photo credit: the_toe_stubber

Rising gas prices are dramatically impacting you.  That on top of a slowing economy combined with the fact that more businesses fail than succeed, and it’s down right SCARY!

Drastic times call for drastic changes in the way you do business.  No more do you have the luxury of plugging along doing the very things that are causing you to struggle.

You’re facing a literal sales tsunami and you can’t afford to make these 5 fatal sales mistakes anymore.  What are the five fatal sales mistakes?

1. The theory that you should always be closing
2. Focusing on or even using a presentation to pitch your prospect
3. Trying to pressure prospects into a “yes” decision
4. Telling lies to get in the door
5. Thinking if you just do more of the things that don’t work somehow they’ll produce different results

You’ve probably had these ideas crammed down your throat since day one, and are shocked at the heresy that I don’t buy into even one of them.  I don’t buy into them because they don’t work.  And they certainly won’t work now.

You won’t increase your sales simply by focusing on the sales process and your product.  That leaves you with a myopic view that will cause you to fall flat on your face.  But you already know that from hard earned personal experience.

You have to learn how to effectively market yourself, or you’re not going to continue to enjoy any level of success.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are three parts to increased sales:

• You have to effectively market yourself
• You have to effectively sell yourself
• And you have to effectively back up what you marketed and sold

Right now you’re trying to jump in on step two.  You aren’t doing step two all that well because you don’t understand how to do step one.  You don’t understand how to effectively market yourself because you don’t understand your prospect or the market.  If you want to be a top producer this is something you absolutely have to learn how to do for yourself.

When you get it you’ll succeed no matter how much gas costs, no matter how slow the economy gets, and no matter what you’re selling.

You might need a little help discovering how you can effectively market yourself.  If so read more about getting the help you need to become a Top Producer Increasing Your Sales

Zig Ziglar certainly looks like a sales genie or a sales genius.  When you’re struggling to make sales yourself it can be frustrating to observe Top Producers like Zig at work.  They seem to have an almost magical quality that you don’t.

The truth is you too can become a sales genie or genius just like Zig or any other Top Producer.   There are some simple truths about Top Producers:

• they’re never afraid to invest in themselves and their development
• even though they’re considered great by others they continually strive to improve
• they’re great listeners and seek to understand the prospect and the prospects needs
• they never push for a sale when they haven’t uncovered a highly motivating need
• they always ask for the sale when they have uncovered that highly motivating need

According to Chris Hegarty salespeople fail to ask for the sale 63% of the time.  That’s an obvious problem yet many sales people just can’t bring themselves to ask for the sale.  If you can’t ask for the sale you lose, and so does your prospect.

Why can’t you bring yourself to ask for the sale?

• Do you believe in the value and importance of your service?
• Did you and the prospect discuss their highly motivating need for your service?
• Will you feel good knowing that your prospect will probably settle for a lower quality service provided by your competition because you wouldn’t ask them for their business?

Here are some things to keep in mind on your journey to becoming a Top Producer. 

• The first sale you have to make is to yourself.  If you don’t believe in your service neither will anyone else.
• A buyer won’t buy until they’re ready to buy and their readiness is directly proportional to the reward they’ll get for making a buying decision, or the consequence they’ll avoid.
• When a prospect is ready to buy they will buy from someone and it may as well be you, but if you don’t ask the buyer may misinterpret your reluctance to ask as disinterest in working with them.

Rather than hoping for a sales genie develop a sales action plan that produces results.  Sales is never about luck it’s all about having an effective plan and a steady commitment to the implementation of that plan.  Set aside a few minutes now to get yourself situated for the best year yet in 2008.

When it comes to your sales action plan there are several things to keep in mind.  First, think most likely to buy.  If you have existing clients and prospects in your sales funnel now those potential new and repeat buyers are in different stages of the buying process.

Identify your top 25 most likely to buy now existing clients and new prospects.  You can spend a lot of time and energy on every existing client and prospect giving them equal precedence, but that doesn’t make sense.  Pick those top most likely buyers and focus your time and energies on those folks first and foremost.

You know who, now you need to know what.  Sales is all about action, and Top Producers know it’s also about right action.  So for each of those most likely buyers plan out your next action steps.

All these next action steps should be defined and part of your normal sales funnel.  Now you know who, and what, so the next question is when.  Far too many sales people allow themselves to run around like a dog chasing it’s tail thinking if they’re just busy enough something good will happen.

Top Producers know that’s a recipe for hard work with little results.  Instead identify the most important 3 actions you must take each day and do them.  No matter what, no excuses.

Prioritize those most important actions not by urgency, but rather by how likely they are to produce a pay check.  There are lots of urgent things you could do each day, but urgency and importance should never be confused.  At the end of each day identify the top 3 actions you must do the next day based on their closeness to a pay check.

No, you don’t need a sales genie to be a Top Producer.  You just need a sales action plan and a commitment to follow through on your plan.

Last night the caucuses in Iowa kicked of the political year. Some of you may have paid attention and some of you may have tried to ignore the whole thing, but there are some lessons that can be learned and applied to sales. These lesson are important for future Top Producers.

How does a politician fill their sales funnel? For the politician your vote is the closed transaction. The winner has to attract more voters, fill their sales pipeline fuller than the competitor plus the politician must get that voter to take action NOW.

It was a cold evening in Iowa last night. I know because I live there. And it would have been much easier to stay in your nice warm home that it was to show up at a designated location at 7:00 pm.

The key to filling your sales funnel. Like a politician you have to have a specific target market(s) that you’re focused on attracting. Senator Clinton was disappointed when at least one of her target markets, women, did not support her.

How did that happen? The politician, like you, not only has to know who they want to attract, but they must have a message that resonates with that target market so they pay attention and want to know more. Thus there are two parts to filling your sales funnel, focusing on who to attract and then having a message that grabs their attention and interest.

Resonating messages are found through your market research. Perhaps Senator Clinton made a mistake that commonly happens to sales people, and that mistake is that you think your target market thinks the way you think. Never guess when it comes to what your market wants. Know beyond all doubt and test your message on a small scale before you go big with it.

Senator Clinton made another mistake that salespeople often make. Senator Clinton spoke about change yet her actions and words were really a revamp of the Clinton campaigns in the 90’s plus she was trying to sing the same song as the democratic winner. Copy cat marketing never works, for salespeople or politicians. Politics is the ultimate individual marketing experience. Learn from those who do it well. Be uniquely you, talk to a specific group, and know what they want.