Sales Pro Source White Papers

To people who aren't sales professionals, the sales industry seems pretty straightforward. You show customers why your products are superior, and they buy -- right? Salespeople only wish it were that easy. The truth is that sales is a complex industry, so complex that one minor mistake can cost not only a single lost sale but also any referrals that would have come from that sale and even a damaged reputation. For this reason, sales professionals need to focus on avoiding mistakes instead of damage control. In addition to learning about their products and developing their outgoing, friendly, and professional personalities, salespeople should understand the consequences of these 10 common sales mistakes and how to avoid them.

Rather than rehash these trite and outdated approaches, I would like to share the philosophies and attitudes with you that are being used by the successful salespeople of today and will be used by the superstars of tomorrow.

There are four factors involved in the use of your voice-not including how you use silences and pauses, which will be dealt with separately below. They are the rate at which you speak, the pitch of your voice, the volume and the intonation.

Most negotiations do not take place at one sitting—particularly those that are complex or highly emotional. The following phases and stages describe the entire negotiation process whether it takes place in one sitting or over one year.

Negotiation goes through three phases and five specific stages within the actual negotiations. Each should flow smoothly to the next. A good negotiator can “feel” when to move onto the next
stage. The timing will be different in every negotiation depending on the personalities involved. For example, some people (and some cultures) spend a lot of time in the relating stage; other people need to have more detail and will spend more time in the second stage and so on. All effective negotiations go through these three phases and five stages.

I have some thoughts on why most people don’t use testimonials anywhere near to their full potential. First, let’s talk about why testimonials are so effective. Consider the story of legendary businessman W. Clement Stone. He built what would one day become a multi-billion dollar empire by selling fire-insurance policies door-to-door during the Great Depression.

Satisfy your customers... or someone else will. Your prospects and customers can give you important feedback, both directly and indirectly. After addressing a group of sales contest winners in Hawaii, I was on the shuttle bus headed for the airport. My usual custom is to ask questions, so I said to the driver, "I bet your passengers tell you what they really think about their stays at these fancy resorts because they know you don't work for any of them."

"Oh, yes," he replied. "In fact, once a month, the general manager of the hotel where you stayed comes to the depot with a big box of donuts and has coffee with the drivers. While we eat his donuts, we tell him everything we've overheard about his hotel -- and about his competitors' hotels."

That is what I call Box-of-Donuts consulting. The hotel manager could have paid large fees to a research firm that would phone 1,000 guests and ask what they liked and didn't like. But that information couldn't possibly be as up-to-date or as honest as these drivers' feedback, nor would it give him valuable information about his competition.

Social Media is changing the way that business and personal relationships are being formed and sustained. LinkedIn is the premier Social Media networking platform used by over 75,000,000 professionals worldwide. The average LinkedIn user is 41 years old and earns over $109,000 per year. This is a very desirable business demographic.