Archive for the ‘Successful Sales Traits’ Category

The Importance of Establishing Trust

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February 4, 2013 · by admin · Cold Calling, Cold Calling Tactics, Increasing Sales, Inside Sales Strategies, Inside Sales Tactics, Listening Skills, Prospect Qualification, Prospecting, Prospecting Tactics, Questioning skills, Questions, Sales Tactics, Sales Tips, Successful Sales Traits, trust

By Ron LaVine, MBA and President of Accelerated Cold Call Training, Inc.
Cold Calling System for Sales Success – Live Cold Call Training Workshops®

 

According to Josh Gordon’s book “Selling 2.0 – Motivating Customers in the New Economy”, building trust is ranked by customers as the number one way to motivate and persuade them to buy. Trust ranked ahead of building relationships, selling value, problem solving, adding value, building loyalty and finally competitive positioning. It is important to be well trusted and you should not underestimate the importance of building trust in areas such as aggressive problem solving and missionary selling before the buying even begins. Trust is the assured reliance on character, strength or truth of someone.

 

One of the biggest factors in building trust is establishing consistency. This means the other person always knows what to expect from you. In addition to consistency these characteristics are also important when building trust.

  • Confidentiality

  • Listening

  • Making the other person feel heard and understood

  • Being clear about what is being exchanged in the relationship

  • Like-ability of the provider

When you work over the telephone, the only feedback you receive is the sound of the person’s voice and what is going on in the background. You cannot see their face or how their body language changes based upon what is being said. Therefore, it is key, to build trust up front.

Since building trust over the phone disables the reliance on visual feedback, one of the ways you can build trust is to match and mirror the speed, tone and volume of the other person’s voice. If they speak fast you need to speed up your rate of speech. If they speak slow then slow down. The same applies to louder and softer.

People feel comfortable speaking and buying from people they know, like (like means similar) and trust.

Trust is a key factor in how people make decisions. Therefore it is important to understand how to build and maintain trust. The more you understand about your accounts and their unique situations, combined with an establishment of a positive working relationship, the easier it will be to build trust.

Ten Ways to Establish Trust

  1. People trust people who are honest about the truth even if it is uncomfortable.

  2. People who look and act professionally build trust.

  3. People trust people who ask good questions and are willing to listen.

  4. Trust comes from being able to demonstrate your knowledge or technical proficiency.

  5. Trusted professionals ask tough, thought provoking questions, while reaching meaningful issues quickly.

  6. People trust other people who respect their values.

  7. People trust people who make them think.

  8. You create trust when you focus on what your accounts are trying to accomplish.

  9. People trust people have had similar experiences to theirs.

  10. People trust people who have a genuine interest in what they have to say.

Slick words or trying to impress people with all the features of your solutions do not build trust they fuel skepticism. Being able to have proof readily available in the form of testimonial letters and phone or email references builds trust. Improve your trust building skills and you’ll improve your sales.

Reference: Selling 2.0: Motivating Customers in the New Economy, by Josh Gordon available at: http://amzn.to/11MzUia.

 

You can use this content in your own publications. 
Please include the following reprint permission…

This article is reprinted with permission from Ron LaVine’s “Sales Tips for Success” complementary e-Zine. Ron LaVine, MBA is President and Founder of Accelerated Cold Calling Training, Inc., an Oak Park, CA cold call training company. Get two FREE Reports, plus the FREE e-Zine, Sales Tips for Success by clicking here. Learn more about Cold Calling for Sales Success On-site, Virtual, Individual or Group, Live Cold Call Training Workshops® by calling me, Ron LaVine at 818-991-6487 by clicking here.  Follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

Characteristics of Top Sales Executives

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December 29, 2011 · by admin · Successful Sales Traits

By Ron LaVine, MBA and President of Accelerated Cold Call Training, Inc.
Cold Calling System for Sales Success – Live Cold Calling Training Workshops®

 

Top Sales Executives Work Smart

Top sales executives recognize their time is precious and finite. These sales representatives know their primary job is to identify and call on the most profitable accounts first. Examining their current customer base and finding the common characteristics or demographics (gross sales, number of employees, industries, etc.) top salespeople know in advance what types of accounts where they make the most money. They separate their accounts by time zone enabling them to make the best use of their phone time throughout the day.

Once prioritized and sorted, top sales executives use their sharp questioning and listening skills to reach the decision maker and determine, with reasonable certainty, whether or not a business opportunity exists within an account. When a business opportunity is found within a department, business unit, location, joint venture, affiliate, reseller or partner, these successful sales reps always remember to set up specific action steps or a SALES M.A.P. (Mutually Agreed upon Process™) with the individual or individuals who influence the buying decision. Then they politely yet persistently follow up on these action steps through completion. Knowing how valuable their time is, the most successful salespeople do only those things they cannot delegate to someone else.

Top Sales Executives Think like Business Owners

Top sales executives adopt an attitude that they are in business for themselves not in business by themselves. These top salespeople make decisions upon seeing themselves as the business owner.

Organization and Prioritization of Goals

Top sales executives recognize the importance of organizing and prioritizing their goals. These people get ahead by planning ahead. They have clearly defined lofty goals and self discipline to see them through. Top sales executives are goal getters not just goal setter

Top Sales Executives are Persuasive Communicators

The top successful salespeople are listening for reasons to buy and for ways to sell. Sensitive to an account’s time available to speak with them and enthusiastic in their presentations and these top sales reps have mastered the technique of carefully selecting words for their positive connotations.

Top Sales Executives Are Always Striving for Self-improvement

Always growing, studying, reading, attending seminars, learning all the time, their goal is movement in a positive direction. These salespeople seek out opportunities to perfect their presentations and volunteer for leadership positions so they can stretch themselves as people and professionals.

Top Sales Executives have Positive Self-esteem

Strong, balanced sense of self worth combined with confidence in themselves and a belief in what they are doing are the hallmark of a great sales rep. Enthusiasm, excitement and zeal are elements of their character.

These people do a better job and become more productive by learning, practicing, changing and developing these new habits so they are incorporated and internalized qualities in both their personal and professional life.

Conclusion

First and foremost is the right attitude. You will hear this throughout most sales workshops because the right attitude is the difference between those that give up and those who never quit. There is no silver or magic bullet. Only hard work and persistence pays off.

To become a great sales executive, one must enjoy working with people and have a strong sense of curiosity, great listening skills and the ability to see the big picture. The best sales executives are able to produce results. Pay for performance is the way they prefer to work.

A great sales executive is someone who has a working knowledge of their company’s operations, products and services, and possesses the ability to collect useful business sales intelligence(tm) about their accounts and translate the information into additional sales. They are persistent and tenacious to find the answers to their questions and they keep going until they do.

David R. Bender of the Special Libraries Association sums it up well: “…how many people have the expertise to evaluate, analyze, organize and package raw data-transforming it into meaningful information that can be put to work?”

He goes on to say “…not many, and the explanation is quite simple.” As management expert Peter Drucker wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal, “There is a big difference between being computer literate and information literate.”

Bender writes, “Drucker explained that for data to become useful information, it must be organized for a task or applied to a decision.” He contended, however, “Few people are adept at determining exactly what information they need to do their jobs, when they need the information, and where they can get it.”

A great sales executive knows what data is needed, where it can be found and how to get it and provide it in a manner enabling them to increase their sales. In striving to become the best, top sales executives focus on creating value for their clients and a sense of pride and accomplishment for themselves.

You can use this content in your own publications. 
Please include the following reprint permission…

This article is reprinted with permission from Ron LaVine’s “Sales Tips for Success” complementary e-Zine. Ron LaVine, MBA is President and Founder of Accelerated Cold Call Training, Inc., an Oak Park, CA live cold calling training company. Get two FREE Reports, plus the FREE e-Zine, Sales Tips for Success by clicking here. Learn more about Cold Calling for Sales Success On-site, Virtual, Individual or Group, Live Cold Calling Training Workshops® by calling me, Ron LaVine at +1-818-991-6487 by clicking here. Follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

 

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