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Posts Tagged ‘selling with confidence’

It pays to be a Confident Salesperson, and you are worth every single penny! Over 100,000 Americans become new millionaires every year…

The vast majority of these fortunes (just below 85%) are made by someone selling a product or service that their business offers.

In fact, America owes its growth to the efforts of these salesmen and saleswomen. This country is one of the few places in the world where a good salesperson is admired and respected – at least by his or her company, if not by the public at large.

The Confident Salesperson knows his company needs a constant flow of new customers to ensure it’s success. Otherwise, the business is doomed to be a disappointment or to be among the majority of businesses – those that do little better than staying in the black and covering their business expenses.

In the presence of a prospective customer, the Confident Salesperson takes on the aura of a professional. As is the case with any true professional, he understands that he deserves to be paid well for the benefits he provides to others.

This is the bottom line; to succeed in life, business, or any service you need to be able to sell yourself, your product, and your business effectively. If you do these things consistently well, you will be richly rewarded for your skill and your efforts.

Who’s In Charge Here?

Too many salespeople never come close to ever reaching their full potential. Many of them rise quickly to a comfort level, achieve their goal for the year, and then suddenly come to a complete standstill.

It doesn’t matter if they reach their goal as early as May, they just can’t seem to do any better than they did the year before. They go on mental cruise control.

They repeat this pattern year after year, and thus never climb out of their comfortable rut. They make mediocrity their personal standard.

Why do almost all salespeople fail to live up to their full potential both in life and business? It is because they have failed to accept the fact that they must take full personal responsibility for themselves if they wish to improve.

Conquering the Three Great Fears.

Before the Confident Salesperson can set off in pursuit of her quest for excellence, she must overcome the 3 great fears that hold back mere ordinary salespeople. They are Fear of Responsibility, Fear of Money and Fear of Failure.

Until she has mastered them, she is destined to remain forever in the ranks of mediocrity. Once she has conquered them all three of them, she is free to live her life whatever way she chooses.

Lets look at the 3 great fears and put them behind us forever! This week, we’ll discuss the Fear of Money. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll discuss the Fear of Failure and the Fear of Responsibility.

Fear Of Money.

Believe it or not, many salespeople are afraid to ask for money. I was giving a seminar in South Carolina last year when I realized that the salespeople I was dealing with were victims of this dreaded affliction.

I devised a simple little exercise where they paired off, and each of them said to the other, “That will be just ,000 please.” I had a hard time trying to decide if the results of this exercise were appalling or side-splitting!

The first few times we did it, three of the salesmen actually couldn’t even say the words. We practiced for half an hour, going up and down in various increments until they could say “$10,000″ just a easily as “Ten bucks.”

By employing this exercise, and then explaining the reasons for their problem, we were able to conquer this long held fear.

Why are some salespeople afraid to ask for money? It could be because they themselves never had enough money to buy the product that they are now selling.

When this is what is happening, the fact that they are promoting and selling a product or service they themselves could not afford leads them to believe at least subconsciously that no other people can afford the product or service either.

Frank’s Karate School Story.

Frank, a very close friend of mine, ran a successful martial arts school in Southern California and obtained a lot of marketing information from marketing books. He was located in a middle-to-lower income part of town, but he still had over 170 students, each of whom paid to a month for group tuition.

In addition to this, at least 50 of these clients managed to find an extra per month to pay for private lessons.

One day Frank called me out of the blue to invite me to his upcoming wedding. After congratulating him and chatting for a while, I asked him where he was going on his honeymoon.

At this point Frank grew hushed and confided in me that he didn’t have enough money for the honeymoon. I asked why he didn’t just upgrade one of his students to the Black Belt course that usually sold for around $2,500.

(This would allow the student to take karate lessons for some three to four years with no additional fees, thus saving a good deal of money.)

At the same time, Frank would have ,500 in cash to enjoy while he was on his honeymoon.

He said that he had tried this approach, but people in his area simply could not afford the ,500 fee for the course. I told him I could help him if he would dedicate an hour of his time to me.

The next day, the first thing I noticed as I walked across the parking lot and entered his school was a Mercedes coupe. In it sat a young boy wearing a karate uniform. Then I noticed that one of the parents waiting in the lobby was wearing a gold Rolex watch.

When class ended a few minutes later, Frank and I sat down in his office and I pointed out that his poor student’s parents could afford a Mercedes and a Rolex. He assured me these two people were exceptions to the general rule, and that most of his students were indeed from lower income families.

I decided to let it go for a while and began to ask him some questions. First, I asked if he really believed that his martial arts lessons could help someone improve their life and health. He responded passionately that they could.

Next, I asked why 1 or 2 of the 50 or so students who paid him a month for private lessons could not afford to pay ,500 and never have to pay for a lesson again. He replied that it was just too expensive. I then asked if he thought it was too expensive.

He thought briefly and then said that he could not have afforded that much money when he was paying for karate lessons.

I had discovered problem numero uno; Frank was assuming by projection that his martial arts students shared his same financial problems. Because Frank could not come up with 00 in cash, he automatically ascribed the same difficulty to them.

This, of course, was a false assumption!

Then I asked how much he thought his time was worth. He replied that he charged $25 per half hour for a private lesson, and that he believed he was worth every penny. Then I questioned Frank on how long it took a private student to reach black belt level.

To this question frank replied with, “About four years.” I pointed out that $100 a month for four years came to almost $5,000, and if he sold a student a prepaid black belt program he would save that student almost $2,500 over the course of study.

This savings meant that if the student stayed with the program all the way to the black belt rank (only 1 in 50 does so) he would be paying about per private lesson, rather than the he was currently paying.

When I asked Frank if he thought that was a good deal, he replied that he thought it was a great deal! Maybe too cheap!

I reminded Frank that, because only one in five completed the program, he stood a good chance of making considerably more than $10 per lesson. His mentality changed within almost an instant as he got excited about the improved prospect. Problem number two was solved.

Frank had been focusing on the cost of the program instead of the actual savings and benefits to his students would receive. As soon as he realized and could understand his oversight, he saw the whole topic from a complete different point of view.

Now that Frank was more focused on a selling a new program that saved his students a considerable figure, instead of worrying about the overall cost of this new program, he began to approach his martial arts students with new zeal and promptly sold the cash program to several students before his big wedding day arrived.

This story is repeated a million times a week across the country by countless sales-persons selling cars, shoes, paper, information and other products and services. Salespeople too often place a mental barrier on themselves, and in doing so, thwart their own efforts to obtain the success they deserve.

In my work with the PGA and numerous golf course management firms I have found that despite the fact golf professionals are working with some of the most affluent individuals in the country, many of them are desperately afraid of asking for money.

In this case, it’s not because they don’t make decent money themselves but because they don’t want to be thought of as salesperson. What they don’t seem to appreciate is that 90% of the people they deal with are businessmen or former businessmen. They won’t be offended by being asked for money. They’re waiting to see if and how you‘re going to ask for it!

According to the National Golf Foundation, 86 percent of the golfers in this country would spend more money on green fees, play more often, drink more beverages in the clubhouse, eat more food from the restaurant, and buy more products from the pro shop if ONLY they played better!

The same report also points out in detail, that of the golfers that they had surveyed, just 13% of them actually took a golf lesson from a golf professional in the earlier year!

If that’s not a market waiting to happen I do not know what is, but you have to ask for the sale in order to get it!

Defeating Your Fear of Money. Overcome The Fear.

It’s OK to make money selling!

The more people you help by providing your service or product, the more income you deserve to make. You will never become a better golfer by just thinking about taking a golf lesson from a professional. You have to actually take one!

Whether or not you can afford to buy your product or service doesn’t mean that others can’t and won’t. Whether or not you think it’s expensive does not matter at all. Put your personal thoughts and prejudices behind you.

Let your customers decide whether or not they will spend their money, but make sure you give them the opportunity.