The #1 job of a sales professional

Is there a more epic movie for hardcore salespeople than “Glengarry Glen Ross?” 

So, a simple search and you’ll find video clips of

and

But is it our job in sales to “get them to sign on the line that is dotted”? 

Without force or some type of manipulation and coercion, you and I cannot force someone to buy today. 

We can, however, force ourselves to get into a position that stacks the odds heavily in our favor that qualified people will buy from us.

For example, I have a busy day today, so I went to bed an hour earlier last night to be sure I could get up an hour earlier and be productive an hour earlier to accommodate the meetings I have today.

This gives me enough time to finish this letter, publish it, knock out a few podcasts, and hit the gym before my competition pours their first cup of coffee.

This email, this blog post, and this podcast all put me in a position to implement my ABCDEs of selling.

More on that process in another post, but understand that successful salespeople are successful because they do not wing it!

They’re not shooting from the hip.

In law, there is a saying that good attorneys do not ask questions they don’t know the answer to because winning means steering the conversation to the point they want to make to defend their position.

In sales, we don’t care what the answer is; we just want the truth out in the open, and the sooner, the better.

Hearing “no” early is a win.

So, we follow a proven process to get the prospect talking and opening up, which is a win for us.

Successful salespeople follow a process as much as Apple does when testing and building a new iPhone. (Any wonder they’re the first company to reach a $1 trillion valuation?)

Part of that process professional salespeople follow includes sticking to a sales script.

“But Wes, I hate following a script. I feel so cold and robotic. I like to just go with the flow and build rapport with my prospects. I’m a people person.”

as much as Tom Cruise does.

Finally, professional salespeople ask great questions, prepared in advance based on research conducted on the prospect in just the same way the talk show greats such as Carson, Leno, and Letterman did for decades, and in just the same way Kimmel, O’Brien, and Fallon do today.

When you have a process for selling that includes a script filled with interesting questions prepared in advance and you stick to the process instead of “winging it” or “shooting from the hip,” you will close more sales without being a hardcore closer / jerk. 

So your #1 job in selling today is to prospect.

There are no bad prospects. There are only bad salespeople. And what makes a salesperson a bad salesperson, is their attitude.

When you have a lazy or entitled or angry attitude about doing what it takes to succeed, you’ll treat everyone you meet as though they have a bounty on their head and they’ll know it.

That will lead to hostile engagements, heated exchanges, an occasional sale from a fellow psychopath who likes to fight and/or an introvert who hates to fight and will buy just to appease you, and more refund requests, complaints, and one-star reviews online than ten people could survive.

So stop trying to close sales and start focusing on opening relationships with people who want and need what you have to offer and watch not only your sales and income increase, but also your job satisfaction, ratings, reviews, referrals, and testimonials…which will lead to more sales and income.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the second part of this 3-part series a we consider the #1 job of a sales manager, then we’ll conclude with the #1 job of a business owner.

Market like you mean it. Now go sell something.