Doug Robinson – Robinson Training Solutions, LLC
With very few exceptions the salespeople reading this post need to come to the realization that you were hired primarily to be a creative salesperson, receiving company leads only occasionally, and not a company lead chaser who rarely has to generate your own leads.
Ponder this: A company lead is nothing but an interruption to a well planned sales day.
If sales reps really understood these statements, why are so few thriving? It’s time for a gut check where each seller needs to look squarely in the mirror and admit that his or her results are solely dependent on the person looking back at them.
The Facts Don’t Count
Simply knowing what should be done has never guaranteed sales success. All salespeople have lots of head knowledge but should step back and apply some principles of personal vision to their individual game plans.
The best template I can think to use is Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. Covey wrote this book 20 years ago and died in 2012. His book contains a set of inspirational standards that are applicable to any field of endeavor. Let’s look at them as a blueprint for a salesperson to follow. You might notice that this is not a process oriented sales approach like you are normally exposed to, but if you’re in the majority maybe it wouldn’t hurt to do something a little different.
Habit #1 – Be Proactive
Many people believe you inherit your personal tendencies and character, while others say your upbringing and childhood experiences are what mold you. Others think environmental factors are responsible for these traits. All three opinions contain some truth but what trumps this is realizing that everyone has free will.
Humans have been blessed with three unique traits:
Imagination – to create beyond what you can physically see
Conscience – to know right from wrong
Independent will – the power to decide
As humans we must take responsibility for our own lives and that’s what being proactive is all about. Proactive people are driven by carefully selected and internalized values, while reactive people are coerced by feelings, conditions, circumstances, and their environment. Which one are you?
What will you do beginning today to be more proactive in your approach to creative selling?
Habit #2 – Begin with the End in Mind
Focus from Day One on the relevant activities that will bring sales success. You can function by design or by default. It’s important at this stage to realize that everything is created twice; first mentally then physically. Habit #2 is the mental part.
You should center your sales career on correct principles, and then codify them for future use.
Develop a personal mission statement (to learn how see www.franklincovey.com)
Habit #3 – Put First Things First
This is the physical portion where you implement the activities established in Habit #2. You must then prioritize, organize, and discipline yourself, linking priorities and plans, desires and disciplines.
What’s your weekly plan to schedule priorities, not prioritize a schedule?
Habit #4 – Think Win/Win
Win/win solutions are those that are mutually beneficial to both you and your customers. With this principle in mind, success tends to follow cooperation.
What will your process be to insure integrity and relationship-based ways for both you and your prospects to get what you want – every time?
Habit #5 – Seek First to Understand, then to be understood
When selling, communication is a key, so you should always diagnose before you prescribe. Additionally, become an empathetic listener by processing speech, sounds & body language, making you much more professional. An amateur sells a service, while a pro sells solutions for needs and problems.
What’s your plan to understand each prospect?
Habit #6 – Synergize
The underlying principle here is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For that to become manifest you must become open and authentic and gain new insight, by having a willingness to be influenced by others who may have something to offer.
How will you exhibit humility and an admission that you don’t know it all?
Habit #7 – Sharpen the Saw
You must take time regularly to renew yourself, in multiple areas of your life.
You need physical renewal through exercise
Spiritual renewal is critical by centering on your value system
Mental renewal happens as you read and enrich your mind
Social renewal happens by building principle-centered relationships with worthwhile individuals
What is your development plan for these four areas?
If you really want this post to have its desired effect, spend a few minutes in a quiet place and seriously answer all seven of my questions, and then share them with your boss asking him or her to help you improve.
Doug
©2013 Robinson Training Solutions, LLC
