You're Going To Be Great At This!

When I first got into sales professionally I was taught to cold call and the mentality that went with it. I was selling accident plans door-to-door in rural areas of North Carolina and the hours were grueling. We'd have a meeting in the morning of a local diner and then spread out to assigned areas throughout the county. Dropping by someone's home unannounced was the nature of the work, and many times the people were home. If someone was home, I'd go through my spiel only to be told that they wanted to wait for their spouse to come home and discuss it over. The whole scenario was dumb. Through all of this I learned that how to introduce myself to total strangers, how to persevere through a lot of rejection, but most importantly, not to be afraid of the cold calling process. Knocking on doors was easy if you could handle people not wanting our product. A few years later I sold office supplies for a small company. With just a few accounts I had adopted from a previo...

If you are familiar with Facebook, you have seen people post that they just got out of "Facebook jail". Apparently they violated the Terms of Service and someone complained enough that Facebook decided to lock them out of the platform for a number of days. LinkedIn also has Terms of Service, and the most common rule that is broken is trying to connect with people who you don't know. To me, this sounds stupid, because why would you want, or need, to connect with people you already know? It defeats the purpose of networking. With this said, I'm not ashamed to say that I've served time in LinkedIn jail. I wish I could give a story about standing up to the biggest guy in the virtual prison yard or someone slipped me a file in a cake, but I can't. I just couldn't get on. They locked me out. I've covered some of this previously and in my book, but I thought I may shed some new light on this subject. With this in mind, here are a few tips on how to...

Whether you're purchasing a home, a car or a piece of clothing, there's a thought that crosses your mind:  What will others think of this? That voice is our ego, our pride. It fills us with doubt and makes us anxious. Why? Because we crave the approval of others. We'll say we don't care, but we do. And if you're a seller, you can use this to your advantage. A good example is a realtor showing a home with a large patio. "This would be great for entertaining!" they may say, watching you as you consider your friends attending a cookout in your backyard and complimenting you. Do you remember when you bought your first car? What did you do? You drove over to a friend's place to "show it off". And everyone told you how nice it was. But more than you wanting them to like your new vehicle, you wanted them to approve your decision, or I should say, your decision making ability .  And that is the secret sauce! Peer pressure can steer us to ma...

As I mentioned in the previous post, we have to give clients a friendly nudge sometimes. There's an old saying that "be backs aren't greenbacks". One of the important elements in sales is creating a sense of urgency because your prospect will continue to stall. "I need to think about it" or "Let me talk to my wife" will always be those annoying comments that can kill your sale. In my workshops and seminars I give my definition of sales, which is persuading, urging or convincing someone to do something that they probably weren't going to do at that moment. For example, people know they need life insurance, but they put it off, and often it is too late. I don't want to sell you a policy in 10 years, I want you to buy now . This definition works for anything really. Consider trying to get your child to eat spinach. We know that at some point in the child's life he or she will try spinach, but we made spinach for tonight and want this k...

As I mention in my book, " You're Going To Be Great At This!" , my early years in the insurance business were full of high pressure sales. We had a large 3-ring binder full of rebuttals for a variety of objections and were supposed to memorize them. I figured early on to learn a handful and stick with what would work. The selling in that environment was brutal. Real guerrilla warfare. We were making unannounced house calls on people in very rural areas, many of whom owned guns. There was no fact finding or trying to get to know the client, just get in, get a check and get the hell out. We had no plans to come back at a later time, it was either sell it now or never. And as I relate in my book, we had one coworker who's mentality was "my income is in their wallet and my job is to get it out of there." Several of these people would omit some of the vital information about the product. And the mandated sales school we all attended taught us some questionabl...

When I first got into sales professionally I was taught to cold call and the mentality that went with it. I was selling accident plans door-to-door in rural areas of North Carolina and the hours were grueling. We'd have a meeting in the morning of a local diner and then spread out to assigned areas throughout the county. Dropping by someone's home unannounced was the nature of the work, and many times the people were home. If someone was home, I'd go through my spiel only to be told that they wanted to wait for their spouse to come home and discuss it over. The whole scenario was dumb. Through all of this I learned that how to introduce myself to total strangers, how to persevere through a lot of rejection, but most importantly, not to be afraid of the cold calling process. Knocking on doors was easy if you could handle people not wanting our product. A few years later I sold office supplies for a small company. With just a few accounts I had adopted from a previo...

In the world of sales, we have to learn how to handle a wide array of objections. The most popular of these is the "price objection", where the customer basically makes a comment along the lines of "I can't afford it" or "Now isn't a good time".  Here's how to handle this issue. Begin the process by making sure you emphasize the value of your product or service. Recap your conversation with "We both think that this is a great solution for your problem. Would you agree?" This gets the prospect to acknowledge your understanding of their problem and your solution. At this point, you still haven't shown them the price. "If this were free, would you hesitate to take it?" Of course your prospect will say no. "So it is about price. I'm glad to know that because I wouldn't want to sell you something that would make you uncomfortable. What do you think would be a fair price and in your budget?" Now that a...

Five or six years ago I started to overhear people say "hashtag ______", referencing the use of hashtags in social media. My daughter, who wasn't quite old enough to drive yet, would have conversations with me like the following. Me: Can you help clean the house? Her: I don't have to. Me: Why not? Her: Hashtag America! Well, there's no arguing with that I suppose. But it became quite annoying and a tad too convenient. I learned years ago that people don't like to be embarrassed, especially in front of their friends. So when my daughter would act a bit sassy in front of her friends, I'd turn the tables and respond with "hashbrown ______". The above conversation would end like follows: Her: Hashtag America! Me: Hashbrown chores! Her: Dad! Don't be such a dork! Her friends: That's hilarious. Your dad is soooo funny! Her: I hate you! You're probably asking yourself what any of this has to do with sales. Hang on, we're...