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by Meshell Baker
Sales success is an endeavor that is defined by numbers. The more sales, the better your numbers. And although this is true, often you can become so focused on the numbers you forget some of the essentials necessary to become a top sales person.
If you are finding your sales results to be lackluster here are 5 ways to boost you may be sabotaging your results:
1. Attitude What you focus on you will find always dictates your attitude. It is extremely difficult to become a top sales performer if your thoughts are constantly negative. All new salespeople experience on the job challenges that make it difficult to stay positive. When leads don’t respond, and deals fall through even the experience salesperson struggles with doubt.
And it’s the ones who cannot move past these circumstances that will have limited longevity in the sales business.
The reality is, your attitude determines your altitude in life and in selling. A positive approach to your daily activities is the formula for successful selling and dealing with all types of objections and obstacles.
Every success is rooted in a person’s positive perspective.
It’s impossible to have a great day with a bad attitude. It’s also impossible to have a bad day with a great attitude.
2. Belief Failure to believe in yourself leads to doubt in your abilities and offerings. A lack of this can stem from both the attitude problem and lack of focused work ethic. When you don’t believe in yourself, it’s virtually impossible to transfer confidence in your products to your prospects and clients. Product knowledge and knowledge of your customers’ business takes work and dedication.
For salespeople who had a rough time, it takes time and effort of getting into your business until your business gets into you. Consistent repetition will deliver your desired skill and confidence. This determination leads to transactions close boosting and re-energizing efforts.
Those who have belief find themselves working like no one else reaping the benefits of being a top sales performer.
3. Curiosity Have you ever been to visit a doctor’s visit where they did not ask you multiple questions? Absolutely not.
They understand that making the best diagnosis and recommendations require as much information as possible. Curiosity is defined as an intense desire to understand.
Now fast forward to your sales activities, acquiring as much information and asking directed questions is how you move prospects to clients. The most successful salespeople spend ample time qualifying their leads.
Instead of trying to persuade prospects that your offering is a fit, sincere curiosity uncovers their needs and aligns your offerings with their desired results.
Actively listening more than you speak demonstrates your interest in delivering on their desired results and favorable outcomes. Questions are not simply to create a sale, they are also a time-saving activity.
By beginning with the end in mind, you can direct the conversation to more create win-wins with every sales interaction.
4. Details I’ve heard it said that your future and fortune are in the follow-up.
Many new salespeople find the inflow of new prospects and the differentiation of cold, warm and hot leads difficult and overwhelming. Here’s where detailed task preparation and practice becomes essential and translates your activities into sales transactions. A disorganized salesperson will have the problem of generating new business, while simultaneously losing business because of poor follow up.
Top sales performers find ways to systematically follow up and follow through on requests. They put a tremendous amount of effort into research, new contacts and place importance on actions that establish trust with prospective leads.
You earn their trust when they see how you follow up and deliver on the next steps you’ve promised. I don’t know how any top sales producer accomplishes all they can by being disorganized. And this does not mean being a neat freak. There are plenty of great salespeople who have offices that look like a war zone.
The top sales performers have their own way of prioritizing the details each day and have a system for follow-up that works for them.
5. Efforts If you think salespeople are born not made, guess again. This is a misnomer, the most successful salespeople at first sight and handshake were never made for this profession. But they have a focused work ethic and internal drive that is second to none. As my mentor would always say, focused efforts beat talent when talent doesn’t focus.
Hard work creates so many powerful attributes. Adding to it an outcome focus and confidence is created. Your knowledge of your product, offerings, prospects, and clients is the groundwork the sets you up for repeated successes. And I have found time after time, my clients stating it was the quality of my presentation and confident delivery of offerings that established a strong relationship.
And when I ask sales managers for the No. 1 reason their reps fail, they almost always relate it to lack of efforts and unwillingness to do the work.
Successful people do the things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do.
When I look back at the activities of top sales performers, they can be attributed to the above principles. Those who incorporate these principles are flexible in their approach as the situation demands. They seek to make others’ more comfortable and excel at accomplishing the task at hand.
These people are much more likely to be successful in influencing others and becoming top sales performers.
About the author