CHAPTER
The Keys to Successful Selling, Part 1
Zig
I’d like to start with four major points. I want to cover these before we look at the keys in selling. Number one, there never has been, there never will be, in my opinion, a outstanding salesperson, one who went all the way to the top, who was a leader. There’s never been a truly outstanding salesperson who was normal.
In every instance, they’re a little bit warped in their belief in what they’re selling. They cannot imagine anybody not saying, “Yes, I’ll take it,” and because they cannot imagine anybody not buying, by the very force of their own conviction and attitude they do end up winning those close ones. The professional wins the close ones, and when I say “wins,” I mean that he helps the prospect to win through the ownership of the product.
The problem with this is that a lot of times when you get so wrapped up in something and you believe in it so strongly and somebody still says no, there’s a chance you might confuse their business refusal, which is all it is, with a personal rejection, which it is not.
My son, for example, understood that completely almost from birth. He would ask me for something, and I would say no. He wouldn’t get upset. He just figured that old Dad had missed the question. He would wait a few minutes and then give me a chance to correct an obvious mistake.
The third point is that you have to remember who wins. If you are a professional, you understand that it is the prospect who is going to be the big winner. I say “if you’re a professional” because the professional would sell only those things which would benefit the prospect in the long run, satisfying some need which is greater than the price of whatever you’re selling.
The fourth thing I want to emphasize is that there is no such thing as a natural-born salesman. I’ve been virtually all over this world of ours. I have seen where women have given birth to boys, I’ve seen where they’ve given birth to girls, but thus far I have never yet seen where a woman has given birth to a salesperson. Now I also read where salespeople die, so if they’re not born, but they do die, then somewhere between birth and death, by choice and by training, they become professional salespeople.
With those four points behind us, let’s look at some of the keys which will be enormously helpful to you in your sales career. The first key we want to look at is what we call the key of positive projection.
Your business is never either good or bad out there. Your business is either good or bad right here between your ears. If your thinking is good, your business is going to be good, but if your thinking is stinking, then your business is not going to be so good.
One of my favorite stories took place a number of years ago. As a matter of fact, I heard this story over thirty years ago. So it’s not brand-new, but it is so beautiful and emphasizes and illustrates what I want to say so completely that I share it with you.
This printing company had an expansion program under way. They were hiring a new salesperson every six months. They would train this person in the office. Then they would train this individual out in the field with an experienced salesman. Just before the new salesperson went out on his first call, the boss would call him in for that extra little pep talk.
On this one occasion, they hired an unusually young salesman, and he looked ever younger than he really was. He appeared to be scared to death. So the boss called him in and said, “Son, let me put your mind at ease. I’m going to send you right across the street to call on an account. Let me warn you in advance: that’s one of the meanest, nastiest, orneriest, most foul-mouthed old goats on the face of this earth. He’s going to make you think he’s going to bite your head off and chew it up and spit it out in little bitty pieces but, son, he’s all bark. He is no bite. Inside, he is soft as mush. All you have to do is hang in there and somewhere along the way let him know that you’re a brand-new salesman. I guarantee you he will do for you as he always does. He always buys something—not much, but he always buys something.”
Armed with this information, our young hero went across the street on this first significant sales call of his career. He enthusiastically walked in and introduced himself to the prospect, and that’s the last thing he said for about ten minutes. That old boy really read him the riot act. He told him how the cow ate the cabbage in no uncertain terms. He introduced him to a segment of the English language that the young man never knew existed.
It didn’t faze our hero even a little bit. He just stood his ground, and when the old boy finally got through chewing, he came right back at him: “Yes, sir, I know and I understand all of that, and I appreciate your position, but we now have the finest printing offer and the finest printing in this entire city. We are prepared now to offer you something that has never been available to you before.”
They went back and forth for about thirty minutes. Finally, the young man got his sale, and it wasn’t just a little old piddly-wink order. It was the biggest order in the history of the company. He was understandably excited. I mean, he was enthused. He was turned on. He ran back across the street to the boss, threw the order down on his desk, and said, “Oh, boy, were you ever right. That old buzzard really is a foul-mouthed old goat. He’s mean, and he’s nasty, and he’s ornery, but you were sure right when you said he was a buyer. Look, I have the biggest order in the company’s history.”
The boss took one look at it and said, “Oh my goodness, son, you’ve called on the wrong man. I told you to go next door. That old buzzard is the meanest, nastiest, orneriest, most foul-mouthed, old goat in this town. We have been trying for years and years to sell to him. You’re the first one to scratch an order pad with him.” It’s a true story.
My question is this: where did he make the sale? Did he make the sale in the office, or did he simply go across to write the order? You know the answer better than I. You know perfectly good and well he had made the sale before he ever left his office.
The first thing we need to understand in this key of positive projection is, as professionals, we need to make that sale before we encounter the prospect. That’s true whether we’re in a retail business, where they come to see us, or whether we’re in a business where we go out to see the prospect. It doesn’t make any difference about the location. The needs of the prospect are the same, and we need to have our thinking properly adjusted.
The second key I’d like to share with you is what I call the key of the assumptive attitude. We need to zero in on that, because much of what selling really is all about has to do with our attitude.
I’ll never forget the day in my neighborhood three years ago when I was out doing my jogging. It was that afternoon, and I was 99 percent through with my jog. As I circled the block one last time to come by the house, I noticed a young man talking to the redhead there in the front door of our home.
They were so intent in their conversation that I figured this must be pretty serious. So I decided to abort my run, and I walked over. The young man stuck his hand out, and he said, “Mr. Ziglar, I’m Tom Brickman, and I was just doing a little work here in the neighborhood. I’m trying to find some pool owners who would like to reduce the cost of their chemicals by at least 50 percent and cut down on their work in keeping their pool clean to the degree that they only have to invest about ten minutes to have the most beautiful pool in the neighborhood. I’m just wondering, Mr. Ziglar, if I have just described you.”
Man, what are you going to say? You have to say that that young man has a powerful opening there, and if I’m going to be honest, I have to admit I’m interested in cutting my cost. I’m interested in reducing my work. So I grinned. I love salespeople anyhow.
“Tom,” I said, “you’ve hit the jackpot. That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
He said, “We’re cleaning pools in the neighborhood absolutely free of charge. We’re demonstrating a magnificent new robot. It’s a Creepy Crawly. It’s just been invented and perfected and put on the market. An engineer who got tired of all the trouble of cleaning his pools came up with it, and it’s absolutely fabulous. We will simply put it in your pool, and you’ll see the most amazing sight.”
“I sure don’t like the one I have,” I said, “so let’s have a peek.”
We made the appointment, he came back, we went out to the swimming pool, and he unpacked a brand-new Creepy Crawly. The assumption is obvious, isn’t it? He’s going to leave that one in the pool. He starts out with that particular thing. He showed me exactly how to install it.
He said, “Now here’s all you do with your Creepy,” and he started talking about Creepy like it was a person. Creepy this, and Creepy that. He had really personalized it. “You put your Creepy here, and you do this with your Creepy, and you watch Creepy work.” It was absolutely fabulous what he was doing.
He kept emphasizing the point that there’s only one moving part, and as old Creepy went to work, I was impressed. I’ll tell you, it did a good job. After it had been in the pool for about fifteen minutes, with Tom telling me all of the little things to go along with it, he reached over and got his talking pad out, and he said, “Now, Mr. Ziglar, one of the beautiful things about Creepy is this. We are going to have a design of your swimming pool in our service department. I want to draw the design exactly with all of the details filled in. The reason that’s so important,” he said as he was sketching the outline, “is that if you ever have any difficulty, if Creepy is not cleaning a certain area of the pool, all you have to do is get on the telephone and tell us exactly where it is. With your design, we will know exactly what to do. In 98 percent of the cases, you won’t even have to have a service call.”
He said, “Now I have it with these dimensions. Does this look like an accurate picture of your pool?” Notice how he’s getting me involved in the whole thing?
I said, “Yes, Tom, you’re a pretty good artist. That’s exactly the way the pool looks. The dimensions are exactly right.”
“What do you think about the job Creepy is doing? Notice wherever he goes it’s cleaning? You can see the difference, can’t you, Mr. Ziglar?” He never said the rest of it was dirty; he said, “You can see the difference.”
“Yes, it’s doing a good job.”
Then he assumed again. He said, “Now, Mr. Ziglar, obviously this is a brand-new Creepy Crawly. I just took it out of the box, you saw it, but since it has been working a few minutes now, if you would prefer, I will get another one out of another box and put it in. Which would you prefer?”
He’s given me an alternative choice. I said, “Well, Tom, this one’s brand-new, and I know it works. I don’t know that that new one out of the box would. This one’s fine.”
Along with his talking pad was his order pad, and he said, “Now you can handle this either with a check or a credit card. Which would you prefer?”
“The redhead will just give you a check for it. I’d prefer it that way.”
It was that simple. Textbook example. I had a need, he had a product. He was a professional salesman who believed in what he was selling. He demonstrated effectively. He led me through all of the steps, and when you have a good person selling a good product, it is almost impossible to resist if you have the need, the desire, and the money to purchase.
There’s something else about Tom which I believe is very important. As you noticed, he asked an awful lot of questions. He had an assumptive attitude from hello to good-bye. He gave me the alternative choice all the way.
The next key, which is so important, is called the key of physical action. I’m a little embarrassed to have to say what I’m going to say. First thing, you need to be clean. I know that I ought not to have to say a thing like that to professionals, but you can’t believe the number of salespeople who do not take a bath or a shower before they go out to greet the public. They do not use any deodorant. We need to be smelling good.
I’m not talking about overdoing it. I’m not talking about having so much cologne or aftershave on that you can be smelled coming a block away, and certainly not an overabundance of those beautiful perfumes which are available, but you need to smell clean and fresh.
You need to be properly dressed to sell. What is proper dress? That’s going to vary with the area, with the product, and with your personality. There are a lot of good books on proper ways to dress. My own concept is this: you should be dressed in such a way that the people you’re dealing with almost do not notice that you have on the clothes you’re wearing. If you leave here saying, “Man, did you see that gorgeous suit that dude had on?” I will have failed. If you leave here saying, “Boy, you’d have thought he could have done better than that, wouldn’t you?” I definitely will have failed. Dress properly.
Now, ladies, this is a little delicate, but let me put it this way: If you dress in such a way that you get that male prospect so shook up that he doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going, that’s like shooting a bird on the ground. That is not fair, but of infinitely more significance, it is not professional, and you will never really build a career. Your rate of cancellation will be high. Your repeat business will definitely be down. You will encounter all kinds of difficulties. It is not professional. You just don’t do it.
When I talk about physical action, I’m also talking about learning something about body language. Since this is such a significant subject, I just want to tell you about four very simple little things, but they can make a significant difference in your career. I call it the CHEF method, C-H-E-F.
C: when you’ve offered them a product, or you are demonstrating and you see them stroking their cheek or their chin, that’s a reflective sign. They are assuming ownership. They are visualizing what it will mean. H: When you see their hands, particularly rubbing together, whether it’s palm against palm or palm against the back of the hand, they are assuming ownership in their mind.
E: when you look at their eyes, and their eyes begin to open wider, and you can see that little light start to shine—particularly if they’re an older person and they have a few crow’s-feet, when those crow’s-feet begin to relax—you watch that. They are buying what you are selling.
The F is for friendly. When the prospect says to you, “Why you rascal, old Jesse James used a gun to get my money, and here you are coming in with this beautiful product and a pen and paper to get my money,” you know that you’re in the process of making the sale.
Physical action also means that you have come prepared to sell. Your products are there, your kit is in neat order, and your demonstration material is handy. You have gotten the order book out with all the other stuff. You’re prepared to sell, and you’re in position to sell.
Also, if you’re a salesman and you’re dealing with a man and his wife, don’t sit too close to the wife. If you accidentally or deliberately touch the wife, you’re not going to sell that man anything—guaranteed. Jealousy does rear its head. Be careful about where you sit.
It’s also important that the man have the wife next to him, because we often have a tendency to ignore members of the opposite sex in a presentation. The salesperson might bypass the wife and talk too much to the husband, but the wife might be the one who makes the decision. The husband needs to have her next to him so that she’s included in the entire process.
If it’s reversed, and we have a saleslady calling on this man and his wife, then we need the saleslady next to the man for exactly the same reason, but again, not that close. Physical action, your position, is important.
If it’s possible to have your prospects seated when you are closing the sale, particularly if it is a major purchase, then you can do it more effectively. People are more comfortable on their seats than they are on their feet.
Physical action might mean something as simple as this: if you’re touring in real estate, and you pick up the man and his wife to take them out, when they first get in the car, you have the contracts with you. You simply have them there.
You hand them either to the man or his wife and say, “In this part of the country, this is the standard information which we use, and the standard forms which we go by if you happen to find what you really want.” From the moment they have started there, you’ve let it be known that there is an agreement involved, and you get it out early. That eliminates a lot of the difficulty later on. The contract is not something you suddenly whip out and let them see. It’s something that they understand is one of the forms you use around here. Yes, physical action is important.
The fourth key I want to share with you is what we call the key of enthusiasm. It’s easily the most misunderstood key of all, because a lot of people seem to think that enthusiasm means that you’re loud and wild and way over the place. Some of the most enthusiastic people I’ve ever seen are very quiet, introverted people, but as you talk to them you sense the intensity of their belief, their conviction. Enthusiasm comes from two Greek words, en theos, and it means God within.
If you look at the word enthusiasm, you will notice that the last four letters are I-A-S-M. That forms an acrostic for I Am Sold Myself. When you are sold yourself, yes, it really will and does make a difference.
From time to time, I’ve had salespeople ask me if you can be too enthusiastic. Well, I’d like to share with you a story. Many years ago, a young fellow was courting his girlfriend, and they lived out in the rural areas. This was before everybody had automobiles. He was working there on the farm, and he finished a little late. By the time he got cleaned up to head to his girlfriend’s house, he was running late.
He knew if he was much later, that girl would not go out with him, but since he did not have a car, the only way he could get there any sooner was to take a shortcut across the pasture. That had a problem. There were 1200 pounds of big, bad bull in that pasture. The young man evaluated his situation, finally decided that the prize was worth the risk, and started to cross the pasture.
He was jogging along a little easily; he did not want to attract too much attention, but he did not want to stay in that pasture any longer than he had to. He got about a third of the way across when all of the sudden he heard the thundering hoofbeats of 1200 pounds of big, bad, and now very mad bull.
Our hero shifted into high gear. He was doing the hundred in about six-eight, but the bull was doing it in about five-two. That bull was gaining at every step. He got so close that the young man could feel the bull’s breath on his feet.
I don’t know if you have ever felt bull breath on your heels or not, but the young man was in a desperate situation. He looked around for help. The only thing he could see straight ahead was a tree, but it only had one limb, and it was twenty-two feet up in the air. He gave another burst of energy. He got within jumping distance, and he made a mighty leap for the limb, but he missed it. Fortunately, he caught it coming down.
With enthusiasm, you might miss some sales, but you have a good chance of catching them when you come down. For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you’ll miss fifteen because you’re not enthusiastic enough. Those are the odds that I like to use.
Now let’s look at the next one, which is the key of the subordinate question. What is a subordinate question? It’s any question the answer to which, if positive, means they’ve bought, but if it is negative, it does not mean they have not bought.
For example, my friend Hal Krause uses this one. “Mr. Prospect, have you sold yourself?” (You don’t ever ask, “Have I sold you?”) “Have you sold yourself, or should I tell you some more?” Well, if the guy has sold himself, then you obviously write the order, but if they say, “No, I need to learn, I need a little more information before I make a decision,” then that’s really all a good salesperson asks. A subordinate question could be a trial close.
For example, “If these tires give your family the extra protection they’d certainly be worth the extra four cents a day, wouldn’t they?” Then there’s the old and familiar three-question close: “Can you see where this would save you some money?” Understand that this is after you’ve demonstrated. “Are you interested in saving money? If you were ever going to start saving money, when do you think would be the time to start?”
You might be selling a health-related item. “Can you see where this would be better for your health? Are you interested in taking care of your health? If you were ever going to start taking care of your health, when do you think would be the best time to start?”
The subordinate question is so significant. Many times, I’ve had people ask of me when and where can you learn how to ask those questions. Well, in most of our towns in America, at your better bookstore, you will find one of the finest training manuals for that available today. It’s called the Holy Bible. It has nothing to do with religion at this moment, but if you will get that Bible, get a red-letter edition, which has the words of Jesus Christ in red.
Regardless of their beliefs or lack of beliefs, any fair-minded person has to admit that the carpenter from Galilee was the greatest salesman who ever lived, and easily the greatest sales manager who ever lived. He took twelve salesmen—and one of them was certainly a loser—and they spread the word all over the world.
A lot of times I’ve had people say, “I read the Bible, but I don’t understand it.” I don’t think it’s the part they don’t understand that bothers them. Actually the Bible is very clear, isn’t it?
So you learn how to ask questions. Why? Because every time somebody asked Jesus a question, he answered it either with a question or with a parable. Want to know how to ask questions? That’s the place to learn. As long as you’re in there, you might as well read the answer, because one of these days, he’s going to ask you a question, and if you get it right, you get to stay.
Questions are very, very important, but I want to close with his. The professional salesperson, I mean the real professional, is wise in that he knows that his own sales and his own career are going to move along much faster if his fellow salespeople are doing well and if his company is doing well. In short, he becomes a team player.
I was intrigued with the fact that back in 1986, the national championship in football was won by Penn State when they played the University of Miami. Miami had a Heisman Trophy winner on that particular team—Vinny Testaverde. He was a remarkable athlete and football player, but the Penn State team won the game.
When Penn State played Boston College, Boston had the Heisman Trophy winner, Doug Flutie; Penn State won the game. When Penn State played the University of Southern California, USC’s Marcus Allen was the Heisman Trophy winner; Penn State won the game. When Penn State played the University of Georgia, which had the Heisman winner Herschel Walker, Penn State won the game.
I’m not trying to take anything at all away from these four young men, who are outstanding individuals and remarkable athletes, but I am saying that regardless of how good we are, regardless of how tal ented we are, as individuals and professionals, when we get involved in the team spirit, we individually will be doing better because our team is doing better. I believe that’s one of the most important secrets of successful selling.