Is Extraordinary As Good As Remarkable?
Long ago, there was an executive in the automobile industry who had developed two or three of the best sales forces in the country.
Salesmen who trained under him were as easily spotted as a football player trained under Knute Rockne’s philosophy.
Every one of them was alert, alive, well-informed, intelligent, capable, etc.
But the most interesting thing about them was the fact that they were different from other salesmen. Completely different.
They looked on their jobs through different eyes than any other salesman in their industry. They said different things, they carried themselves in a different manner from salesmen in other companies.
In a word, they were extraordinary.
Before he passed along to that big sales office in the sky, he left behind a few tips about his sales philosophy:
I want every man who works for me to be an extraordinary salesman. I want him to do extraordinary things in selling, since these are the things that appeal to buyers and create sales. I want him to avoid commonplace expressions, gestures and thoughts. He must be extraordinary in everything he does.
Maybe we aren’t getting smarter by the decade, since I don’t notice much (any) of this anymore.
I’d love (pay handsomely for) more extraordinary salesmen … and more time to view extraordinary sunrises like the one above.
If Tiger Woods Was In Sales …
If Tiger Woods was in sales, he’d be the best salesman in his company. Maybe in his industry.
He wouldn’t rest until he was. That’s why he’s the best golfer in the world today. Take tremendous talent, hard work, a work ethic second to none, a disdain for losing and it all adds up to being #1.
You can be the best salesperson in your company or industry by using the same formula.
Over at ESPN.com, golf beat writer supreme, Jason Sobel’s article pointed out that Tiger even remembers, to this day, the name of the first person to beat him in Match play - James Mohon. He was 13 at the time. That’s gotta be 17 years or so.
I’m still burning inside for a slight that a previous employer handed me back in 2003. I get closer every month to my goal of repaying them by taking away a client of theirs every few months. It’s not vengeance, it’s business. I hate to lose …. probably as much as Tiger does.
Would you like to be the best in your industry or, at least, in your company ? Here’s some of the necessary attributes and the ratios of each that Tiger uses and you need :
Relentless consistency: 50 percent; willingness to change: 50 percent.
Flexible: 70 percent; unbending: 30 percent.
Stick-to-itiveness: 90 percent; intuitiveness: 10 percent.
And you have to absolutely HATE to lose.
Tiger does.
What Makes A Star Salesman ?
Every night, somewhere in the world, a Sales Manager goes to sleep, dreaming that a super salesman will walk into their life and set sales records for decades to come.
The chances of that happening are slim. Very slim.
What is a Star Salesman ? Is it the one who sells more than any other salesman on the team ? Is it the one who makes the highest gross margin or gross profit ? The one who makes the most dollars per dollar spent to employ him ?
I don’t know. Probably varies from company to company and industry to industry.
What I do know is some of the characteristics that make up a Star Salesman.
- A star salesman is ambitious
- A star can sell under pressure
- His knows his business and his product … inside and out
- He knows the problems a customer faces before he visits them
- He’s organized
- He knows how to get past the gatekeeper
- He’s a tremendous story teller
- He thinks about the customers business, rather than his sales
- He’s a great conversationalist
- He’s able to get the customer to tell him about his ideas
- He plans his sales calls and executes his strategy
- He makes it easier to buy than to deny
- He’s a voracious reader
- He’s a clear speaker, but doesn’t sound canned, corny or crazy
- He thinks well on his feet
- He manages himself well
- He’s a good loser, but hates the taste of losing
There’s 17 traits of a Star Salesman. Feel free to add to the list. I’m not known for having a monopoly of smarts, just for being a practicioner of the Simple Arts.
Selling, Telling And Interesting People
I hate aptitude tests. I hate college educated human resources personnel.
It’s like huntin’ possums, even if you get one, you’ve wasted your time, ’cause it ain’t worth eatin’.
Aptitude tests for salespeople are worthless. The best way to find out if person can sell or not is ridiculously simple. You know how I like simple.
Give them an interest test. If they can pass that, they can sell. Invariably.
How might you give an interest test ? There’s several ways.
One way, used by Saunders Norvell, a great sales manager from the past, was to take all the applicants to dinner, one at a time.
He’d ask several questions about their background, their family, their hobbies and such and then he’d sit back and see if the person could hold his attention or whether they just held their own attention.
The one who did the best job of gaining his interest got the job and he was never known to select a loser salesman.
Some people can talk all night, but it’s not about anything worth talking about. Some of them get caught up in listening to themselves and forget that you’re supposed to be the one listening, not them.
Some can’t get out more than three words at a time. If you get this far with one of these people, you’re a loser too. Surely you can’t even fathom hiring someone as a salesperson who can’t carry on a conversation.
If you have to drag words out of them, so will your customers. Except they won’t bother.
The fastest way to more sales is to make sure you’re an interesting person. One way to do that is to read.
The fastest way to no sales is to hire someone who’s only claim to fame is the number of hours they watch TV every night.
I once had a sales manager use this very tactic on me … for 7 weeks. We had dinner once a week. Played golf once a week. Got together on the weekends. Yada yada, blah blah.
He finally gave me the job and I sold him over $20 million dollars worth of product in 6 years as payback for his great taste in salesmen ;-).
The next time you have a sales opening, give those HR tests the heave ho and give the applicant’s an interest test and you’ll not have any more openings for a long, long time.
What Exactly Does A Million Dollar Salesman Look Like?
We all know what a million dollar baby looks like, but what does a million dollar salesman look like ?
Well, after asking enough people, I finally found a story to share that will help us understand what a million dollar salesman looks like.
One particular insurance company president was an engineer before he became a salesman. His habits of precision and watchfulness over details from his previous work never left him, so he used his mathematical skills and tried to engineer a million dollar salesman.
He called in his VP of Sales and asked him to paint him a word-portrait of a million dollar salesman.
The VP knew what he wanted, but could not give him a blueprint at that moment, but promised to get it done as soon as he could.
Out of that request came what may have been the first word-picture of a million dollar salesman. It came about after the VP of sales interviewed every million dollar producer the company employed and tabulated all the good and bad points of each.
Whether it’s the selling insurance, selling diamonds, selling medical supplies or golf equipment, the model will work, as a salesman is a salesman is a salesman.
He calls on friends and strangers alike, because he knows that a salesman needs to continually refill his Human Contact-O-Meter to continue to grow his business.
He averages 7 (seven) good sales calls per day.
He makes his appointments in advance. Half by phone and half in person.
He believes that contacts make up 50% of his success, product knowledge makes up 25% and effort makes up the remaining 25%.
He sets weekly, monthly and yearly goals and works hard to achieve each and every one.
He was around 29 when he entered his field and worked like a dog for 6 years to finally have a million dollar year.
That’s it. Kind of simple isn’t it ? Nothing special in his makeup. Nothing too hard about the methods. Ordinary stuff from all views.
What then makes him a million dollar salesman and not you ?
Action.
Plain and simple action separates you and him. He merely does what you know you need to do … but don’t do.
Will Reading More Lead To More Sales?
” Men should be judged, not by the tone of their skin, the gods they serve, the vintage that they drink, nor by the way they fight, or love or sin, but by the quality of the thoughts they think. ”
This poem was written by an English poet, Laurence Hope. It’s been said she was a strange and unhappy young woman. She lived in India and died by her own hand when she was young.
You’re wondering why I would use such a person and such a poem to write about selling, but I found that this poem is exactly the reason why some salespeople never become successful.
Their thoughts aren’t the right quality of thoughts.
I have noticed over the last couple of decades that fewer people, therefore fewer salespeople read enough material that helps them with their craft or enhances their growth as a person.
Without exception, over the last 15 years especially, I have noticed that the salespeople who read about selling, read newspapers, magazines and books of all types are more successful than those who don’t.
Salespeople who read more, sell more. Period.
Why ? Because the quality of their thoughts improves.
What do you need to read ? Anything except comic books will help.
Business magazines, newspapers, current events magazines, motivational books, self-help books, etc.
Become an all-around reader and you’ll become an all-around thinker.
Become an all-around thinker and you’ll become a better salesperson.
Selling is a mental process. The best minds will do the best jobs.
Guaranteed.
What Do All Prospects Have In Common?
The basic interest common to all prospects is self-interest.
It’s the one single common denominator of the entire human race.
Now all you have to do is tie that in with your offer. Simple.
Self-interest is expressed on four levels.
(1) What will this do to help me ?
(2) What will it do to help those close to me - my family, friends, or business associates ?
(3) What will it do to help my customers or my industry ?
(4) Will it help the public generally ?
The order in which these are listed is also the order of their effectiveness when you use them in your approach to a prospect.
Unless you know the prospect is a professed altruist or philanthropist, don’t bother with #4.
You could use #3 effectively with that small segment of society that loves to save the world or help their industry turn itself around.
You could possibly make it work with those who see that the interests of their customers are closely identified with their own interests.
As you might guess, #2 has multiple possibilities which are dependent on which one of the figures in the question you’re attempting to identify with.
And #1 is the universal common denominator of human nature - it’s built into every human mind and produces a universal response.
It’s the key to an effective approach which sells the prospect on the fact that he needs to delve further into your presentation.
Simple And Genius Have A Lot In Common
When’s the last time you watched someone else try to sell something ? I watched a couple of people today and even had a young man try to sell me two different items that he knew nothing about. Each instance went into my memory bank and I reinforced to myself that simple is genius and genius is simple.
While shopping at my local Sam’s Club for a Sirius satellite radio, I wandered near the new Vista-equipped laptops on display. Bad move. There happened to be a young fellow close by and he couldn’t wait to show me a feature that he thought was great.
Him: Want me to tell you which version of Vista you need ?
Me: Sure.
Him: This one here. ( He pointed towards the Ultimate version. )
Me: Why ?
Him: ‘Cause it’s got everything.
Me: What if I don’t need everything ?
Him: ( Silence )
We look at each other for what seems to be 30 seconds. Silence doesn’t bother me, so I’d made up my mind to not break eye contact or say anything, even if we stayed like that for days.
Him: Want me to show you what’s really neat about this here laptop ?
Me: Sure.
Him: Look. It scans your fingerprint. ( Then he demonstrated by moving his finger over the scanner. )
Me: How’s that make my life better ?
Him: ( Silence )
Another staring match for about 30 seconds … and then …
Him: You need any help with anything, you just holler.
Me: I will.
I grab my Sirius satellite kit, which will make my life better by allowing me to listen to bluegrass and Big 80’s all the time, commercial free and I headed for the checkout lanes.
Unfortunately, I met the first young man’s evil twin, who apparently had gotten all the brains at birth and he was selling some poor woman on the virtues of owning a plasma television.
I’m a geek. A 6′2″, 250 pound hillbilly golf-star of a geek, but a card carrying, computer building geek none-the-less. But even I couldn’t keep up with all the buzzwords, technoblabble and baloney that he was gobsmackin’ her upside the head with.
All that for a TV ?
Seems it would have been easier for him and better for her if he’d actually asked her what she needed and served her needs by finding a setup she could make use of and learn to enjoy.
The good part was that a lesson I learned a long time ago was reinforced again.
Never over-sell the product and always make sure that what you say and what the prospect hears is the same thing.
Where there is misunderstanding, there’s no selling.
A wise man once said - genius is almost always displayed in great simplicity of method.
Selling genius is likewise displayed.
Three Steps To A Sale
The first time a prospect comes in contact with your product or a demonstration of it, it must be the most powerful presentation you have of what the product has done for others and will do for him.
You need to sell him the desire to listen longer. The desire to learn why he needs your product and what it will enable him to do or become.
The presentation actually passes through three distinct stages and makes three separate sales.
First, the prospect is sold the will to listen.
Second, the will to consider.
Third, the will to act.
You’ll do well to think of the process of making a sale as leading the prospect down a flight of logical steps until he enters the arena of action.
You cannot omit a step, or the prospect will fall and you’ll fail.
You cannot rush him, or he’ll fall and you’ll fail.
Every prospect walks at their own pace, not yours. Let them walk at their own pace, a familiar pace and they’ll feel secure enough to trust you.
Leaving out the first step is particularly fatal, since jumping to the next step demands too big an effort and stops the prospect on the brink.
Whether the distance is five steps or fifty, it cannot be covered until the first step has been taken.
