Reluctant Rainmaker’s Guide to Success in Sales

Success in sales is more about integrity than tricks, more about efficiency than popularity and more about process than black magic. These are lessons every sales professional learns on the job – not training classes or books.

Here’s an introduction to 10 basic principles any newcomer to sales can understand in a few minutes. They’ll be particularly interesting to the reluctant rainmakers – business owners who need to sell, but are uncomfortable doing it. With these principles they can be confident they have the basic skills for success in sales, even without the experience.

Sales Plan

Every sales campaign needs a plan, because failing to plan is equivalent to planning to fail. In Planning a Sales Campaign we’ve described the way we set about laying the ground for a successful sale.

Selling is About People

Marketing and product features only get us part way. For real success in sales we need to understand selling is about people and accommodate their perspectives in our proposal.

Start at the Top

Nobody ever made a sale by talking to the doorman. When working deals call as high as you can. Make the first call to the CEO. The business isn’t going to buy without his/her backing so why not start there.

Help Customers Buy

The days of the fast talking pitchman are long gone. Customers today are smart and know they have choices. Successful sales professionals help the customer to buy rather than pitch product.

Coach Your Sales Process

We’re the professionals, working on helping people buy from us all of our time. Customers are amateurs when it comes to buying. When we coach customers through our sales process they get to understand how it’s in both parties interests to buy/sell as a team effort.

Sell Your Delivery Process

Ultimately the customer won’t care about the sales pitch, glossy brochures and marketing tricks. The only thing that satisfies is the delivery process.

Stay Honest

Sales professionals never mislead customers. That’s the fastest route to disaster. Customers tricked into wrong decisions make bad enemies, and never forget.

Limit the Scope

If the customer won’t pay for additional options don’t include them. S/he won’t value the extras or respect the seller. And of course we can always go back and sell them later.

Don’t Concede, Negotiate

Negotiation and concession are not the same thing.

Not at Any Price

No deal is worth conceding everything the customer wants. Always being prepared to walk away from the sale is the best way of ensuring you won’t need to.

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Tagged as: Book, Business, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Product, Sales, Sales pitch, Salesmanship