The most successful sales person is the most convincing salesperson. How can an average person do this? How do you close a sale within minutes or even seconds? Will learning different sales closes do it? What about going to sales seminars, or learning communication skills, body language and personality types? Will learning all these make you more convincing? Some people in this company I know of went to an important sales seminar to see one of the top leaders in that field, and also watched tapes on learning sales skills. When they were finished, I saw no significant changes in their skill level.
Now, there is a reason why the “simply observe and learn from them,” “think it and become it” and “read about them, learn from them and do what they did,” doesn’t work as claimed…Save your money. But there is one truth you may have never heard before. What ever these people have done to accomplish, worked for them, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you.
There is a vast difference between listening to a lecture and putting them into practice by applying the truths it contains. The reason these people did not accomplish noticeable changes is that it still boils down to the hard fact that only a small percentage of sales people do the greatest percentage of sales. What I am saying here is that you have to position yourself into that small percentage category doing the greatest percentage of sales. All the outside help you can get is good, but unfortunately the amount of retention from seminars and tapes is very little. Most people retain ten percent to twenty five percent of what they see and hear.
How can you become a convincing sales person? When you work with people you have to become childlike. A remarkable child blossoms and unfolds like a wonderful flower without any intention to publicize its evolving scent, innocent of his own excellence. The child’s mind is a mind with a heart and is by nature sincere, pure, open, honest, spontaneous, eager and frank; a child is also forgiving and expresses sweetness, laughter, calmness and humbleness with love and trust. A childlike person automatically expresses these qualities and becomes enthusiastic without the ignorance of a child.
Unfortunately, the man who does not develop the qualities mentioned above will be continually plagued with fear, worry, selfishness and suspicion and this will rob him of his peace and will cause him nothing but unhappiness. As there may be many different kinds of sales closes being taught by the pundits, you do not have to try to memorize all of them for success. What you do have to memorize is your product knowledge. Mix that with the qualities of an eager child and you are then on your way in becoming one of the 10 percent of people that do 90 percent of the sales in all companies.
In other words, a childlike person approaches customers without using manipulative techniques. Let us use this as an example, a child asks a pal, “would you like to play with me?” And the pal answers, “yeah, I’d like to.” The child who asked the question got an immediate response to whether his friend was interested in playing with him or not. Likewise, you can tell when a customer is a buyer. All you have to do is ask questions and let your customer do the talking.
When you try to convince your customer about your product, you are creating resistance, but when you keep asking questions, your customer will remain involved in the conversation. When you ask questions make sure you ask open questions, meaning ask questions that will not call for a yes or a no answer. Open questions are those questions that call for continuity in answering. In the meantime you will also learn a lot about your customer and you will soon find out if it is worthwhile spending time and resources on him. Once you have a clear understanding of what your customer wants or needs then ask him some more questions on how to serve him or her. A childlike person does not need to convince anyone to buy just asks questions and let the customer open up and tell you what, how, and when he or she wants.
Let your customer take complete responsibility for giving you his business. Your customer should never leave your store feeling he or she has been talked into buying anything.
During a sale process, you should both feel free to express yourselves freely, like a child, without fear. You want to establish an environment of openness and honesty. This will also facilitate trust building with your customers while you work toward a mutually beneficial closing. And, as soon as you find out that your customer wants what you have, you will know your customer is ready to commit to do business with you. There is no convincing involved, there is no resistance and there is less objections. The only time you will try to convince your customer is when you want to sell a newer and better product than the one your customer came in for. Hence, if you practice the qualities mentioned above, I can assure you your sales will improve according to the amount of time and focus you put in.
