Women it’s time to drop the nice little girl crap and grow up.  You’ve been told:

• Nice girls don’t toot their own horn
• Nice girls don’t talk too much
• Nice girls aren’t loud and boisterous
• Nice girls should be seen and not heard
• Nice girls shouldn’t talk to strangers

A fine bunch of rules for proper little ladies, but not necessarily for women in sales.  Let’s put each of these under scrutiny, and get you selling like a pro rather than a nice girl.  In sales nice girls finish last.

Nice girls don’t toot their own horn.  Every time you hold a sales conversation you’re in essence interviewing for a job.  If you went to a job interview and you weren’t prepared to answer the standard interview questions: what was your greatest achievement, what was your biggest failure, and why are you the best choice for this job you wouldn’t get the job.  The same is true in every sales conversation.

Be prepared to share stories that make your point without causing you to feel like you’re boasting.  Stories are one of the most universally powerful forms of communication.  Keep your stories succinct; but make sure you tell them in such a way that you’re removing objections, answering questions they’ll need answered, demonstrating what they need to believe, discounting the other options, and demonstrating the behaviors you want them to demonstrate.

Nice girls don’t talk too much.  This one is actually to your advantage.  Your job isn’t to talk them into a sale.  Your job is to ask revealing questions and to listen to their response.  The better you are at listening the better you’ll be at sales.  And that’s why women are naturally wound to be better in sales than most men.

Nice girls aren’t loud and boisterous, and you shouldn’t be either.  Many people have the misguided notion that the best sales people are extroverts, the back slapping joke popping center of attention.  That is completely false.  The best sales people are introverts.  You may wonder why and the answer is both logical and simple.  Introverts are naturally better listeners, buyers perceive them as more trustworthy, and buyers feel more comfortable sharing the information you need to know to do business together with an introvert.

Nice girls should be seen and not heard.  This is a bunch of excess baggage you’ve carried from childhood that you need to dump because it’s terrible advice for anyone in sales.  You bring tremendous value to every situation don’t discount yourself.  Allow yourself to be confident in the fact that when you speak you have something important to say that others need to hear.

Nice girls don’t talk to strangers.  More terrible advice for anyone in sales that you’ve had drilled in your head from childhood.  Get over this childhood fear by making it your goal to make every stranger a new friend.  And you know you can do that.

At a NAIFA convention one of the speakers gave a great definition for self-confidence.  He said that self-confidence was arrogance under control.  You have just as much, if not more, going for you as any of your male counterparts.  List all the things that make you great and then review them before each sales conversation, so you can enter the conversation with the reserved self-confidence that conveys you’re a Top Producer and they should be honored to work with you.

Near sales represent all those people who are interested, but they just aren’t ready to buy now.  They need to think about it, they’ll revisit this is six months, they have to talk to some other people, etc.  They’re still in your sales funnel, but they aren’t ready to do business today.

Michel Fortin has an acronym for the stages of buyer awareness (OATH).  It’s a great way to explain where buyers are or aren’t in the buying process.

• Oblivious - they aren’t aware they even have a need for your services.
• Apathetic - they have some awareness that they need your services, but they aren’t motivated to do anything about it
• Thinking- they know they need your services and they’re thinking about doing something, but they need to do a little more research
• Hurting - they’re ready buyers actively seeking your service

A buyer won’t buy until they’re ready to buy.  Accept that as fact.  Don’t try to manipulate or coerce someone into doing something they aren’t ready to do.  It just makes you look like a pushy obnoxious salesperson because you are.

Instead change how you approach near sales.  You can’t control the stage of awareness a potential client may be in the buying process.  What you can control is how you help people to move through the stages of awareness, so when they’re ready to buy they’ll buy from you.

Prepare ways to deepen the relationship beyond the initial connection.  Map out a marketing plan to provide valuable information to your prospects that will educate them and move them closer to a ready buyer.  This can’t be a bunch of drivel about how great you are and how long you’ve been in business.  Educational and valuable means it answers questions your potential prospects need answered, it removes objections they might have, it explores what they have to believe about your service, and it invalidates other options.

Many small service business owners miss the mark when it comes to marketing themselves.  The only reason to market your service business is to produce leads.  Once you have leads you have an opportunity to move them through your sales funnel and earn a customer.

Until or unless your marketing produces leads you’re just throwing your hard earned dollars away.  Unfortunately, ad space sellers have their best interest in mind and they only want to sell ad space.  Never ever waste your money on ads that do nothing more than “get your name out there”.

In fact, before you spend one cent on advertising of any kind make sure you have a message that attracts the attention and interest of your ideal clients.  There are two free or nearly free ways you can test your message before you spend any real money.  First, develop a core marketing message and test it in face-to-face encounters.  Second, draft a marketing campaign of at least 3 if not 5 touches with a clear call to respond in each message.

Don’t get scared when I say draft a marketing campaign.  Your campaign could be nothing more than a series of three letters that you write and send to no more than 30 people a week.  By the time your ideal clients get your last message you’ll know if you have something you can improve on, or if you need to start over.

When it comes to marketing practice my philosophy of “aim small miss small fail forward fast”.  Aim small means that you’ll have a small pool of test subjects that you’re focused on connecting with.  When you do that it means you can’t miss big you can only miss small.  Fail forward fast speaks to the fact that if a marketing communication doesn’t work once it isn’t going to work the next umpteen times, so you have to make improvements until you reveal the message that does work.

You can work on your core marketing message without any financial expenditures.  And you could test a small marketing campaign for the cost of postage for three post cards mailed to 30 people for three weeks in a row.  That will fit into any small business budge, and what you’ll learn will be priceless.

Without prospects an agent has no one to sell to. That means that agents are often frustrated because they’re always struggling to get appointments. Out of sheer desperation and exhaustion many agents rely on three things to fill their appointment calendars that are actually detrimental to their business.

Most agents are told they have to cold call to get a business up and going. Cold calling is a big prospecting mistake. Top producers know that if you want to develop a viable business you have to gain the trust and respect of your customers. Cold calling creates distrust and disrespect. Two negative emotions you may never be able to overcome even if they do buy from you.

The second thing many agents do out of sheer frustration is they buy leads. This is a costly mistake. In most cases those “prequalified leads” have been mislead plus you aren’t the only agent who has bought their contact information. Again you aren’t in a position of having their trust and respect and you won’t be able to turn more than a few, if any, into customers.

The third mistake agents make is buying “done for them” marketing solutions. Don’t get me wrong those “done for you” marketing solutions can contain some really good stuff. But you don’t know how to adapt it to fit you and your customers, and you don’t know how to correctly implement it.

There are no free lunches. Instead of wasting your precious time and dollars looking for the quick fix instant solution accept that it will take some work on your part and learn how to attract ideal qualified prospects to you. When you make this investment in yourself you’ll never be at the mercy of others again, and you’ll be able to fill that appointment book with people who will do business with you thereby increasing your sales.