*Selling Anything*
These days, when you get a new job (even in sales), it's a HUGE load off your shoulders. It's also quite probably a LOT of pressure off you at home; not to mention a huge rise in your own self-respect and feelings of self-worth. Of course, none of US worry about how we seem to the rest of the world. People should take us or leave us just the way we are, right? Uhhh, yeah, right. Meanwhile, here in the REAL WORLD...
Look, we are ALL salesmen, EVERY - SINGLE - DAY of our lives! We sell ourselves to every new person we meet (or we don't). We sell ourselves to teachers growing up (or we struggle in school, no matter how 'smart' we are). We sell ourselves to our professors in college, or we don't graduate. We sell ourselves at EVERY job interview (YOU are the product THEY are buying, and they expect to USE the new product that they're buying ("YOU") to make them money. "You are (to them) the same as a glorified hammer would be to a carpenter who builds houses"...
So basically, you don't really have to BECOME anything that you aren't ALREADY HIGHLY experienced at doing! Bad salesmen "act", GREAT salesmen just do what comes naturally, just like they always have done, all their lives...
The first portion of a new "sales" job is the roughest, but you ALREADY made your Biggest Sale... "You sold YOURSELF to other professional salesmen"!!! Now, how good of a salesman must YOU naturally be, to sell yourself to PROFESSIONAL salesmen, while beating out all of the other professional salesmen who DIDN'T get the job???? Think about that!
Now you have to learn YOUR business, and at the same time, you have to learn the businesses of EVERY CLIENT YOU HAVE! You have to know WHAT they need, WHY they need it, and WHEN they'll need it... You have to explain to them HOW that product makes them money, and you have to KNOW how much money EXACTLY they are losing WITHOUT whatever you're supplying them with.
The BEST salesman ALWAYS gets offered a job at the companies they sell TO... The people who make the decisions to purchase things for the company, have a LOT of pull with the people in their company who purchase people (Ummm.. I mean "who HIRE personnel" - sorry) to WORK for the company... When the people who buy your products suddenly realize, "He KNOWS our business! He doesn't even work here and he knows our business better than the people who DO work here! Why is HE NOT working here?!?!?" you're going to get a job offer... The funny part being, that by then, you usually love your current job so much, you don't WANT to work for the bigger companies that start giving your job offers!
Tap into EVERYTHING you've EVER done before, especially the things you are GOOD AT, and find out the best ways to use THOSE THINGS in your new position... Were you good at talking down angry people? Use that skill to talk down harried purchasing agents who are in a bad mood already BEFORE they picked up the phone to talk to you! Talk them down. Make them see you as an INDIVIDUAL. Make sure YOU MATTER TO THEM PERSONALLY.. You want to them to think of YOU as "their supplier of the things that make them MONEY"... NOT as "That Irritating Salesman"!
DO NOT give them the Standard Opening to shut you down from the start! When you walk into a store, and the salesperson walks over, what's the FIRST THING out of their mouth???? All together now: "May I help you???"
To which we ALL automatically respond (All together AGAIN now): "No thanks, I'm just looking"
WE ALL KNOW THE SCRIPT! And, I bet you can't accurately describe ANY of the last FIVE salespeople who said it to you! You have played that "Challenge/Response" so many times in your life, that your Brain BLOCKS OUT EVERYTHING about the Customary Exchange!!!
Why bother hiring "sales-people" to do THAT??? I can write a computer program (to replace the average sales-person who does THAT) in 5 minutes, INCLUDING the time it takes to ring up your purchases!!!!
You pull into a fast-food drive through... What does the person in the horrible speaker say? All together now:
"WhaWHAA WHAAWHAAWHAA, WHA WHA WHA WHA WHA"
("Welcome to ______ How may I help you?")
That's ACTUALLY a better sales pitch For RETAIL SALES at a STORE, not a fast food restaurant!! But they use a better sales pitch even though they KNOW that YOU came TO THEM, so you are ALREADY going to buy something from them! Have you EVER pulled into a McDonald's drive through, JUST to see if they had something that might interest you? NO! You went to the drive through ALREADY KNOWING what you planned to buy! The person on the horrible speaker needs to be trying to sell you MORE than you already wanted, especially soft-drinks, and fries, which have an 800+% profit margin! The CUP cost more than the CONTENTS!
So, when you pull up to the window, what's the FIRST THING out of their mouth?
(C'Mon, we ALL know the script here):
"How are you doing today (Pause)?"
And of course YOU say:
"I'm fine, how about yourself?"
And THEY Say:
...Just fill the rest in yourself... We all know these scripts by heart, which is my point, because I doubt you can describe the last 5 people who waited on you at the drive through either, UNLESS you ALREADY know them, OR they are "HOT"!
... And the REAL point here is, THEY CAN'T DESCRIBE *YOU* EITHER... You were just ANOTHER face out of HUNDREDS they will see that day!!!!
...UNLESS you MAKE yourself "Pleasantly Memorable". Unless you BREAK THE SCRIPT!
When a waitress comes to my table to take my order, and says, "How are you doing today?" she's ALREADY clicking her pen and getting ready to write, because she KNOWS what she EXPECTS my answer to be... So, I say, "So far so good! But the day's still young, so that's HIGHLY subject to change... Got any secrets you want to tell me that might help the REST of my day go well also?"
...and NOW the waitress blinks a few time, processing what I said, smiles, and starts trying to think up some witty way to answer MY question, because she was expecting her next words to be, "Fine, thanks". But, now she's been thrown off her script, and she has to THINK, and she has to be WITTY... NOW we're playing a FUN GAME, NOW I've broken her dull routine... NOW MY Food will be better, my glass of Diet Coke will NOT EVER become empty, etc, etc... *I* matter to the waitress!!!!! I am NOT "just one of hundreds", *I* made her day a little brighter and, the WHOLE TIME I AM THERE, she can expect me to CONTINUE to break up the monotony of her day...
.... "I just sold myself to HER". And, SHE sold me to the rest of the staff FOR ME.... So now chances are REALLY GOOD (Nearly 100% in fact) that when I get to the cashier as I leave that restaurant, The 'Very Generous Tip' I left behind on the table for the waitress will be GREATLY OFFSET by the cost of the food/drink that the waitress "forgot to add to my bill"...
Now we have a "Relationship"... Now she HOPES I come back through that door! EVERYONE WINS! SHE has a good time when I come in, *I* get MUCH better food and service, and I PAY LESS for it. SHE gets a better tip, the restaurant has such a HUGE mark-up on the Items "she gave me free" that they didn't lose more than 30 Cents, and they'll get that 30 cents back (times several hundred percent) the very first time I come back with MY FRIENDS...
Retail sales people at stores SHOULD NEVER say: "Can I help you" ... We ALL KNOW the answer they'll get from us (unless you SPECIFICALLY came there to buy something and DO need their help finding it)...
Instead, they should show interest in you FROM HEAD TO TOE, and say something like, "We got in some shirts the other day that would be PERFECT to accentuate your biceps.. You've obviously put the time in to sculpt them, and these shirts would not only accentuate how much work you've done but, more importantly, they'll be MUCH more comfortable for YOU to wear... I'd guess you're having a hard time finding a shirt that is comfortable over your biceps, WITHOUT feeling like the rest of the shirt hangs on you like a potato sack! I HATE it when a shirt has to be too tight over one area, to fit better over other areas... What kind of choice is THAT to have to make, just to find a SIMPLE, decent, SHIRT????"
Face it, if you've been hitting the gym, and they noticed (without going TOO FAR), even if you didn't realize that the upper arms of your shirt were feeling too tight now, you WILL notice after a sales person says something like THAT... And, if your shirts DON'T feel too tight across your biceps, then he just said it's probably hanging on you like a potato sack by being so large that people can't see those abs you've ALSO been working HARD on!!! Either way, you WILL NOT answer, "No thanks, I'm just looking"
So you at least TRY ON the shirt in question... And, the sales person doesn't say, "Oh WOW, THAT looks GREAT on you!"... THAT would be "OBVIOUSLY over the top"... instead, ALL the sales-person does is ask you questions, as if YOU can give them answers they NEED to know for future customers... "Please raise your arms over your head... Do you feel ANY tight spots now? Clench your fist as if you're doing a curl, any spots too tight? Lean backward a bit at the waist, too tight across your abs?" Etc etc etc...
By that amount of time, you have developed a "Mental Ownership" of that shirt... If he can keep you in that shirt, "moving around in it", you QUICKLY begin to feel possessive about it, ESPECIALLY when you think about taking it OFF, and DOUBLE especially when you think about "taking off YOUR shirt, and LEAVING IT BEHIND"...
The salesperson NOTICED YOU, he NOTICED something that YOU are proud of... Heck, they MAY have even solved a problem you hadn't yet realized you HAD - until HE noticed it.... Will you go back there again? OH - HAIL - YES!
Think about this... Your customers DON'T WANT to HAVE to buy what you are selling... They HAVE TO, so they can make money, but they DON'T LIKE IT! What THEY want is "a way to pay LESS for those items"... What they want is "something that makes THEIR customers notice THEIR products over EVERYONE ELSES!"
"THIS Printer uses VERY inexpensive standard BLACK ink for internal memos and copies that don't matter, but look how it makes the colors POP when the color and quality DOES matter! You don't want to spend your money on routine stuff around the office; you want to spend your money getting your material noticed by YOUR customers!"
Even if they don't want it, at least they aren't following the routine well-rehearsed script of you simply saying "Need anything this week?"...
Companies don't use "EXPENSIVE printer cartridges" like home printers use, they use "INK TANKS"... They use a SPECIFIC INK in those tanks that DOESN'T clog up the nozzles of their printers! They use specific types of inks and PAPER that is DRY and doesn't smear when the NEXT sheet of paper SLIDES over the top of the FIRST printed pages lying in the printer tray... They use ink that DOESN'T end up rubbing off on sweaty fingers (if I pick up a catalog, and it makes my fingers look dirty, I won't be buying ANYTHING that "Dirty Company is selling"!)
How do I know companies have these problems? Because *I* have had these problems... Because people in places I worked at before complained about these problems and I was within earshot to hear it, and remembered it! How do I know how they solved these problems? I ASKED, because I was curious, and those fellow employees liked me MORE because I showed interest in THEIR work, and THEIR problems!
As a cop, you are USED to setting the "tone" of ANY situation, no matter what the "tone of the situation WAS BEFORE you arrived"... USE THAT SKILL to set the TONE of the people who will be buying what you are selling...
Warlord
www.alpharubicon.com
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