Businesses are like car engines: they're complex, consist of many moving pieces, and come in all different shapes and sizes. What kind of car engine does your company currently perform like, the engine from a 1992 Geo Metro or a Ferrari 599 GTB?
The one fundamental thing that all engines have in common; they can't function and produce energy without one key ingredient, fuel.
In business, a company's ability to grow is directly realated to its ability to produce energy, or revenues, through sales. Selling is the high-octane activity that allows a business to accelerate from 5 miles per hour to 150 miles per hour, from startup to a high flying industry leader.
Entrepreneurs and bussiness owners looking to turn their businesses into a Ferrari Engine must focus their attention on the highest income producing activities; marketing and sales. Whether you, the business owner, is an effective salesman or not - that's okay - but if you are not, its your responsibility to make sure the appropriate people and systems are in place to make sales decisions and produce sales.
This post is the first part in a series highlighting the key fundamentals to making the sale. In this first part I will focus on preparation for making the sale, specifically as it relates to mindset and first impression.
Gene McNaughton, a sales expert whose track record includes growing a 900 million dollar sales division at Dell, leading the Anthony Robbins company to its most profitable year ever as VP of Sales, and a managing partner at OneCoach Inc., insists that in order to create sales, a salesman must initally focus on two fundamental things.
1. It begins with psychology
The difference between an effective salesperson and not is their ability to impact an environment and persuade an individual or group of people to create a certain belief or conviction.
In order to become a master persuader, you must first persuade yourself.
While effective salesman must be extraorinary communicators, clear in their outcomes, rapport builders, and generally likeable, non of this matters unless an appropriate mindset is established BEFORE any interactions with the prospect.
You, the salesman or saleswoman should assess how you think about yourself. Do you absolutely believe you are an effective persuader? Even if your results have not exemplified this belief in the past, in order to step up your game, you must convince yourself first that you are masterful at persuasion. If a voice inside your heads keep rejecting this positive affirmation, completely ignore it. Over time, this self limiting belief and suffocate and dissapear.
Next, build a mindset for success by visualizing and becoming clear on your desired outcome. In an initial interaction with a prospect, are you trying to introduce yourself and build rapport, set a future appointment, or close a sale on the spot?
Furthermore, as you visualize completing the sale, what does the experience look like? How does the handshake feel that secures the deal? What is being said during this interaction? What questions are you asking? How is the prospect responding? What is your energy and enthusiasm level? What problem are you solving by persuading the prospect to use your products or services? What does the "yes" sound like, when a prospect agrees to become your valued client?
Visualizing help creates a bridge between the "before the sale" and the "close of the sale." This mental exercise makes it eaiser to turn this imagery into reality.
2. Building rapport begins with a good first impression
McNaughton explains, "There is never a second chance at a good first impression." Since the abilitiy to close a sale correlates to the amount of trust that has been built between the salesman, and the prospect, before the decision to purchase has been made, make sure to make an early impression.
Since prospects tend to make judgements within the first 4 seconds on a telehpone call, or within 10 seconds of a face to face meeting, the introduction is absolutely vital to future sales success.
Everything matters during this interaction, including your physiological and emotional apppearance: clothes, hair, expression, scent, voice level, cleanliness, shininess of shoes, energy, voice inflection, and smile. From beginning to finish, your prospect will constantly be making conscious and non-conscious judgements about you. Come to the ballpark ready to impress the crowd.
Next, practice your introduction religously, in private, before your inital meeting with a prospect. McNaughton says it beautifully, "You will be rewarded publicy for what you practice privately."
The prospect will also judge your ability to articulate and effectively communicate your vision, purpose, and benefits of your products or services. If you expect to sell like a professional, communicate like a proffesional. Use correct grammar and keep your sentences concise and to the point. Nobody enjoys listening to a rambler. If you communicate your elevator pitch cearly, concisely, and enthuisiastically, you will make a great inital impression, which will help pave a road to success.
Stay tuned for part 2 in this series, the key techniques to persuasion architecture selling.
