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Your Sales Success is Related to
Your Relationship Skills
People buy from people they like and trust. If you break that
trust, forget the sale. It's that simple. I work with
salespeople in my classes, during coaching or on the road, who
have no idea how they show up in a relationship. For example,
they walk in cold to a new prospect and start immediately
talking about new ideas they could show them, new products....
"hey, how about if I bring some samples of new ideas for your
business? What do you think?" ....no bonding, no questions
asking how they buy, nothing personal like simply asking
"thanks for your time this morning, what is your name?" ...I
read in the book Calling by Greg Levoy... "life is to
be stirred by a slow spoon"...there was nothing slow about the
guy in the example above.
How can
you develop a relationship is the question to ask yourself
before every call... especially the new ones. The prospect has
a relationship with someone selling what you are selling
already... unless they are just opening the business, and if
that is the case the same rules apply... make developing the
relationship the first priority.
When I see
customers leave a supplier or service provider, it is usually
that the relationship and trust has been broken somewhere.
This is the case 95% of the time. We like to think that it was
the price or our terms or some other excuse. How about if it
was you or your company? Somewhere, somehow, you have broken
the bond. Lost their trust. Face it.
The best
sales training is one that includes work on relationship
skills. Training that helps you see what you cannot see about
yourself. I see this in my training classes. I have clients
that have been with me 3, 4 or 5 years, working on their
relationship skills... how they show up is what I call it.
They have improved if their relationship skills have improved.
I have one client who could not see himself selling one
million dollars or making a $100, 000 income. Today he sells
over $3 million dollars for his company and made over $200,000
for himself. It took him 4 years of working on himself to make
the difference. He is a different person today than the one
that I saw come in my door that first day.
HE CHANGED AND THINGS CHANGED.
If you
don't like your experience of the world, change how the world
is experiencing you... period.
Work on
your relationship skills and things will change for the
better. Ask three of your closest friends, people who love you
the following questions;
- What
are the things that you see in me that could be holding me
back?
- What
are the things that you see in me that are my blind spots,
things that I cannot see about myself?
-
Describe me as you see me.
After you
make this request, write down how you see yourself so that you
can compare it to what you get back. Be prepared for a little
shock and then get over it and get on with improving yourself.
If you
need a little help, call a coach or enroll in a class that has
this component added to the sales training.
It
works... trust me... oh, did I develop that trust?
Prove this
to yourself.... work on yourself for five years and write me
back.
If things
don't change then I guarantee you didn't.
Gratefully
yours,
Steve |
