The practice of "selling" is an art that requires special skills and, since it's an art, the outcome is never guaranteed. Science, on the other hand, will generate a predictable outcome because science is based on laws. In science, for example, one plus one will always equal two. Since "selling" is and art, the best you can do is reduce the risk of failure and increase the probability of success. You accomplish that with sales training and the perfection of sales skills.
Salesmanship is an art form and so too is sales training. Training or instructions in any art form leaves great room for different thoughts, opinions and concepts. After all, there isn't just one acting school or acting method. That said, I'd like to give you a few of my twists and comments on some common believes held in the world of sales and sales training.
Rarely Is It Your Closing Skills
All too often, when a salesperson fails to close an order, there is a rush to judgment about their closing skills. For that reason, closing skills programs are one of the most popular sales training programs.
However, more often than not, it is difficult for a salesperson to diagnose exactly where they went wrong. Based on my experience, the problem is rarely related to closing skills.
Selling is a process made up of a series of well-defined steps. Each step must be successfully completed before you can proceed to the next step in the sales process. Closing is just one step in the sales process. If, for example, you failed to ask the right questions and never uncovered a need for your product, all the closing skills in the world will not help you get the sale. In fact, when you consider all the steps in the sales process, closing is the easiest and most natural step but only when you've first successfully completed all of the prior steps in the sales process.
The Three Words You Never Hear In Sales
Lost Order reports could be a valuable sales tool but all too often they are nothing more than a useless, if not harmful, piece of paper. I say that because there are three words I've never seen on a lost order report. Those words are... "We Were Outsold". You know reps get outsold all the time but it's never admitted, especially on a Lost Order report.
The purpose of a Lost Order report is to correct something that caused an order to be lost. So, executives spend days trying to fix pricing issues, missing features, contract terms and a host of other things that appear on Lost Order reports but often had nothing to with the failure to close the business. It is just too hard for most sales organization to admit they were simply outsold.
What do you think would happen if those three words, "We Were Outsold", started appearing on Lost Order Reports? That's right; those sales executives would start fixing the right problem... sales skills. They would go out and get some great sales training and make sales skills the center of their organization's culture.
Stop Qualifying And Start Disqualifying Prospects
My last little twist on things could make a big difference for many salespeople. If we are tasked to qualify a prospect we look for reasons to do just that, namely qualify the prospect. I think there is a safer approach and that approach is to look for reasons to disqualify prospects. That approach will keep your assessments honest and prevent you from investing time with prospects that will never, or can never, buy from you.
Sales Training
Make no mistake about it, when it comes to sales, you need a solid foundation of basic and advanced sales skills. You get those sales skills in solid sales training programs. However, once you have that foundation firmly in place, remember you are dealing with an art form so make those skills your own. The Sales Superstars don't play by the rules; they make their own rules. I feel that's the biggest reason for the "80/20 Rule". The top twenty percent of all salespeople take creative approaches and force themselves to look at things differently. That's why they earn eighty percent of all the commissions.
I invite you to remember "sales" is an art so make it your own. But first, establish a foundation of solid sales skills with sales training. Look at this way, you have to learn how to play a piano before you can take it to the next level and compose a concerto.
