Focus on things you can control

John Wooden once said, “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” Along those lines, consider this thought: don’t let what you can’t control distract you from what can control.

As sales professionals, we often get caught up in the emotions, feelings, personalities, and suspected motives of those we work with — in our own organization as well as our customers’ and prospects’ — that we lose focus and time and motivation worrying about these things we can’t control.

True professionals are unconscious defenders of their time. They eliminate and avoid tasks, even thoughts, that would distract them from accomplishing what they want to accomplish. If you want to succeed in sales, truly succeed as a top 1% professional, keep your thoughts single-minded on those things you can control and those things you can do, and, as Thomas Henry Huxley has said, leave hoping and fearing alone.

Reviewing lost sales

How often do you break down lost sales?

As sales professionals, confident, self-assured sales professionals, we’re quick to blame the selling circumstances, timing, our buyer’s company, our buyer, our own company’s policies or product quality or support personnel when things go wrong and we lose a sale.

But how often do we shoulder the blame? Sales author George N. Kahn once said:

“We may not be sure about the impression we make on others, but we know how we look to ourselves — in an admirable light, of course. In other words, we tend to overlook our faults and magnify our virtues.”

Lack of introspection or self-analysis kills so many sales. Yet, because of it’s nature we can never know how many. Read the full post

Home field advantage

If you’re an outside sales professional, answer this: when was the last time you invited a prospect to meet with you at your office?

We generally meet with prospects at their business. We initiate the process there. Then we tour the facility. We propose at it. We sign the documents there (or don’t).

Now, I’m all for collaborative selling. I’m all for focusing on the customer. But I’m also for closing deals. And you stand a better chance if at some point you can cause your prospects to get to your office to talk business.

Give them a tour of your facility. Introduce them to behind-the-scenes personnel. And get the deal done while they’re there. Play more games on your home field and you will win more deals.

You want this

Book after book has been written about the art of persuasion. “Be passionate,” they say. “Know your audience,” they exhort. “Ask questions to find out what people want,” we’re taught. “Give ample evidence for your position,” they preach.

But the reality is, we’re shortcutters in life. More and more people ignore fine details in their decision-making and go with what feels right. Sure, they’ll listen to the details, but they don’t play as much into the final decision as we all think. And honestly, who has time for details. This is a get-it-about-right world we live in. Everything is beta.

You know what? We’re secretly far more influenced by factors cited in this article than we want to admit. We are heavily influenced by people, who by shear self-belief and persona, cause us to feel “I want this, too.”

My guidance to you as a persuader: Yes, you should strive to understand the other person’s wants and needs. And you should ask questions to get a clear picture of these things. You should show interest in the other person as an individual.

But then, frankly, your bold, confident, no-frills “you want this,” expert recommendations and guidance will win deals for you. Your lack will lose them.

[tags]persuasion, confidence[/tags]

Rules to interview by

Okay, so we don’t want to emulate the current interview style of broadcast journalists. But here are some great pointers for sales professionals from the world of journalism, courtesy of Leslie Rubinkowski, on being fully prepared for interviews/needs assessments with clients and prospects. Every point applies to us in selling.

Don’t emulate television journalists

There was a time when television journalists asked challenging, interesting questions. Then they’d come at you with a follow-up that packed a powerful punch that made the interviewee really think. The questioning methods were a good model for sales professionals.

But I don’t think that’s the case any longer. The new style of one-on-one television interviewing is to state a series of facts, ask no real question, then simply stop talking and hope the other person takes over. If they don’t give an elaborate answer, you state more facts, dominating the conversation, until their pride takes over and they strive to hold their own with you. Have you noticed this? It’s used most often with those awful, lifestyle celebrity interviews you can see on primetime “news” programs, but I’ve seen it with political and business leaders as well. It goes something like this: Read the full post