Yet the cool thing about sales is that you are really on your own. When it comes to money you are also on your own. That goes for making it, spending it and investing it.
You can make tons or you can scrape along. The purpose of this little report is to give you some surefire ways to put and keep money in your wallet right now and get sales rolling through the door. I want to make you rich!
Over the years, my life in sales has seen me very rich and very broke. If someone would have shared these few secrets with me like I am with you, I would have stayed in the rich zone.
Without talking too much, let me give you the list. Any one of these is guaranteed to put cash in your pocket now. These are not in any particular order of importance.
1. If you do not have a good contact data base program or software…get one NOW!!!!
If you have to, hire someone to input all the business cards and contacts that you have. Start working the list heavily. The fastest and most lucrative sales will come from simply going back to those contacts regularly with new information, new offers and new services.
DO NOT RELY ONLY ON THE LISTS THAT YOUR COMPANY PROVIDES.
Your customers and their well-being are YOUR responsibility. The software will help you stay in touch and keep valuable information at your fingertips. You may be great at selling, but a bit sloppy at record keeping and follow-up. That’s normal. That is why a powerful but simple program that you can use on your laptop or PDA will make up for it.
(HINT: Hire someone to do the some of the input for you to keep it current!)
2. Offer some sort of a FREE OFFER to all of your existing users/customers and send it out to them with a letter of thanks. It could be products, services, information, analyses, surveys….something that would be of value to them. Follow up on it with each of them by phone or mail and use this opportunity to check in and find needs.
It blows me away that so many sales people are fixated on “new sales” when there are thousands of dollars sitting in the hands of people that already love you waiting to take advantage of the next great deal.
I agree that it is important to get fresh blood into the system, but the greatest and fastest source of income are the people that already know you and trust you. If you have new stuff coming through in terms of products and services or promotional programs…..let them know. Your job is to make them rich and happy or to make their lives easier and make them heroes. Rather than giving everything to new guys, give to your faithful customers. More importantly spend the time finding everything you can about your existing customers. You never know.
A story of lost millions
I just heard a story that made me cringe about a printer who consistently produced another company’s stationary every year for about $5000 in sales. One day this customer came to the printer to show off his latest 200+ page product catalogue in full color, nicely bound. The printer was devastated. He asked why this customer did not give him that catalogue printing business. The customer said, “I thought you only did stationary!” In this case, not being heavily involved with his customer cost him several hundred thousand dollars a year in lost sales from this single customer.
3. Make an appointment with a good CPA/tax strategist and learn how to structure yourself as a business. As a sales person you can pocket thousands of extra dollars every year, from every paycheck. Learn how to pay yourself first and the government last rather than letting them take theirs first off the top!!
4. Find a group of friends and/or associates which could consist of customers, vendors, strangers and meet once a month to brainstorm sales ideas and objections. Make sure that they are from different businesses and industries. The energy and insight will astound you. Years ago when I was in the cargo business, I used to do this with customers, vendors and even competitors. We brainstormed EVERYBODY’S sales and businesses, not just mine. It was awesome. Don’t ask me why but I can tell you that for at least a month after those meetings, sales boomed. CAUTION: These sessions are NOT selling sessions. Don’t be making pitches or you will lose all credibility.
If I gave you ten seconds to completely describe your target customer, could you be
sure that you know everything about them? (Remember the stationary story!)
5. Sit down and completely describe your target market. If it is a person, how much money do they make, where do they live, what is the make-up of their families, what are their jobs, what are their hopes, fears, problems, etc. Make sure that you do your research so you know exactly who you are targeting otherwise even the best sales pitch will fall on deaf ears if given to someone without need or resources. If you are selling to businesses, the same applies. If you do not know exactly who you are hunting, you will be distracted by everything. Survey your current customers and your competitors’ customers and research the size of the company, the size of their staff, the size of their facilities, their competition, their customers, their common problems, their sales, their management teams, etc. until you have the profile. Then your sales effort will yield much higher returns because you are dealing in higher probabilities.
6. Take one evening and list everything that you spend money on for a month and determine the number. This is your current budget. Look at it closely and find a way to either reduce it by 5% or increase the income by 5%. Determine where you will deposit that extra 5% and do it religiously every time you get paid. Make a plan where you will invest it so that it will make you passive income. (Money you do not have to work for)
7. Build a great team of financial advisors that can coach you properly to ensure that your earnings work for you. The problem with great salespeople is that a lot of them have a tough time working on a team. Maybe okay in some parts of selling, but not if you want to be RICH!
Your team should consist of a good accountant, financial planner, real estate broker, stock broker, attorney and a business mentor to guide you in your pursuit of bigger deals and greater business growth. These should be people who have “walked the walk” of where you want to go with your hard earned income and not just those who want to sell you a product that may not be in your best interests. Choose wisely.
8. Create a campaign to offer a FREE report, consultation, service or a product to all current customers, prospects and interested parties. Give it a frequency of at least once a month and start sending it. If prospects respond that they want the report, you have just qualified them!
I nearly forgot to tell you the best way in the world to sell the most in the shortest time!! Those that use it, swear by it.
9. Promote, prepare and deliver a FREE presentation on your product or service to as large of a group as you can invite. You will become an immediate expert in the prospect’s eyes. Make sure that they learn something in the session. Be sure to present the problems that you know that they have, surface the objections that you know that they have in advance and show them how you can solve their problems. The goal is to get as many people to attend as possible and to get as many genuinely interested people as possible to raise their hands asking for more information.
Two Minute Exercise to turn on Quick Cash now:
10. Pretend that you need money for a medical emergency operation. Imagine your current resources are tapped. (That may not be an imagination!) Where would you go to generate the money? (Borrowing is not allowed…only selling!) Whatever thoughts came into your mind, make a plan to do it if it is legal, ethical and moral. Where can you turn on a series of sales NOW??
11. Talk to at least two investors and two financial planners and learn how to take a percentage of your commissions, invest it and turn it into passive income.
If you are good in sales, you may have developed a skill that is both good and bad.
The skill is the ability to turn on income whenever you need it by simply creating more sales. The negative to this is that it is possible to build a habit of this in place of wisely getting the money to work for you, rather than you working for the money.
If you don’t know your own strength, you will never find your greatest earning strategy.
12. The key to every great success story is playing to your strengths. As a salesperson, you must identify which of the five breeds you are and learn to play to your strength.
While every great athlete, executive, performer and professional have or have coaches. Finding your strengths is part one. Learning the best skills of the other personality types is part two. Avoid what is not natural to you and take your inherent strength and focus on making it generate cash for you.
13. Make a list of all your prospects and identify their personality type and learn how to sell to them the best and the quickest.
If you don’t know how to protect yourself against your weaknesses, they will suck the success out of everything that you do.
14. Make sure that you immerse yourself in an on-going training program that will teach and coach you how to do all of what we have talked about here. It is one thing to know what do, and quite different to know how to do it. Great Salespeople aren’t born….they are trained. You don’t need to know everything… just the right things that will turn on the sales, turn on the cash and build the wealth.
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