5 Sales Tips For Success

Answer - yes!

And no!!

Yes, if you truly follow the following five sales tips you are on your way to being successful.

No, because if you truly embrace them, like peeling an onion, once you get under the skin there are layers and layers of sales techniques waiting to be peeled away. A career in sales is discovery.

Someone once said, "The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it." And so it is with sales. Like peeling the onion, the tragedy is most people who start out in sales never venture beyond the first layer.

The 5 sales tips for success are an acrostic for S.A.L.E.S:
S - Skill
A - Attitude
L - Leverage
E - Energy
S - Success

S is for Skill Development

As in all professions, Sales requires developing specific skills. Successful sales people approach their sales career as an apprenticeship. It is continuous learning.

That learning includes product knowledge, presentation techniques, communication skills, questioning techniques, and much more right down to grooming. Yes, grooming is a skill. It is more than a bath, shower, or great deodorant. There is truth in the saying "dress for success."

A key skill in this sales tip is performing daily tasks targeted at keeping your name in front or your customers and prospects. David Stein in his book How Winners Sell wrote "Become an expert in the industry into which you sell."

Experts are always in demand. Skilled salespeople never go hungry!

A is Adjust Your Attitude

By adjust your attitude I'm not referencing building your self-confidence. If you don't already believe in yourself - the buyer will not either. Here is a knock your socks off sales tip for you, if you are not comfortable with rejection, get out. Selling is not for you. Don't kid yourself in thinking that you can read a self-help book or two or three and all will be better. It won't. Please don't fool yourself in thinking you can attend a seminar or two or three on building your self esteem, on getting tough, and all will be better. It won't. Not everyone is cut for the sales tunic. And that is okay.

If sales is for you, here is what I'm talking about when I say Adjust Your Attitude. It is okay to make a buck - lots of them.

Michael Port, Book Yourself Solid, wrote "Becoming comfortable with the sales process requires that you let go of limiting beliefs you may have about being worthy of the money you're earning and requires a shift in your perspective of the sales process itself."

This is a key sales tip - it is okay to make a bundle of dollars for providing your expertise in helping people make a buying decision on something that they need, fits their budget, and their lifestyle. My personal check is "Is it legal, ethical, and moral?" If yes then I'm making the deal!

By the way, if you are not making an above average income as a commission salesperson you need to find out why. Be sure to look in the mirror.

L - Leverage You Are A Brand

"To be successful you have to be unique. So different that, if people want what you have, they have to come to you to get it." Walt Disney said that. Powerful!

"To be successful you have to be unique." means you need to step away from crowd. It means that what you promise, what you say you will do, happens. This sales tip is more like a sales commitment.

If you are a commission sales person then this selling tip should be no surprise - you are a brand. You may not own the company whose products you represent. Yet to your customers you are the company. That is leverage.

The online Business Dictionary defines Leverage as "Ability to influence a system...in a way that multiplies the outcome of one's efforts without a corresponding increase in the consumption of resources." For champion commission sales people this means that the uniqueness through which you provide your service, take care of your customers, follow up with your prospects, translates into them promoting you to their network of people. That is multiplying your connections without any significant effort from your end.

In the profession of selling, he or she with the biggest network wins. What sets you apart?

E - Energy

In the December 2010 edition of Success Magazine, the article Break the Blame Game stated the following "To succeed in life, that is to be healthy enough to enjoy the work you are doing, you need to excuse-proof your life, especially when it comes to exercise, food choices, stress management, and showing love for the ones you love."

This selling tip is all about you, your lifestyle, your health, your relationships. To be a one per-center, a top achiever in the selling arena you need to have bounds of energy.

A chili dog and fries is not eating healthy. Parking at the closest entrance, skipping any opportunity to walk a few extra steps, choosing not to exercise does nothing for your energy level.

Eating right, being fit and well rested gives you the edge in tough negotiations. It helps your creativity and maintains your energy level.

Face-to-face, in the trenches selling is tough. It requires stamina and lots of energy. If you are not taking care of your healthy, no one else is. And, as a sales professional, if your are not healthy you will not survive. This is a sales tip to live for.

This S Is For Success

"The most important opinion you have is the one you have of yourself, and the most significant things you say all day are those things you say to yourself." Anonymous

What is your definition of success?

At thefreedictionary.com success is defined as "The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted." Dictionary.com defines it as "the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavours."

As a salesperson, for me success was best coined by Zig Ziglar, "When you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want."

That's it, isn't it. "When you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want." Selling is all about helping other people - individual or corporate. Especially as an automobile sales person it is ensuring your prospect gets the right vehicle in a price or payment they can afford, that best meets their needs, and lifestyle. No magic formula. Just helping people.

Sure, as professional salespeople, we have to work to uncover leads, bust our buns to qualify prospects, be the middle man. Amazing when you think about it. We not only have to sell the product to the prospect we often have to sell the prospect to the company. In the end, when it all comes together, how great it is.

That's what this sales tip is all about. Success is those amazing moments when it all comes together. That feeling, no that very good feeling, that you have helped another make a quality buying decision. And you did it. You were instrumental in orchestrating the positive outcome. That's success.

There you have it, 5 sales tips for success. Start where you are today. A career in sales is discovery. The journey is the adventure. And, don't overlook the power in that the most important opinion you have is truly the one you have of yourself!

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