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1/ Tweets for budding salesmen. These are lessons I have tried to impart to my son who decided he wanted to be a salesman. These are practical HEURISTICS.
2/ Understand the difference between FEATURES and BENEFITS. TYIs (Technologists Yet Idiots) do not get this. Benefits will ALWAYS outperform features
3/ If you believe a great product sells itself, fughettaboutit. Get a job at the post office or work for Naval. There is a graveyard filled with great products that never sold.
4/ The “sale” often is MORE about listening to your prospects needs and unfulfilled desires rather than vomiting everything you know about your product. LISTEN to your customer!
5/ Do not be afraid of getting objections. In fact, court them because a sale begins with an objection. Buyers resist giving you objections. Tease objections from them. This may be the most difficult part of the encounter.
6/ Communicating via email; via phone or in person follow a power law in effectiveness as you move along to F2F. Whenever possible, press the flesh. Relationships grow in person.
7/ If you are selling and not solving a problem, you will fail. Buyers do not always know what problem they have and your job is to offer a solution to a problem.
8/ You may need to start with a script, but throw it away as soon as you can. Seek to be Barry Sanders who might start out over right tackle and finish over the left sideline. Flexibility/optionality in approach matters.
9/ There is not one frame that works. But there is a frame that is appropriate for each customer. Discovering the right frame for the right customer is an art that only experience can dictate.
10/ Check YOUR ego at the door. The encounter is more about THEM than about YOU. TYIs invert this (see #3)
11/ Do not lie or descend into mindless hyperbole. Young salesmen miss this.
12/ The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.–Rochefoucauld
13/ Today due to digital communications, relationships are thin. Cold calling via email or phone is manifestly difficult. Whenever possible, seek intros from people to prospects. Reciprocate and be willing to put your shoulder to the door for others.
14/ Understand that sales is an insecure profession. Even great sales people are insecure but they have mastered the discipline of pushing through and not being paralyzed by those insecurities.
15/ Young salesmen do not like asking for the order. Get over that. Do not be afraid to ask what is necessary to get the sale. Now, go make your fortune…
