Sunday, November 29, 2009

a proven strategy for sales success


Do you have a strategy for sales success, or do you just "wing it" and hope for the best? Maybe you do have a strategy, but it isn't working as well as you would like. Whatever the case, you're reading this because you're interested in improving your sales results, so what you're going to learn today is a proven strategy for sales success.The first step in your strategy for sales success is to adopt a successful mindset. Do not underestimate the importance of your mindset! Take a close look at any really successful salesperson in any industry and you will see that they work extremely hard at cultivating a mindset of winning. They simply refuse to allow themselves to think negative thought. They won't even associate with other salespeople who are negative lest they become "infected" themselves. So do what the best salespeople do, fill your mind with positive thoughts and expectations and don't let anyone poison your mindset.The next step in your strategy for sales success is to become a student of successful selling techniques. Great salespeople understand that selling isn't a job, it's a profession. It requires ongoing education just like a doctor, a lawyer, or an accountant if you want to stay at the top of your field. Read sales books instead of watching television at night. Listen to sales/self improvement CD's in your car in between appointments. Seek out other top salespeople and pick their brains. The improvement in your sales will happen automatically.Now that you're full of positive thoughts and you're studying the fundamentals of successful selling, you need to develop a strategy for sales success that follows this basic formula: develop rapport first, ask questions to discover your client's needs and wants, use follow up questions to magnify those needs and wants into must-haves, get a commitment to take action if you can satisfy those must-haves, then make a presentation that focuses exclusively on those things and nothing else. Ask for the order every time!Now of course, you're going to get objections quite often, so your strategy for sales success must include strategies for dealing with them. Within three months of selling any product or service, you will have heard just about every objection you're ever going to hear and you should be ready for them. Talk to your sales manager and the other top salespeople in your company and put together your best ways to overcome the most common objections. Keep them in a notebook and read them every day. When they start to become second nature to you, your confidence and your sales will skyrocket!Maybe the most important part of your strategy for sales success is to practice. Yes, practice! Practice your warm up, practice your presentation, practice your closing sequence, practice your objection handling techniques. If you think you don't need to practice, think about this: Tiger Woods is unquestionably the greatest golfer in the world today, and one of the reasons he got that good is because he practices harder than anyone else. He knows that if he wants to stay on top, he has to keep practicing everyday and so should you.It really isn't that hard to be extremely successful in selling. Stay relentlessly positive, study everything you can about how to sell better, prepare in advance for the objections you know you're going to get, and practice, practice, practice. That's a proven strategy for sales success!

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