you to make a determination of certain key elements, including the followoing:

     Target Revenue  As a business owner, this is a determination of how much money you want your business to bring in. As a sales professional, you need to look at your quota, if you have one. But don’t stop there. Depending on your personal goals, your target may actually be higher than the quota that your company or sales manager sets for you. Quota is only one element you should consider. Decide how much personal income you desire in order meet your personal goals. Then calculate the volume of sales you’ll need to close to generate that personal income. This is a goal that you can pursue with personal motivation and meaning, because it’s tied into what YOU want, not just what your company wants you to sell.

     Value of a Sale  The next thing the business owner would do would be to determine the value of an individual customer sale. In some industries, there may be a fairly wide range in terms of the value of an “average” sale. There are ways to work this out, and that’s one of the things I work with my clients to do. But the key is that you need to settle on a number that represents what you feel is the value of an average sale. If you have any doubt, always choose a lower number – which is a more conservative approach – rather than a higher number.

     Number of Buyers  Once you have the two numbers above, this step is a simple calculation:

Target Revenue / Value of a Sale = Number of Buyers Required

     Action Metrics Required  Now that you know how many buyers you need, or how many sales you need to close, this step will require you to make some assumptions. At this point you need to determine what your action metrics need to be to generate your target Number of Buyers. The elements you will need to consider will include the following types of elements:

   -  How many proposals (solution recommendations) you will need to make

   -  How many prospective customers you will need to engage in the selling process

   -  How many prospecting calls you will need to make

In other words, you will need to work your way backward through your sales process to determine how much activity you need to generate at each step – from prospecting through to presenting a proposed recommendation – to generate your target number of buyers. Of course, you’ll need to make some assumptions in terms of how many potential buyers at one step will move on to the next step. How many prospecting calls will it take to set an initial meeting, how many initial meetings will advance to the proposal stage, how many proposals will advance to a buying decision, etc. But you’ll need to make these assumptions, and put a stake in the ground.

Once you have the numbers above, and you have them documented in a sales plan, you are ready to go out and sell. But you’re not done with the Metrics & Measurements step. This is an iterative process, and you’ll want to do a couple of things with this data. First, use it to measure your activity. Track your actual sales activity against your plan. And as appropriate, make adjustments to your activity, or to your plan.  Keep yourself honest. No great thing was ever accomplished without a plan, and without someone who was willing to work the plan. And secondly, remember that successful selling is a combination of quantity and quality. This step, Metrics and Measurements, is about quantity. But make sure you are also continually improving in the area of quality – in other words, your sales skills and aptitude. When you hit your quantity targets, and you execute at a high level of quality, sales is THE best job in the world of business!

See you in my next blog when I’ll discuss the 4 M’s of a Stellar Sales System – #3.

Peter Bruening is a professional sales coach, trainer, speaker and author. He helps his clients increase their passion for sales, and in the process, their sales performance and revenue.  Please visit his web site at: http://www.sellingpointsgroup.com

Are you one of those people who likes to read about the field of sales? If you are – and I certainly am – then you know that there are as many articles and books about how to sell as there are minutes in your day.  You could start at the bottom of the stack, and spend virtually all of your time reading the material that is written about sales, and you’d never reach the top of the pile! I’ve gotten very good at reading sales books and articles quickly, because I’m able to separate the information into 4 major categories. I can speed read through a section that covers something I’ve already encountered in one of those categories. And I slow down and take notes when I encounter something new, or something that adds a new perspective.

You see, every company and individual who excels in sales is very good at mastering the material in these 4 categories. Over my decades of selling, and reading books and articles about sales, I’ve developed the realization that everything I encounter can be conveniently categorized into one of these four areas. This model has helped me to become not only a successful sales professional, but also a successful sales teacher. When a client and I are involved in sales coaching or training, this structure serves as a guide as we work to improve my client’s sales actions and results.

I remember these 4 areas by using a word for each of them that starts with the letter ‘M’ – thus, the 4 M’s of a Stellar Sales System. Over my next series of blogs, I’ll cover each of these four areas, and I’ll provide some suggestions about how you can build strength in each one.

The first M is Market – or more specifically, target market.  Everything you and your company do in sales must be driven by the way in which you define your market – these are the companies and people who buy your products and services.  You can go through a series of questions to develop a deeper understanding of your market, such as the following:

• WHO is are they? For example, if you are B2B, then you need to know what types of companies you want to market and sell to. You need to develop a profile. Or if you are B2C, what are the profiles of the individuals that you sell to?  There are a couple of ways to develop these profiles. Demographics define the observable characteristics of a prospective buyer. How large is a company? Where are they located? What industry are they in? How many employees? What is their revenue? Etc. Psychographics define the way the buyer thinks and feels. What problems are they trying to solve? What do they value in you or your competitors? What are their motivators to make a change from what they are currently doing?
• WHY would they buy from you? People are resistant to change, so they will continue doing the same thing unless they have a motivator to make a change. It is critical to think of your product or service not in terms of what it does, but in terms of the benefit your customer receives by using it.  You will be most successful when you approach everything from the perspective of your customer. If you were them, why would you buy? What might you be struggling with? Would you be looking to make or save money? Save time? Create convenience? Feel more secure or confident? Eliminate a pending fear? Etc.
• HOW will you determine what is important to them? One of the biggest mistakes I see is sales people who execute a one-sided approach. This is characterized by an approach that is built around the presentation of all the wonderful things about their product or service. Everything is about the sales person and what he or she is selling. A much more effective way to sell is to use a two-sided approach, with the focus being placed on the customer. Always start with the customer’s interests first – the most important tools to selling are communication and listening skills, and good questions. Once you understand your target market, you can – and you should – prepare the specific questions you will ask to determine what is most important to them. Winging your questions in a sales meeting is a sure path to sales failure.

To truly understand your target market, it makes sense to document it. The way to do this is to first start with your existing customer base. Create a spreadsheet with all of your customers in the first column. In the second column, enter their revenue value – this is the amount of revenue they have done with you. In the third column, enter the estimated revenue opportunity over the next year or so.  Then starting in the fourth column, create an additional column for each demographic characteristic that you can identify. These elements may include location, industry, employees, revenue, etc. Add columns for psychographics if you know them. Once you have this spreadsheet completed, you can sort it by either of the revenue columns, allowing you to analyze the similarities between your most valuable customers. These similarities are the beginnings of your creation of your target market segments. Each segment will respond to different marketing and sales triggers.

This exercise is going to help you in a couple of ways. First, it clarifies where you should invest your sales efforts in generating repeat business – you want to grow your relationships with your most valuable customers, so you need to make sure you invest in them. Second, it clarifies where you should invest your sales efforts in generating new business – you want to attract more customers that look like your most valuable existing customers. So you must ensure that your marketing and sales activities are focused on appealing to those types of prospects – your sales triggers and messaging must be focused on your target.

The first of the 4 M’s – Market – is critically important to your sales success. Truly understanding your target market in as much detail as possible – and continuing to develop a deeper understanding over time – will set you up for all of your efforts in the remaining 3 M’s.  See you in my next blog when I’ll discuss the 4 M’s of a Stellar Sales System – #2!

Peter Bruening is a professional sales coach, trainer, speaker and author. He helps his clients increase their passion for sales, and in the process, their sales performance and revenue.  Please visit his web site at: http://www.sellingpointsgroup.com

I had a sales coaching session with a client the other day, and after we had completed the session we were finishing our coffee and chatting about sales and business.  Since he has already made the commitment to invest in himself by working with me, you already know that he views sales and business development as an important aspect of his success, and he has made a commitment to continually invest in himself.  So there we were, two likeminded individuals, trying to figure out why some people don’t see the world the way we do.  In other words, why is it that some sales and business people can’t envision a scenario when they would not make a continual investment in developing their sales skills. And for others, it just doesn’t seem to occur to them.

We already know who the most successful sales and business people are. Study after study shows that people who are dedicated to ongoing learning, self improvement and personal development always reach higher levels of success and fulfillment in their chosen fields. The field of sales and business development is certainly no exception. If it was, I wouldn’t have a thriving business. I depend on those who lead their industry in sales, and who set and intend to reach lofty goals, to invest in my services.  So anyway, I was talking with my client, and we found our way to an interesting way of looking at it.

Imagine two competitive companies in the same industry. Company A and Company B.  Company A has the best product in the industry, hands down. Feature by feature, Company A’s product excels. But Company A does not have anything resembling a proactively organized sales process, nor does Company A have people with the skills and attitude to go out into the market and sell their excellent product.  Now consider Company B.  Company B has an average product.  Feature by feature, they fall right in the middle. But when it comes to their sales process, they lead the industry.  They continually invest in their sales methods, and in the skills of the people who execute that process.

Which company would you rather own? Which one wins? Clearly, Company B succeeds, and Company A fails. As a matter of fact, there are many real world examples of exactly that situation. Many people knowledgeable about the information technology industry will tell you that neither IBM nor Cisco Systems are built around a strategy of providing the best product. Many other companies offer better products, but never reach the level of success of either IBM or Cisco. I worked for IBM for almost 10 years, and I can tell you that they rarely had the best product in any of their market spaces.  And I worked for a competitor of Cisco, and the same is true about them. They rarely had the best product. But what IBM and Cisco have, and what many industry leaders have, is an understanding that the incremental investment they make in their customer contact methods, including sales, will always pay off more than an incremental investment in product.

So as my client and I wrapped up, we recalled a famous quote by a very smart man, Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door”.  Emerson was very smart. But he was dead wrong on this one. If you just build a better mousetrap, and you don’t invest in the process and skills to sell it, all you’ll end up with is a warehouse full of really nice mousetraps.

Peter Bruening is a professional sales coach, trainer, speaker and author. He helps his clients increase their passion for sales, and in the process, their sales performance and revenue.  Please visit his web site at: http://www.sellingpointsgroup.com

Well here we are at the end of the road. We’re making our final runway approach for a smooth landing. We’ve got the package wrapped and it’s time to put on the ribbon. How’s that for mixing a few metaphors?!  OK, let me simplify. We’ve covered five super secrets of successful selling. And it’s time to top things off with #6.  So far, if you’ve been following, you’ve been able to read about the first five secrets. Here’s recap, to refresh your memory:

• SINCERITY – Secret #1 states that it is important to have and to show a sincere interest in helping the other person. Insincerity is not something that can be hidden. It is a killer of sales.
• EMOTION – Secret #2 states that you must understand that everyone acts out of self interest – this is not the same as selfishness. Find out what your prospect’s beliefs and values are, and you can help them act out of their self interest.
• CONSULTATION – Secret #3 states that every successful sales person is really a consultant at heart. The positioning of any product or service is simply a tool for the customer to achieve a higher level of confidence, security and comfort.
• RELATIONSHIPS lead to REPEAT BUSINESS and REFERRALS – Secret #4 states that the successful sales person recognizes that the focus in the act of selling must always be the other person. No product or service has ever sold itself – buy many products and services have been bought. And no sales person has ever sold a product or service without another person first making the decision to buy. It is all about the relationship.
• EXAMPLES – Secret #5 is all about that old saying: Selling is Storytelling. When it comes to buying, we all share something with Missourians. They call Missouri the “show me state”. Well, it’s the same thing for someone who may buy your product or service. They will buy if you can show them – if you can prove to them – that you’re able to do what you say you’ll do. And there’s no better way to do that than by using examples of people who were in similar situations as your prospective buyer.

This last secret is one of the most impactful secrets of all. You can already see that the first five are extremely powerful.  When you build each of these five S.E.C.R.E.T.s into your daily selling behavior, you will have significant success. And when you top it off with #6, you will shoot to the top. Secret #6 is TIME CONSCIOUSNESS.  There are two aspects of Time Consciousness.

The first Time Consciousness Principle: First, time itself is your only true resource. The way you leverage your time will completely determine your success in sales, and in life, for that matter. Here is the secret of time management: Proactive Prioritization. That’s it. It’s really that simple. Take it from someone who has taken programs, read books, and studied all of the time management methods extensively looking for that one secret that would make me the best time manager possible. It is all about proactive prioritization. Successful people are proactive. They take control of their schedules. They plan their day around their career & personal priorities, they plan their week around their career & personal priorities, they plan their month around their career & personal priorities, and they plan their year around their career & personal priorities. Do you see the pattern here? And in the process, they get what they want from their lives. It is true that plans need to be flexible. But when you don’t plan, someone else in your life will plan for you. And you are guaranteed that your efforts will be toward someone else’s priorities, not your own.

The second Time Consciousness Principle: The second principle is a very specific sales habit & behavior. One of the biggest problems in sales is elongated sales cycles. Maybe you’ve been there. You thought you had a good chance of closing some business, but the sales cycle just seems to be going on forever. So you keep rolling this piece of business from month to month in your projection, and you’re losing faith that it will close. You are hoping that it will close this month, or maybe next month. Well, as you have probably heard: Hope is not a strategy.  Successful sales people always close for the next step. Every time you talk with a prospect or customer, you should enter into that interaction with one primary closing objective – which is the next event that must take place to move you toward your sale. And you should also have one or two backups. You will judge your success in that interaction based on whether you achieve the setting of that next step. If you successfully close your primary objective, you grade yourself an A. If you close one of your secondary objectives, it’s an A+. If you try to close for one of these, but are unable to, you grade yourself a B. And if you don’t plan and/or make an attempt to set that next step, you fail. It’s an F.  It’s that simple. There is no longer going to be any, “I think it was a good meeting” or “It felt like it went well.” or “We had a good conversation.”  The sole judgment of success is whether you planned your next step, you tried to close for it, and you were able to close for it. And one more thing. A next step has a specific definition: Date and Time. If you and your prospect or customer do not have the event scheduled with a date and time, then you did not set a next step.

I hope you’ve enjoyed, and gotten something, out of these 6 S.E.C.R.E.T.s of success.  This is the core of one of the speeches I often deliver.  These six things will truly set you apart in sales.  Imagine a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is the lowest score possible. Just think what you could achieve in sales if you were scoring in the 8 to 10 range on your dedication and success in each of these six areas!  You would be unstoppable. And every single one of these is totally under your control. Start today. Rate where you are, from 1 to 10, in each area. Then create a plan to get up to at least an 8 in each one. The sooner you begin, the sooner you’ll see results!

Peter Bruening is a professional sales coach, trainer, speaker and author. He helps his clients increase their passion for sales, and in the process, their sales performance and revenue.  Please visit his web site at: http://www.sellingpointsgroup.com