How to Be Successful in Sales
There are three simple steps. And I think you’ll find them interesting. If you follow these three steps.
I think I can promise you that financial income will not be your problem.
I have had a unique experience sharing ideas around the world, and I talk to a lot of salespeople from all kinds of sales backgrounds, people from various companies, handling various products, various services. And it’s one of the important questions I get: How to become successful in sales?
First of all, Mr. White, the man who helped me to change my life when I was twenty-five years old, taught me that success in sales was a very worthy objective.
He said, “Sales will get you the kind of income you want, and you’ll learn a lot of lessons about people and about life and lifestyle, if you get involved in sales and I found out that that was true. So, sales is a very worthwhile project to work on, the art of persuasion, getting people to buy, getting them to change, getting them to act, getting them to respond. And if you’ll follow the three simple steps, I have got for you to consider today, I think you’ll find things will go much better for you if you happen to be involved in a sales career. So let me get right to it, the three fundamental steps for being successful in sales. Number one is very simple. And I don’t know any substitute for it. The first one simply says: Talk to lots of people every day.
Sure enough, when I talk to someone who’s involved in sales and I say, “How are you doing?” And this person may say, “Well, things aren’t going too well at the moment. I am not doing very well in my sales career.”
My first question always is, “How many people did you talk to yesterday?” And I find that sure enough, the person, instead of giving me this figure that I can jot down how many people they talk to yesterday, they give me a story. They tell me that they had some places to go and they had some things to do. And some things came up and so on so. No, they didn’t talk to anyone yesterday. And I say, “Well, we’ve already identified the problem.” Because the first step to success in sales is talk to lots of people every day. And then at the end of the day, it’s very important to do one more thing: Jot down how many people you talk to. Just put a little number down somewhere in your journal: I talked to ten people today. I talked to five people today. I talked to three people today. However many, just keep track.
It’s a good idea to keep track of all the numbers because just like a baseball player, to be successful, you got to know your batting average. You got to know how you’re doing,
your contacts versus your presentations, presentations versus the close or the actual sale. And how much money you are earning? You got to keep track of all of those figures because figures tell the story and the figures don’t lie. And there’s one thing we don’t want to do as we go through life, and that’s kid ourselves. A delusion is probably one of the worst diseases to suffer. The guy keeps walking west looking for the sunrise. I mean, he just doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand. But this is the first fundamental for success in sales.
Talk to lots of people every day. And at the end of the day, keep track of the numbers so you can go back over last week. You can go back over last month’s numbers and find out where some of the problems are. Okay! Now, if you talk to lots of people every day, I can promise you two things will happen for sure. Number one, you’re bound to make sales if you talk to enough people. Even if you’re just getting started in your sales career or you just started for some new company, selling some new products and you’re not very good at it at first. People will still buy if you talk to enough of them. Because I have found that some people buy for the strangest reasons.
So if you talk to enough people, you’ll find a whole variety of reasons why people will buy and you’ll have a chance to make sales. Some people buy out of sympathy for the salesperson. They really don’t want to see your kid starve. And if you make a sincere presentation, even if it’s faulty, somebody will buy just because they’re benevolent. They want to help somebody and you happen to be the next person along.
So if you talk to lots of people every day, sure enough, you’ll find some people that will buy because they’re sympathetic. Okay! Now, some people buy for other strange reasons. Some people buy just because they have the wherewithal to buy. If I’m talking to someone and I know they’re a person of means and they say, “Why should I buy your product or your service, Mr. Chinoy?” I simply say, “Well, because you can. I talk to people all day long who can’t, but you can.
So let me have your cheque.” And sure enough, some people, just because they have the wherewithal to buy will become a good prospect for a customer. So if you talk to lots of people every day, you’re bound to make some sales, even if at first your presentation was so bad, you just went around all day saying to lots of people, “You wouldn’t want to buy anything, would you?” Sure enough, somebody is going to say, “Well, maybe I would. What are you selling?” And that’ll get the process started. So, if you talk to lots of people every day, you’re going to find some people that will buy your product, that will buy your service. But that’s the key: Talk to lots of people every day.
Now, here’s the second thing that will happen. If you talk to lots of people every day, you’re bound to get better. See, when you do something over and over and over again, your skill increases. When I first started lecturing about fifteen, sixteen years ago, I will admit to you I wasn’t that good at it. In fact, the first speech I gave, I stood up to lecture and my mind sat back down. If you’ve ever had that problem, I opened my mouth and nothing came out. My knees were knocking together, the sweat’s pouring off my face. I am shaking like a leaf. It’s called terror, in case you haven’t tried it. So that first one wasn’t that good. But sure enough, I got up the courage to do it again. And when I did it again, it was easier. When I did it again, I got better. And now I have been lecturing constantly for the last fifteen, sixteen years, and I’ve gotten better at it. And I can promise you that if you will practice your presentation, practice is just as valuable as a sale.
Let’s say you are just getting started and you talk to ten people, 9 say no. And one says yes. The one that says yes is important to your financial success. But the nine who say no, are important to your personal progress called practice because the more you practice, the better you will get at the job. So the first question here is how long do you want it to take to get good at what you do? If you don’t want it to take long, talk to lots of people every day, not only for the results of sales, but for the results of progress. And then, of course, when you get started talking to lots of people every day, you can employ what we call the law of averages. And the law of averages will work for anyone. If you do something often enough, you’ll get a ratio of results. If you’re getting started and talk to ten people and only one says yes, you’ve got a ratio going called one out of ten. And the unique thing about the ratio is once it starts, it tends to continue. If you talk to ten more, sure enough you’ll get another one. If you talk to ten more, you’ll get another one. It’s that uncanny thing called the law of averages. Now, you might say, “Well, one out of ten isn’t that good,” but at first you don’t worry how good it is. You just get the ratio started. Then when you know you got a ratio like one out of ten, see you can start to compete. If I just joined the company and I could only get one out of ten but you’ve been there for a while, so you can get nine out of ten, if we have a contest, you and me, I will win. And the reason is because during the month, if it’s a contest for a month, I will talk to one hundred people and get ten. And see if you’re so good at it, you’ve probably only talked to ten people and you’ve got nine. But sure enough, at the end of the month, I’ve got ten and you’ve got nine. I win. I simply make up for in numbers what first of all, I lack in skill. So that’s number one, both to learn and to grow and to get results, talk to lots of people every day. There is no substitute for that in being successful in sales.
Now, here’s the second step to be successful in sales.
The second step is: Be really nice. I don’t know any substitute for that. You’ve got to learn to be really nice. Attitude makes the difference in how these numbers finally work out called progress. In effecting other people with words, we found something very interesting in studying communication. It’s 80% what you feel, and only 20% what you know. It’s not so much what you say as how you say it. Attitude makes the difference in results. Attitude makes the difference in the quality of life. Attitude makes the difference in the result in success in sales. It’s how you feel.
Most people are interested in how you feel, not just what you know, your feelings of sincerity, your feelings about other people, your feelings about yourself, your feelings about the future, your feelings about the product. If you are positive, if you feel good, if you have a good personality, if you’ve worked hard on yourself and now you make the presentation, you can’t believe the difference that it will make. Practice being really nice.
And I say practice because sometimes there isn’t call really for being nice when the weather isn’t nice and your problems are heavy. We have a tendency to go on the negative side, but if you will resist all of that and be nice when the weather isn’t, be nice when other people aren’t, be nice when the circumstances really seem to be going against you, if you will practice that daily, working on your attitude because that makes the greatest difference in how your sales ratio finally works out. Practice being really nice. It means learning to work harder on yourself than you do on your prospect.
Most salespeople say, “I’ve got to work hard on my prospect,” but see, that isn’t where it’s at. You’ve got to learn to work hard on yourself. Work hard on your personality. Work hard on your language. Work hard on your style, your presentation style. Work hard on learning how not to talk too long, not to talk too little, but making it just right. And make sure you understand other people’s problems and difficulties.
In sales, we learn when someone has a problem, you recognize it. You say, “John, I can understand how that feels. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like not to have the money. I know what it’s like to have a difficult time making the decision. I’ve had those times all through my life.” Understanding, sympathy, awareness, sincerity, style, commitment, courage, excitement, being positive, those are all the elements that really changes the ratio in sales. So number two is so important, being real nice. Now, here’s the third step to being successful in sales. And I think you’ll agree with me as to the importance of this one.
And number three is give good service.
There is no substitute for good service. At the end of the day, it’s not a bad idea to jot down your grade for the day for service. At the end of the day, just take a little time to think about the day and say, “Would you give yourself an A today for service?” The people that you’ve sold to, did you follow through? Did you write them a little note? Did you say thank you on the telephone? See, the real work begins after you’ve made the sale, when the prospect is already on the file or the customer is already on the file. Now you’ve got to take the time to make sure you render good service. And see that’s where the big money is.
The big money is in taking care of the people that you sell to. Excellent service leads to multiple sales. One good customer, properly taken care of, will open doors for you, you can’t open by yourself. They’ll get you to see people you could never see on your own. Somebody well taken care of. So at the end of the day, contemplate. Did I get an A today for service? Did I get a B? Was it a C? Sort of average. Was it D? Not too good. Was it an F? It wasn’t my day. Make sure you have a good plan for rendering good service and taking care of what you start. And if you’ll follow that important step, service, concentrate on that, do all the little things that most people don’t do, write the notes most people don’t write, make the calls most people don’t make, do the smiling most people don’t do. Take care of the things most people don’t take care of, the little details.
If you’ll make that part of your sales program, service, follow up, contact, making sure you keep in touch, call them before they call you, you can’t believe the difference it’ll make in your overall sales effort.
If you follow those three steps, talk to lots of people every day. There’s no substitute for the numbers. Pass out your business cards, make the contacts, make the call, stack up the numbers. If you’ll do that and number two, practice attitude. Make sure personality and style and feelings and awareness and compassion and understanding is the major part of your communication process and your sales process.
If you’ll work hard on that, then if you’ll find ways to give good service, not miss anything, take care of all the details, you will find that your success in sales will start to grow and your career will be promising beyond anything you can imagine.
Make sure you’re writing a good chapter this year in the storybook of your successful life, a chapter others might want to read someday, a chapter that’ll be preserved. Something that your children will be proud of. Something that you’ll be proud of. Make this an important year for you. Really pour it on. Stack up the numbers. Do the changing and the growing necessary. Concentrate on service and you’ll be successful.