You buy every day. What influences you to buy from a particular person or store?
I’m sure you are aware by now that you are being influenced all the time to purchase. Apart from retail where it is "in your face" morning, noon and night, other purchases might take some time to buy. In other words, it is not on impulse.
Let’s take professional services as an example of something that promises "gain" yet it is, somewhat, intangible. If you buy a car, a home, clothing, food, a holiday…you can touch, feel, see it; it’s tactile! Whereas if you are trying to paint a picture in someone's head that, by coming on board, taking e.g. my “professional advice”, you as my client will really, really benefit.
Hmmm...a different story. It’s “trust me”-time, track record-stuff and definitely not impulsive.
Everything you do as a seller, has an impact. In other words, everything you do counts; it either adds or takes away from your process. Think about this for a moment. Everything you do has an impact, positive or negative. That means that there is nothing neutral going on here. Buyers are making up their minds all of the time. If you do something that ticks the box, that's a plus. If you say something that put doubt or is even neutral in the mind of the prospect, that's a negative.
This is not easy. Prospecting is not easy. It never was, is or will be. If prospecting was easy and winning deals was a piece of cake, everybody would be doing it.
So, you want to put yourself into the top percentile of prospectors? Is that correct? There are lots of things you need to consider and those who are in the top of their profession in this area, radiate certain qualities and influencers.
Positivity:
How do you think being positive and confident and having a 'can-do' attitude ranks in the list of influencers? Yrs, of course you're right, it is critical. If you go into any meeting or engagement with a potential prospect and you do not come across as enthusiastic, energetic, confident and someone who exudes self belief, and in particular, belief in the product or service that you are representing, then you have little chance of success.
Look at yourself in the mirror… Go on! Take a good, hard look and ask yourself if you come across as positive, passionate, committed and client centric? If you do not have the clients in the middle of your life you are doomed to failure. Many sales people have money in the middle of their lives, or results, or their commissions, or hitting targets and performance… and it is very, very easy to lose sight of the cause of your success, namely your clients.
If you treat your customers with anything other than 100% of your commitment, care, attention and, dare I say, friendship, then you risk losing sight of THE most important factor in your career.
They say that positivity is contagious. I mentioned in an earlier blog that selling is a mere "transfer of enthusiasm". I have rarely bought anything from a sales person, that I don't see as demonstrating the characteristics I described above.
So, positivity is critical, yes? Agreed...good!
What else? Frankly, I like dealing with people who dress well! I know that fashion has changed and having "dress-down Fridays" is commonplace. No difficulty with that whatsoever! There is a "but"!
The word "BUT":
Oh yes, as an aside, try to eliminate the word "but" from your vocabulary. Simply replace it with the word "and"... You will be amazed what it actually does to your attitude. The word "but" is a downer...you know exactly what I mean? "You're doing a great job John, but..." Ouch!! For John, there is something coming down the line here and he is not going to be happy about it.
How about replacing it with: "you're doing great John...AND... I'd also like you to...blah, blah, blah...". Much better, what ?
So getting back to my point about clothing, when I meet somebody for the first time, 90% of what I see is their clothing. Why don't you make a resolution, take a look at the clothing you are wearing and ask yourself what kind of messages that these are sending out to your prospects and clients? Don't ask your best friend, unless they are totally frank with you. Ask somebody who knows about this kind of stuff, what works, what does not, what is appropriate etc.
Is it said you should "dress for success". I cannot disagree. Someone once told me that you should always dress one or two levels above where you think you are in the pecking order of seniority. Trust me on this... "trust me on the sunscreen"... do it!! It works!
Next week we will look at some other influencers, so until then...!!
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