The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Majer

During my workshops and seminars I am regularly being asked for my opinion on what is needed to be successful in sales. Here it is - a short list of things that every salesperson needs to do regularly, day-by-day, week-by-week, to ensure the continuous success in sales.

1. Never ever stop learning
2. Stay positive
3. Take time off
4. Stay in control of your emotions
5. Work with decision makers exclusively
6. Set your selling quota
7. Stay committed
8. Put the rubber on the road, not on the carpet
9. Stick to the system
10. Watch your language, appearance, and behavior
11. Get organized
12. Set small goals
13. Prepare a “to do” list each day
14. Cultivate contacts
15. Contact three past buyers a day
16. Contact three prospects a day
17. Become the number one communicator in your office
18. Increase your personal association with top performers
19. Know the nuts and bolts of the business
20. Improve your attitude to yourself, your company, and its products
21. Ask yourself, “Is this what you want?”

Success in this world is fundamentally a matter of selling, of using its principles whether in business, society, or politics, and applying them properly and effectively.

Are you suited up, trained and ready to get out there and win?

In your approach you have won the prospect’s interest. You have put them in the mental position where they are ready to purchase if you prove up your claims. And you can prove up these claims because you made them, knowing in advance that they were merely a preface to showing your proposition.

What is the mission of your presentation?

To create desire for your products. That’s all. And the minute that is accomplished, the order is yours for the taking.

Let your presentation be organized, well thought out, with a beginning, middle, and an end. Don’t take any chances in your presentation. Know what you are doing.

Once a friend of mine was demonstrating a new steam cleaner to an interested contractor. He failed to ground the unit as he usually did. The lesson is still in his mind ten years later: his prospective buyer leaned against the machine, receiving an electric shock that did not hurt him, but it sure killed the potential sale.

The rule that a person travels familiar roads more rapidly and surely than they can pick their way along unknown paths absolutely applies to demonstrating.
Consequently, prepare and practically memorize a standard presentation of your proposition; have it in such shape, like a pilot’s check list, so that your mind is dealing with the person you are talking to. And if emergencies arise, instead of groping for something to say, you have already rehearsed for it.

The best speeches, the greatest orations, the ones that have made history, have in the great majority of cases been prepared beforehand and carefully memorized.

I don’t mean to say that you should write out a presentation or demonstration, then commit it to memory, and try to repeat it word for word. Just know it well. But I do say that you should have a standard practice in presenting or demonstrating your proposition. Again, remember the pilot’s checklist. No matter how many times you’ve flown, no matter how smart and capable you are, following a standard practice will be worth your effort. Let this presentation of yours be born of your experience and that of others in selling your product.

Sit down with a pencil and a lot of paper, or behind your computer screen. First, jot down the big talking points of your proposition. Then organize them with a beginning, middle, and an end. Then write out a presentation, putting yourself in the other person’s place, and weighing the effect upon them of every word you’re going to utter. Remember, you’re a salesperson, not an author.

Cut down. Boil down. Eliminate. Abbreviate.

Then when you’re satisfied that you’ve got the shortest, best, most convincing, most complete presentation of your product that you are capable of giving, commit it to memory. Yes, commit it to memory. And if you doubt the effect on others of memorized words, witness the actors who, with the same speeches, make different audiences laugh and cry at the same places in their play night after night after night.

Yes, when you are convinced that you have the best presentation you are capable of giving, then memorize it.

Take it out on the firing line. Add to it. Take away from it. And you’ll find yourself with a presentation that will bring down the game in the shape of orders.

We can’t all be at our best every day or every hour. But if you get your best possible presentation down on paper and then firmly entrench it in the back of your head, you’ll be certain to make a better average presentation than you ever have before. It will also give you confidence during off days.

To learn more about the Crucial Points to Succeed in Sales and how to use them to improve your sales results, get my e-book here.

Practically every sale made to a new buyer may be properly classified as easy, difficult, or impossible. You’ll readily agree to that. But will you agree to this? Sales are not easy, difficult, or impossible according to the character or mood of the person you’re talking to.

What you say or do during the first few minutes of your conversation is the one thing which largely controls the later course of the sale. It doesn’t take brains to make a sale difficult or impossible. Your task is to pave the path and make it easy. And it’s just as easy to make a sale easy, as it is to spoil it altogether.

The whole object of your approach is to arouse fully your prospect’s interest, and bring them to the point where they want to see your product and hear your proposition.

That is the first specialized situation - to make the person you’re talking to really want particulars - arouse their interest and put them in a buying frame of mind.

How are you going to go about creating this situation?

In the first place, there is a factor in selling which few men seem to have recognized; yet it is a block over which we stumble time and time again, when by knowing that it was there we could just as easily walk around it.

This stumbling block is this:
The average person’s instinctive antagonism to being sold.

It exists and is a force with which we have to contend just as surely as the wind blows, the rain falls, and the sun shines. The minute a person realizes that you have something to sell, they instinctively - without realizing it - throw up the mental barrier.

Though they will hardly put it in words or even admit it. More likely they will respond this way in their mind:

“This person has something to sell. He thinks he is going to make me take it. I’ll show him he is wrong. I will not buy.”

You see the idea? The mere fact that you are a salesperson influences your prospect partly to make up their mind that they are not going to buy. This feeling is based on the fact that every person instinctively hates to admit that another person can make or control him or her to do anything. And remember, all this happens before either of you say one word. So your first task is to get past this barrier of instinctive antagonism to being sold.

How are you going to do it?
Here’s the way to overcome that instinctive antagonism to being sold - the quick way - the sure way.

Forget forever that there is such a thing as forcing your business on the other: put yourself in their place and start right - working with the potential buyer to find out how their business will be benefited by your proposition.

In this way you can overcome this instinctive antagonism to being sold in much less time than it takes to tell about it. The earliest you manage this antagonism the better.

There is a right and a wrong way of meeting the objection of antagonism. Here is an example.

The salesperson says to the prospect:

“Your vacuum cleaner is a loser; mine has twice the power and suction. I can’t even give you a trade in on that piece of junk.”

The right way:

“I know you are interested in a clean environment and my company is too. This is the reason they designed this vacuum cleaner; it does not recycle the dust - it picks it up and securely holds it. It’s the best help you can get toward maintaining a clean home environment. Here, let’s compare in a operation test your old one with this new model.”

The question has been turned from salesperson’s proposition to discussing customer’s problem. The instinctive antagonism to being sold has been passed. And if he’s the right salesperson, the eventual solution of your problem will be his proposition.

Overcoming instinctive antagonism to being sold is a good deal like starting your plane by doing a pre-flight walk around first; it has nothing to do with your initial purpose but it is a necessary preliminary.

The real purpose of your approach is to arouse the interest of your prospective purchaser - to put him in the mental attitude of:

“If this is what he says it is - I’ll buy.”

Get the idea?

And once you have created the specialized situation, all you have to do is to prove that your statements are true; then the order is yours.

A person’s largest commercial reward in the world is receiving their full value for their services. Some receive less than they are worth, but what we hope for is that we receive our just and earned shares.
Who wants to buy a stock that misses or waives dividends, stands still, or decreases in value? You’ll find your answer in stock offerings that have no takers.
What company wants a treadmill runner who stands still or backpedals? You’ll find the answer to that question in the army of unemployed.

One morning Elizabeth Potter wakes up to find she is out of work. Her firm has been purchased and will be moving to another region of the country. Elizabeth is not in a position to move, so she begins to look for another job.

Along with hundreds of other emails, Elizabeth’s application slowly hits a company that is interested and grants her an interview. This position was carved to fit the person who is satisfied with what life chooses to give out to him or her – food, clothes, place to lay his or her head, and the right to exist.

But as she progresses, she is not satisfied with just a livable wage, and presents a well prepared portfolio of what she can do. She is hired for a gain in income.

Who did she beat out for this job? Hundreds of applicants both inside the company and out, who did not fight for what they were worth. Elizabeth showed what she could do. It was not just words. The amazing thing in this case is how the internal employees failed to demonstrate that they had the performance ability for the position.

By hiring someone who could demonstrate their abilities it may mean the company can save hundreds of thousands of dollars. No inside employee could match her ability to sell her competencies. It doesn’t mean they might not have those competencies; it does mean they didn’t sell them.

In another case a company is searching for a new auditor. Outsourcing costs are running too high and the international business work seems too much for the current auditor. In the New Z-Laser Company in Pittsburgh, a thirty-five-year-old dynamo, Bill Marin, is making a name for himself in the auditor’s position, and as a leading member of the professional auditing association. On top of it he has sought international finance and marketing expertise.

His ability has been noted by outsiders as well as by those above him. So, winding slowly through the grapevine, word reached the searching company that a right person for their open position exists. They send an invitation to Bill Martin for lunch.
One month later, entrenched behind a mahogany desk in a private office, Bill Martin is on that success road to a six figure salary.

In this case the job found the person. The CXO’s are congratulating themselves on having secured Bill’s services and are doing everything in their power to help him get a fair, square start.

Think it over.
Both Bill Martin and Elizabeth successfully sold themselves, purveyed their strong personalities, while hundreds of others, many that should have had an advantage by being current employees failed to make the effort. It did not happen overnight: both Bill and Elizabeth trained, expanded their talents, developed, and as their personal worth grew their incomes as well expanded. One of their trademarks was their dedication to a constant repetition of intended and steady tasks.

But an in-house employee should have been in line for that job. A person out of their own organization who had delivered every step of the way would have been far preferable at the time in the eyes of the employer. This person had overlooked the necessity of selling themselves and their possibilities to his employers.

There are three classes of workers:

1. The person who doesn’t try;
2. The person who builds their ability but fails to demonstrate it.
3. The person of success: a combination of ever-increasing ability and constant personality selling, who wins in spite of person barriers.

And, after all, you can be what you make yourself. Often just a little longer pull and a little stronger one and the sky is your earnings limit.

On the other hand, the person, who lies down and rests; who is satisfied at any point is lost. They become one of the vast wayside army which acts as background and scenery for the ones who really follow through.

For Bill and Elizabeth the future wore a cloak of question marks, too. But they pulled back that curtain and traveled the identical road that you are following. Therefore, there is no reason under a blue sky above why you can’t do as much.

Now I’m going to repeat: Step by step-constantly adding to your store of knowledge - constantly fitting yourself for the step ahead, that is a step above you: study and work; use every capability within you; develop your talents and create new ones; then build yourself, your ability, and your possibilities day by day; and sell yourself all the way.

When you stop to analyze it, a salesperson selling products has just exactly three things to do:

1. first find a customer,
2. then make the sales to happen,
3. and last, but not least, that sales person has to cultivate customers to buy more.

It all comes down to selling yourself - selling personality.

You are your own wares. The person who employs you is your customer. You’ve got to find your customer by locating a business that offers opportunity for you and needs what you have to offer. You have to make your first sale: actually land the position.
And then, where the salesperson’s work is to make his customers buy more of his products, your task is to build the value of your services and get a cash return - promotion - if you follow these steps.

First, as insurance against under-payment, learn to sell your personality and ability at its full market value.
Second, keep on building and adding to what you have to sell; day by day making yourself worth a little more, and year by year collect for it.

To learn more about the Crucial Points to Succeed in Sales (and Life) get my e-book here.

By definition, a sale is the act of meeting prospective buyers and providing them with a product or service in return for money or other agreed upon compensation. A sale is an act of completion of a commercial activity. The “deal is closed”, means the customer has consented to the proposed product or service by making full or partial payment (as in the case of installments) to the seller.

Selling is therefore a process in which you need to follow certain steps, one at a time, to reach your final goal – the sale itself.
The same fundamentals that govern the direct sale of tangible goods govern the indirect sales of intangible goods.
Your sales process will also depend on your efforts invested in research and understanding your customer base, together with your energy and enthusiasm about your product.

Sometimes you can skip some steps if the customer is giving you signals to move further, faster. Otherwise, it solely depends on you and your readiness to be prepared before contacting the prospect.

If we simplify the whole sales process we can agree that there are four major steps in sales:

1. opening/qualifying
2. information gathering
3. presentation of your proposal, and
4. closing.

Opening phase is usually a result of a cold call to someone who has not yet heard of you or thought about working with you.

Information gathering is a second step when sales person is asking customers what they do, how they do it, and why they do it that way. Then he/she ask how his company can help them do it better. Usually second step means getting the meeting or presentation opportunity.

Proposal is next step when sales person is giving the presentation based on the gathered information, and giving the recommendation or meaningful solution to solve their pains, issues, or needs.

When customer decides to buy that is a fourth step in sales process and the only step that actually counts - closing the deal. This means they see the value in your solution and you assisted to buyer to make a decision based on information you provided.

When you don’t close the deal you did not completed your process. It is very similar to playing baseball when you get to the third base but never reach home and score; in sales this means you have gone through three steps but on the end you didn’t engaged buyer enough to see the value in your solution.

You didn’t address their needs that will trigger a buy to happen. You have wasted your time and your customer’s time, and there is hardly any chance of getting back to that customer to try to sell again.

More about the lead generation, cold calling, presenting, objection handling and closing techniques you can learn on my regularly scheduling webinars. Feel free to subscribe to my daily sales tips newsletter.

No American can afford to treat salesmanship as a small matter. Why? Because the United States started out on a salesmanship basis for this reason: because only thirteen states were gained by war and all the others were gained by purchase and bargaining.

On five great historic occasions Uncle Sam went out with his money in his hand and bought more real estate. In 1803 he bought Louisiana from Napoleon for $15,000,000. Thomas Jefferson drove the bargain and actually picked up fourteen new States at a price of two and a half cents an acre. That was the greatest real estate transaction known to history. It doubled the size of the United States and gave us a huge territory.

In 1822 James Monroe bought Florida from Spain at a marked-down price of $5,000,000 less than the value of a handful of Google shares of today. Then, just after the Civil War and for no particular purpose, Uncle Sam bought Alaska. He paid $7,200,000 and got plenty of blame for throwing away good money for snow- drifts. For thirty years Alaska was generally regarded as a bad bargain, and then some half frozen trapper found the Klondike. In the best time of the gold-rush Alaska paid for itself, in gold, about once in every four months.

Our fourth real estate purchase was the buying of the Philippines. As to just why we did it no one has ventured to tell, for we first thrashed Spain and then to salve her injured feelings, we gave her $20,000,000 for an archipelago off the coast of China.

This archipelago had not been advertised. It was not up-to-date or serviceable. There was no demand for it. But, as almost all other nations own a few antiques, we thought that we could afford a private collection.

The Panama Canal site cost us $40,000,000; very nearly as much as all the others combined. We paid a million dollars a mile for a non-existent canal, which proves that Roosevelt was at least not as clever a bargainer as Thomas Jefferson. But we had to have it, and it is a source of national pride and marine shipping accomplishment.

So, it was buying and selling that gave us half our territory; and it is also a fact, not usually recognized, that salesmanship played an important part in preserving the Union. While it was Lincoln and Grant who put down the Rebellion, it was Jay Cooke, the famous banker, who sold the bonds and brought in the money.

Jay Cooke was unquestionably the first to launch a national sales campaign. In 1864 he was appointed by Lincoln as Sales Manager of bonds, at a time when the Federal Government was at its wits’ end for money. At once Cooke sent out more than four thousand agents. He established a press bureau the first in the world, maybe. And he advertised the bonds in every worthwhile paper in the Northern States.

His fellow-bankers were shocked and astounded at his methods. They said he was no financier, nothing but a peddler of patent medicine. But Cooke only laughed at them and sent out another flood of hand-bills. He had a flaring advertisement hung in every Northern post-office. Such was his energy that in a few months the North went into a fit of bond-madness. After the noise and the shouting were over it was found that Cooke had sold bonds to the face value of $1,240,000,000.  TWELVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!

Such was the result of the first national sales campaign in the United States.

Tomorrow, April 2nd, I am holding a webinar and there are only few more spots available. Title is: Find Buyers Who Are Ready to Buy…Now!

Learn to Identify the Trigger Events
That Motivate Prospects to Buy

“I have lot of business in my pipeline, but very few deals are closing.” Adding prospects to a sales pipeline is easy … but if they aren’t ready to buy, you’ll waste precious time that could be better spent pursuing accounts that are ready to sign. Although the economy is in strife, people are still buying. The key is to identify which prospects are ready to buy now.

In this webinar, you will learn how to:

• Use trigger events to select the right prospects to pursue
• Identify prospect needs before you ever contact them
• Recognize the difference between internal and external trigger events
• Leverage trigger events to increase your sales effectiveness

As an added bonus, you’ll receive my e-Book, “Trigger Events,” a $13.95 value.

Suggested Attendees: All sales people, sales managers, and small business owners

Read more here.