I’ve been a salesman my entire life, so I’ve learned a lot of sales secrets over the years. It’s rare to be an entrepreneur or a Chief Executive Officer without being a salesperson. I’m often asked for my “sales secrets.” I have plenty to share, but they’re hardly secrets. Success follows lots of hard work.
Here is my list of secrets that every salesperson can benefit from.
• It’s how much people think it’s worth. Marketing is neither the art of selling nor the simple business of convincing someone to buy. It is the art of creating conditions by which the buyer convinces himself.
• Know your customer. Knowing something about your customer is just as important as knowing everything about your product. If you’re a regular reader of my books and columns, you know about the Mackay 66 Customer Profile. Knowing your customers means knowing what they really want.
• You are not important. Our challenge, whether we are salespeople or negotiators or managers or entrepreneurs, is to make others see the advantage to themselves in responding to our proposal. Understanding our subjects’ personalities is vital.
• Your reputation is your greatest asset. While you, yourself, are not important, your reputation is. It’s not product, price or service. Everything flows from your reputation — customer loyalty, referrals and more.
• Apply the law of large numbers. Position yourself as No. 2 to every prospect on your list, and keep adding to that list. I can promise you that if your list is long enough, there are going to be No. 1s that fail to perform, retire or die or lose their territories for many reasons. What I can’t tell you is which ones. If you’re standing second in line, in enough lines, sooner or later you’re going to move up to No. 1.
• Short notes yield long results. I’m amazed by how many salespeople don’t write thank you notes. It’s all a matter of personal recognition and courtesy, just as important as remembering names and taking a personal interest in people.
• Keep your eye on your time. A salesperson really has nothing to sell but her time. Her product exists independently of anything she adds to it. Her personality will win or lose her accounts initially, but if she isn’t around to provide service, she’ll lose accounts.
• Position yourself as a consultant. The mark of a good salesperson is that his customer doesn’t regard him as a salesperson at all, but a trusted and indispensable adviser, an auxiliary employee who, fortunately, is on someone else’s payroll.
• Believe in yourself, even when no one else does. Who says you’re not tougher, smarter, better, harder working, more able than your competition? It doesn’t matter if they say you can’t do it. The only thing that matters is if you say it.
• Have a destination. Otherwise, you’ll never get there. Everybody and every business needs a set of basic goals and beliefs, but most of us are seat-of-the-pants, one-day-at-a-time operators. Goals don’t have to be elaborate either, just realistic.
• Practice positive visualization. I have found this to be one of the most powerful means of achieving personal goals. It’s what an athlete does when he comes on to the field to kick a winning field goal with three seconds on the clock. Great athletes and businesspeople have the ability to visualize themselves in successful situations.
• Ask for the order. It’s amazing what you don’t get when you don’t ask. An insurance agent whom he had known for many years, once asked the famous automobile pioneer Henry Ford why he never got any of Ford’s business. “You never asked me,” Ford replied.
Mackay’s Moral: Tell me, and I will forget; show me, and I may remember; but involve me, and I’ll understand.
Harvey Mackay is president of Mackay Envelope Corp. and a nationally syndicated columnist.
