Sell or Be Sold(15)
If you wouldn’t buy the product or if you have any negative considerations about how it benefits others, to that degree you are guaranteed to fail. You must be sold. You must get rid of all negative considerations and believe that it’s the right thing, the right product, and that it will benefit the person you’re selling it to. It’s critical that you do everything possible to convince yourself that your product must be purchased and that it must be purchased from you at your pricing.
Why should someone go into debt to buy your product? Why should they choose your product instead of someone else’s? Why should someone do it right now and not wait another second? Why should they buy your product for more money rather than a similar product for less? Why should someone buy it from you rather than the guy down the street? Why should they choose your company over another? If you can’t instantly answer these questions, you’ll struggle along because you’re not convinced. If you were completely sold, you would have immediate responses to each one.
Become so thoroughly sold on your product that your conviction is irresistible to others. This is not meant to suggest that you lie to yourself, if that was even possible. I’ve personally met thousands of high-producing salespeople over the years, and never have I met a top producer who got to the top by deceiving others. What I’m suggesting is that you take the time to sell yourself before you try to sell someone else on how your product is superior to others.
OVERCOMING THE NINETY-DAY PHENOMENON
I’ve met many salespeople who tell me that they started selling a product and did well with it for ninety days, but then suddenly found themselves unable to close a deal. What happened? Management will tell you that the person has gotten lazy or that he’s gotten too smart for his own good. Okay, so he got lazy. But why? He wasn’t exhibiting laziness for the first thirty days, and he couldn’t have gotten too smart for his own good because ninety days at any job won’t make you smart by any means.
What I believe happens to cause this ninety-day phenomenon is that either the individual was being told to do something that wasn’t aligned with his own personal standards of ethics or he’s now trying to sell something that he’s no longer completely sold on. Maybe he doesn’t believe in the product anymore. Maybe he has disagreements with management, or something that he’s promising. He’s refraining from doing something that he was doing for the first ninety days. Something changed!
Maybe he got some information about how the product doesn’t help people or how it doesn’t do what he’s been promising. Maybe he didn’t close a deal and started wondering why, and then made up the wrong reason for it and continues to use that incorrect reasoning. This happens a great deal. Salespeople come up with wrong answers and then continue to use these wrong answers when trying to solve future problems.
Whatever it was that happened, the ninety-day wonder is basically no longer sold. Actually, he is sold—he’s just sold on something else. In fact, what he’s now sold on is that it’s a bad idea to sell this product, and so he starts not selling the product! Not selling is also a form of selling, just in reverse. Something has affected him to the point where he’s motivated not to sell rather than motivated to sell. Do you get it? Something went out in his thinking and he’s no longer convinced.
When a salesperson’s production drops, this is the first thing you should look for and rehabilitate. This individual must be revitalized and resold on the product, the company, and the services. Go over all of the ways that the product is superior and how it will benefit others. Find out if there’s some counter-intention, disagreement, or false information about the product, service, or company that’s in conflict with the salesperson’s beliefs. Once you’ve handled that, ask him how he felt about the product or service when he was doing well selling it and you’ll soon find him motivated and closing deals again.
It’s incredible how many salespeople tell me stories about the competitor that undersells them and practically gives products away or how the very product they sell can be bought on the Internet for less. I recently read a book called Secrets of Successful Selling that talked about how competition had reached levels never before seen and how customer awareness had reached a point that required salespeople to operate at levels never before considered. The book was written in 1952, which just goes to show that there’s always been competition and there always will be. The problem isn’t product knowledge, competition, or smarter customers; the real issue is whether or not you are fully sold on your product.