Istarted my life with very few benefits or advantages. I worked at laboring jobs and worried about money all the time. I bless the day that I got into selling. The field of selling offered me, and offers you, all the great joys, benefits, and possibilities that life has to offer. And the better you become at selling, the more respected and important you become to your company, to your community, and to your world.
Salespeople are among the most important people in America. Every single company depends for its survival on the success of its salespeople. High sales is the number one reason for company success. Low sales is the number one reason for company failure. And you can be in the driver’s seat.
Over the past thirty years, I have trained more than 500,000 salespeople in twenty-three countries. I have trained people who have come to the United States with no money, no friends, no contacts, and, very often, no ability to speak English. But they have taken these ideas, practiced them over and over again, and gone onto become sales leaders in major national organizations.
The Law of Cause and Effect is the iron law of human destiny. In effect, it says that anything that anyone else has done, you can do as well. All you have to do is find out what he or she did and then do the same over and over yourself until you master it.
Remember, no one is better than you and no one is smarter than you. People who are doing better than you simply have learned and applied the principles of success earlier than you. They have learned the twenty-one great ways to be a sales superstar and they practice them every single day. When you begin practicing these ideas yourself, you will see the results almost immediately. Once more, here they are:
1. Commit to Excellence: Make a decision today to become one of the very best salespeople in your field. Get going and keep going until you achieve your goal.
2. Act As If It Were Impossible to Fail: Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. Resolve today to face whatever fears of failure and rejection might be holding you back, and do what you fear anyway!
3. Put Your Whole Heart into Your Selling: Make a 100 percent total commitment to your profession of selling, to your company, to your products and services, and to your customers. Put your whole heart into your work.
4. Position Yourself as a Real Professional: See yourself as a consultant, an advisor, and a valuable resource to your customers. Conduct yourself as a consultant would, in every customer interaction.
5. Prepare Thoroughly for Every Call: Do your homework before you see a customer for the first time. Find out everything you can about the customer and his or her business so you can be of the greatest service to the customer.
6. Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning: Learn something new each day that can help you to be more skilled and effective in selling. Read, listen to audio programs, and take additional training.
7. Accept Complete Responsibility for Results: See yourself as the president of your own personal sales corporation, completely in charge of your own life and sales activities. Instead of making excuses, focus on making progress in your sales work.
8. Become Brilliant on the Basics: Learn and practice the fundamentals of the sales process. Use them in the proper order, every single time. Never allow yourself to get distracted or to take shortcuts.
9. Build Long-Term Relationships: The more the customer likes you as a person, the easier it is for you to sell. Ask good questions, listen attentively to the answers, and focus on the person before the sale.
10. Be a Financial Improvement Specialist: Look for ways to demonstrate to your prospect that your product or service has a definite return on investment, that he or she will be better off financially by buying and using it.
11. Use Educational Selling with Every Customer: Take the time to learn how your product or service can most help your customer. Then teach your customer how he or she can get the most benefit and enjoyment out of what you sell.
12. Build Megacredibility with Every Prospect: Everything counts! Be sure that you look the part of a believable and trustworthy sales professional. Use testimonials from satisfied customers. Build credibility with everything you do and say.
13. Handle Objections Effectively: Learn how to resolve customer concerns and overcome hesitation in the sales conversation. Be prepared with well-thought-out answers to every question.
14. Deal with Price Professionally: Be proud of your product and your prices. Concentrate on showing your prospect that what you sell is valuable and worth every cent that you are asking.
15. Know How to Close the Sale: Learn and practice proven sales closing techniques. The future belongs to the askers—those people who boldly ask for what they want—especially to those who ask the customer to take action on the offer.
16. Make Every Minute Count: Your time is your most precious resource; it’s all you really have to sell. Work all the time you work. Don’t waste time on idle chatter or low-value activities.
17. Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything: Spend more and more of your time on your most valuable prospects and customers. Allocate your time based on the potential value of the activity, the top 20 percent of the things you do.
18. Keep Your Sales Funnel Full: Your job consists of three main activities. They are prospecting, presenting, and following up. Your income is determined by how often and how well you perform these three tasks. Concentrate on them all day long.
19. Set Clear Income and Sales Goals: Decide exactly how much you want to earn per hour and how much you will have to sell to earn that amount. Never do anything during the working day that does not pay you your desired hourly rate.
20. Manage Your Territory Well: Cluster your calls so that you can spend less time traveling and more time face-to-face with people who can and will buy your products or services.
21. Practice the Seven Secrets of Sales Success: Keep yourself positive and motivated all day long by thinking continually about how you can get better and better in the key areas that determine your success and your income.
Remember, there are no limits to what you can accomplish with your time and your life, except for the limits you place on yourself.
Good luck!