Show your professionalism as a salesperson by asking better questions
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- Your prospects are looking for guidance.
- Your questions show your professionalism.
- Push back in a positive manner on hard-chargers.
- Don't be lazy. Don't be overly-scripted. Bring credibility. Be human.
- Address your fears. Stop researching forever and connect with your prospects.
- Understand what your customers value.
- Minimize risk
- Fear factor: safety, shut down, marketshare, competitive edge
- Leverage multi-media, multi-step processes to connect with your best prospects.
- A lot of great salespeople are introverts. They listen. They are introspective.
- Listen to the verbs.
- 80% of the time customers are not telling you what's on their mind. Their defenses are up. Find their hidden motivation.
- Our #1 job is to challenge, engage, and stretch the comfort zones of our customers.
- Customer service is not sales.
- Knowledge certainly gives you credibility but it can become an anchor.
- Knowledge (but it's only responsible for about 15% of your success)
- Attitude
- Skills / ability
- Most salespeople are motivated by the next yes, the next contract, the next lead. All too often, they are too busy to look beyond the immediate to focus on the larger view—honing the selling skills and knowledge critical for long-term success.
As a salesperson, YOU are the product/service and everything you do should be aimed at increasing your own value.”
- Cherry has had decades of selling and sales training success and is sharing what it means to sell at a higher level, how it differs from what you’ve been taught about sales in the past, and how to get yourself on that path in his new book, THE ULTIMATE SALES PRO: What the Best Salespeople Do Differently (HarperCollins Leadership, August 14, 2018).
- Concentrating on how a B2B sales person needs to stay focused on the big picture for success, THE ULTIMATE SALES PRO reveals 25 radical, subversive and disruptive ideas and tactics of master B2B salespeople, giving the reader the tools to move beyond the basics, using strategy and strong relationships to:
- Cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset and how to create a boundary-less career.
- Differentiate oneself when everyone else is being commoditized.
- Shorten your sales cycle.
- Go beyond how to sell but getting answers to why you are selling so you can achieve sales greatness.
- Align yourself with the right people who share and embrace your values.
- Be the toughest boss you ever had. Don’t rely on others to push you, push yourself.
- Dream big—don’t settle for what’s comfortable.
- Stop thinking and dawdling about what to do. Do it!
The reality is that sales people get little if any coaching or mentoring support today. It’s faster paced and the expectations are that you already have the skills and experience to do the job and so go do it. Too often organizations have a ‘sink or swim’ attitude with their sales people. I want to give B2B salespeople the tools and know how to succeed by taking ownership of their careers and not waiting or hoping for their company to pave the way.”
- THE ULTIMATE SALES PRO challenges the reader to get deep, get true, get more real with who you are, be genuine, open up and be vulnerable. Bottom line is when the sales professional opens up, the customer will respond accordingly.
- Paul Cherry is President and Founder of the sales and sales leadership training firm Performance Based Results. He is a recognized thought leader on how to ask the right questions, get to the real issues, and take action. He has worked with more than 1,200 organizations including 178 of the Fortune 500, plus more than 1,000 entrepreneurial, small to mid-sized, cutting-edge businesses looking to dominate their niche markets. He’s been featured in more than 250 publications including Inc. Magazine, Investor’s Business Daily, Selling Power, and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.
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