and sales objections
To receive the best return on your investment, the following strategies are suggested:
1 Convert this book to your actual day-to-day sales environment. That is, modify the concepts/techniques into your real-world sales situations. By that I mean an example may refer to a tangible product such as automobiles, homes, computers, cell phones. Yet, you may sell an intangible (i.e., professional services, advice, insurance, warranty, protection…). You will have to use your industry knowledge to adjust the technique to your situation.
2 Try the technique more than once! To do something well you must first do it poorly. On your first few attempts, you will not be comfortable nor will you be confident with the sales skill or technique. Give yourself a chance to be successful by implementing the technique several times. You just might find that you are effective before you become comfortable!
3 Ask for advice. Ask senior sales professionals for insights into effective selling techniques. I love sales because it is such an individual activity. If I put forth a consistently effective effort, I will be consistently rewarded. Yet, I have never been successful in a vacuum. I have a team that I rely on to contribute to my success. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.
4 Contact me. My email is [email protected]. I am open to assisting you in any way I can to better your understanding and use of the principles outlined in this book.
The book is organized in easy-to-read and easy-to-apply lessons. Each lesson is designed to be brief and to the point so that you can read a section, put the book down, and go sell somebody something!
I look forward to contributing to your growth as a top producing sales professional!!!
Now, let's get started...
Are You Also an Accidental Salesperson?
I am an accidental salesperson. When I was in college, I wanted to be a high school basketball coach. All my fraternity brothers urged me to major in marketing. They told me, "You have a sales personality. You should be in sales. That's a perfect fit for you." Those words frightened me. I didn't know a thing about selling. Besides, my mother raised me the way your mother raised you. She told me, "Never talk to strangers and don't ask people for money!" (Sound familiar?) So, what did I do? I became a salesman! Talking to strangers and asking people for money is how I earn a living!
During my second senior year at Louisiana State University (I graduated in the half of the class that made the top half possible) Cyndi and I had been dating for four years and were planning to wed. But I had no job and Cyndi was spending her final semester as a student teacher. In an effort to find employment, I answered an ad in the Student Aid office for part-time work with the IBM Corporation. I was fortunate that I dressed properly for the first interview in my life. I actually wore a three-piece suit...and all three pieces matched! Again, I was lucky because I was hired despite having no experience in sales, business, or the marketplace.
I began working as a delivery boy for the IBM Corporation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This is how old I am: my first job was delivering typewriters for the Office Products Division of IBM. The division sold and serviced electric typewriters and copying machines. Yes, for you young readers, before “keyboarding” there was “typing.” My year-long, part-time job allowed us to get married, to live in married student housing, and to finish our degrees. Once I graduated, IBM hired me as a full-time sales representative.
My 90-day training consisted of two months in the branch office and one month in downtown Dallas at the National Training Center. In those days, we estimated that the company invested roughly $50,000 in preparing the salesperson to enter a sales territory. Once my training concluded, I was assigned my first sales territory. I was given six parishes (other states refer to these as counties) outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But I had a problem: I could not sell! After investing $50,000 on my training, IBM had a salesperson who couldn’t sell. It was not IBM’s fault. I learned long ago that I am responsible for my success. I respect IBM and certainly am honored to have been a part of Big Blue for 14 years. (I still have my white shirts and 12-pound wing-tipped shoes!) I experienced a very difficult year my first year in sales. Now, that doesn’t mean I didn’t sell a lot. I did sell a lot: I sold my furniture, I sold my car, I sold some of my stocks…. If you have been in sales for a while, you will know it wasn’t entirely my fault. You see, they gave me a bad territory! My prospects were strange. Some of them would actually sit around the coffee table in their offices reading the obituary column in the newspaper trying to figure out why people died in alphabetical order!
I struggled a great deal trying to become a salesperson, but I never pulled it all together. I battled the stigma of being a salesman. I had no confidence in my selling skills. I didn't know how to conduct a sales interview and I was at a loss when a prospect said my price was too high. When a prospect said he was happy with the current equipment, I would turn and almost sprint to my car. I was unsure how to pick up the telephone and set appointments and I took "no" personally. When I got into a selling slump, I stayed in that slump for a long time. I couldn't handle the emotional demands of selling. I became an inactive salesperson. I jokingly say that I "aggressively waited for my phone to ring." I was inconsistent in achieving my sales quota. I was miserable.
My mother and father had instilled in their three children a strong work ethic. I knew that I had to tough it out. I decided to get serious about my success. I began to learn things. I learned timid salespeople have skinny kids! That converted me from passive to a bit more assertive. I started to do things better. I invested in myself by joining a local Toastmasters International Club. I began to gain confidence in my abilities to speak, communicate, and present. Inwardly, I had low self-esteem. Because of my desire to help train new salespeople at our local branch office, IBM promoted me to the National Training Center in Dallas, Texas, as a sales instructor. (Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; and those who can't teach, teach sales!!!)
I was now at the national center competing with twenty-four other staff members for future sales management positions. I had no confidence in myself as a professional or as a person. I thought of myself as a little guy from a little town with a image of myself. I was competing with men and women from large cities:
Cathy was from Chicago, Linda was from New York, Roger from Boston, Ron from Seattle. I didn’t think I could compete with them. As mentioned, my self-esteem or “deserve level” was low.
Someone noticed my struggle and suggested I invest in a book by a man named Zig Ziglar. The book was entitled See You at the Top and it cost $12.95. At the time, I was not a book-worm nor was I a tape-worm. I was not reading books nor was I listening to audio cassettes. I was not involved with Toastmasters at the time and I was not investing in myself. However, when I got to page 48 of Zig’s book, my life changed. One sentence in that book forever changed my personal life as well as my professional life. That one sentence read, “You cannot consistently perform in a manner that is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.”
My wife had told me similar things
