Most people know how important sales is to the success of any business. That's why it is critical that the business owner and his/her team understand the importance of bringing in the sales and making the necessary plans and action early on in the business.
I always remember in all the training and mentorship classes that we attend with our business mentor, he would always remind us to focus on sales. Making sure we prioritise and put most of our time and effort doing sales among all tasks and then would add up "because if there's no sales, there is no business."
However, most people find sales as one of the most difficult or dirtiest job to do. I believe it all has to do with childhood experiences and beliefs that created the mindset.
Here are 3 Myths of Sales:
1. Sales is hard
A lot of times, I personally hear family, friends and some clients that sales is hard. I guess a lot of people do agree to this. However, come to think of it, everyone is actually doing sales on a daily basis since you were a baby. Sales is about selling your idea, making another person agree to your opinion, asking people to take actions, for example: asking you mom to buy you something, asking your girlfriend to marry you, asking your child to do her homework and so on. In the end sales is the discovery of a match, finding the right client or partner whom you can share a win-win deal with.
2. It takes a certain personality
Again, everyone sells. In fact, the best sales people among all are the children, if you have a child you would know what I mean. They are always willing to change tones, personality and techniques just to get what they want. My daughter is a great sales person, she changes her styles and her persistence is incredible when she wants something. Always remember that you are a gift, and sales is all about giving value or making others feel important through your product or service.
3. People don't like to be sold to
Among all myths, I think this is the most ridiculous! People love to buy and definitely to get sold to as well... Even if you go to the mall, you would see how much people are buying on a daily basis specially on weekends with the whole family. Some people even travel abroad just to shop!
Sales is all about influence and impact to others through rapport building, sales process to include creating curiosity, asking questions to understand the customers' needs, handling objections and negotiation to come up with a win-win situation. I wanted an inspiration in writing this blog and so I look for quotes on sales at http://senatorclub.co/101-greatest-sales-quotes-of-all-time/
Here are the top 10 Sales Quotes that we live by:
1. To me, job titles don’t matter. Everyone is in sales. It’s the only way we stay in business. – Harvey Mackay
For us in CTS, we believe that everyone in the team has to learn sales to keep the business running. We are attending regular training together to be better in sales and to help us find ways to create what our clients feel right and valuable for them.
2. Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life. – Mary Kay Ash
Sales is always about making others feel important and adding value to them. We look at our customers as our partner whom we help in their decision making and throughout the process. Some of the ways of keeping our customers feel important is our responsiveness - we always ensure that we get back to them soonest possible; continuously remind them of the timeline through follow-ups; ask them the right questions to ensure that we are providing customised solutions that will bring them results.
3. If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will. – Bob Hooey
This is so true, business is about taking care of your customers. If you would realise, there's always competition and each product would have several brands, vendors/suppliers and so on. We believe that the way to keep your customer is to provide them with great customer service and ensuring that there's always personal touch to your service. After all, it's more profitable to keep existing customers than to develop a new one. Here are more details why keeping customers is important http://www.thesmallbusinessforce.com/blog/898/in-a-small-business-building-a-customer-base-is-the-lifeblood-of-successand-everybody-has-a-role-including-the-customer/
4. You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise. – Patricia Fripp
One of the reasons why I love sales and handling corporate accounts is because I believe in this quote, it's not about closing a sale but opening a relationship that you build long-term. I remember some clients who don't even want to talk to me at the start, but then became very clingy after a project/event, they started to demand for my time and prefers me to serve them among other people assigned to them. Some of my previous clients are still in touch with me and would share with me their frustrations for not having me around anymore when I moved to Singapore and how I made their lives easier when we were working together.
5. Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust. – Zig Ziglar
As a sales person you must understand that it's not going to be a 'yes' all the time. However, you must also know the difference between an objection and a 'no'. In the end, a sale is just finding the right match.
6. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. – Zig Ziglar
Sales is all about helping others by solving their problems or creating solutions that would add value to them or their organization. The more people or company you help, the more relationship you earn, the more you learn and the more you earn.
7. I like to think of sales as the ability to gracefully persuade, not manipulate, a person or persons into a win-win situation. – Bo Bennett
Sales is like a dance gracefully done by asking the right questions, listening to your customers answers and needs, then persuading them into a decision to take it into a close towards a win-win situation.
8. The real trouble with the writing game is that no general rule can be worked out for uniform guidance, and this applies to sales as well as to writing. – Erle Stanley Gardner
Same with writing, sales has no general rule, some people buy it, some don't. Others may think that your product or service is valuable for them, others may not think of it the same way. Good thing is that you can always customise your service, your product and even your sales pitch according to your market.
9. When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there. – Zig Ziglar
When you set a goal, you will find ways to get to that target. This is true for us in CTS, when we started, we focused on the Oil & Gas market, which is one of my favourite industries. They know the importance of investing in learning, development and consulting as the risk and investment involved in their business is high. However, due to recent oil price issue, they started to cut on cost and so we have to look into other markets like hospitality, technology, automotive, financials, healthcare, etc. Our goal remains the same in terms of our revenue target and our mission to build competent professionals across industries through practical and beneficial solutions.
10. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. – Beverly Sills
To succeed in sales or in business, time and effort is necessary. There may be no shortcut because it takes a process, a wonderful journey of building your client base, customer relationship and a continuous nurturing toward a long-term mutually beneficial relationship but once you get your goals, it will be definitely going to be worth it!
We are just getting started at Customized Training Solutions. With Paul leading our telesales team, Erleen starting to learn more about sales and welcoming Nol in the team to lead business development for Philippine market. We look forward to create more stories, more relationships and win-win situations in the coming months and years.
For some sales training you can visit us at http://www.ctssingapore.com/#!sales-training/c1l3w or contact us for more specific requirements at corp@ctssingapore.com
Sources: Kane Minkus, Senator Club and Small Business Force