Kids are great at sales, it comes naturally to them; so what’s the missing ingredient for those salespeople who struggle?
Kids are great at sales, it comes naturally to them; so what’s the missing ingredient for those salespeople who struggle?
Think back to your selling ability when you were a kid: the toy you wanted; the place you wanted to go; the chocolate bar you wanted in the checkout aisle of the supermarket; the TV show you wanted to watch; the movie you wanted to go to; the friend you wanted to hang out with. Even staying up later than your bedtime.
All of these are sales, and I’m sure you achieved a high percentage of positive outcomes.
Whatever it was you wanted, you most often made the sale.
Fast-forward to the time that you got your business card printed and got a job selling whatever. And you got training. Training about your product, training about the history of your company, a little sales training about probing, overcoming objections and closing the sale. You were given sales tools like a rundown on CRM and a laptop. And finally you were given some kind of a sales plan – a quota that you had to meet (or get fired).
And then, all of a sudden, sales became a struggle. Ever ask yourself why? Why sales were so easy when you were five years old, and became so difficult when you were 25 years old?
The simple answer is lack of emotional engagement with the prospect, lack of dedicated determination and drive, and lack of emotional attachment to the outcome. All of which you had, and had employed, when you were five years old.
So I’m issuing you a challenge to go back to the days when you were five years old, and made 100 per cent of your sales.
You can’t turn back the clock, but you can recall the elements that made your ability to sell and get your way so successful when you were a kid.
To help you relive your past success, I’m listing and re-creating the elements that helped you make that sale.
• You knew your targeted customer intimately.
• You knew exactly what you wanted.
• You pictured ownership from the beginning of the conversation.
• You stayed focused.
• You were confident of victory.
• The first thing you did was ask questions and ask for the sale.
• You got everyone emotionally engaged.
• When in doubt you asked ‘why?’
• If you got any kind of resistance you asked ‘why?’
• You had all the reasons in the world why they should buy.
• You kept figuring out new ways and new reasons if they said ‘no’.
• You were emotionally attached to the outcome.
• Your persistence was remarkable. Unyielding. Passionate. You cried. You threw a fit. You were even willing to take corporal punishment to make the sale.
• Giving up was never an option.
• When you finally got what you wanted, you felt a sense of victory.
• You didn’t have any literature, you didn’t have a business card, and it didn't matter what you were wearing.
• Winning once gave you the confidence that you could win again.
Now, while I don’t expect you to go into to your next sales call stomping around, crying, and demanding to get your way, I do expect you to add more emotion to your process. I do expect you to know your customer better. I do expect you to become more emotionally engaged. I do expect you to take more than a few rebuffs or objections, and hang in there until you make the sale. I do expect you to continue to figure out new ways to get to ‘yes’, rather than taking the first ‘no’.
And I do expect you to have more emotional attachment to the outcome.
Oh yeah, and I do expect you to have more fun at it. You had way more fun at sales when you were a kid.
Jeffrey Gitomer is an American author, professional speaker and business trainer, who writes and lectures internationally on sales, customer loyalty and personal development.
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