After decades of studying elite sales professionals, and teaching and measuring sales skills to a broad cross-section of sales people, I'd like to pass on to you the 7 ways in which the elite performers assure their success. Use this article to identify and master the skills that you'll require as part of your repertoire if you're to truly gain total control of your earning capacity.
IRRESISTIBLE RAPPORT
Way beyond matching and mirroring, these are skills that put you deeply in synch even with people who start out being resistant to you.
Most of the online dating gurus don't even know this material and let's hope they never find out!
It probably wouldn't do much good anyway, because they'd use it to try to manipulate, and manipulation is an automatic rapport breaker. To achieve the results you really want, these rapport skills must be used to enhance your relationships so that your level of connection with people is deep and genuine.
If you'd like to acquire incredible rapport skills you're going to have to practice, but you'll be surprised how quickly they develop, given the right practice! One exercise that you can do is, believe it or not, practiced by synchronised swimming teams each time they perform.
In order to ensure that they perform "as one", these teams use eye contact and breathing rates as an aid to match their internal states. If you were to ask them, you'd also find that they have an intention to match each others' heart rates. Sound a bit "woo-woo"? It works.
CAN YOU BE A REAL MIND READER?
This goes beyond rapport and is in fact the ability to read your clients like a book.
Accelerated learning techniques are the key to developing incredible awareness and competence in relation to reading people. You'll know things about your clients that even they don't realise themselves.
How useful would it be, for example, to know whether your client is thinking "yes I do like that option" or "no I don't? What about "I'm ready to buy" or "I'm not ready to buy"?
To gain mind reading skills to this degree of usefulness you'll need to practice with a group of friends or business associates. Have each person think of, for example, things that they like very much, and things that they dislike very much, and see if you can tell the difference. Do this with as many people as you can, and you'll soon be able to pick up much more subtle cues, even with people who are complete strangers to you.
CLIENT TRAITS THAT YOU MUST KNOW IN ORDER TO MAKE SALES!
Obviously health professionals are aware of a range of personality traits that are useful in therapy, but I can tell you now that most of them are unaware of what I'm about to share with you. And yet these traits, essential for sales people to understand, are THE most important traits when it comes to how people operate in the world, and how they undertake the decision making process!
Believe it or not, you have a natural ability to recognise and respond to these traits once you understand what they are. Everyone does. They're incredibly easy to learn!
Here's an example of one that is not so unusual, and it's called "Match/Mismatch".
Have you ever met anyone who, the minute you said "black", they said "white"? If you said it was a fine day, they've declared that indeed it was a pretty ordinary day, or even "what's fine about it!". That was probably a person who focuses on the differences, or habitually mismatches. Sometimes we refer to this type of person as a "polarity responder", which is a technical term meaning "pain in the butt" :-).
On the other hand, there's that equally maddening person who's constantly focussing on the things that are similar or in common, rather than on things that are different or even "new". This type of thinking can be quite counter-productive for a student, for example, because instead of recognising new knowledge, they will discount it by saying something like "Oh yes, this is just like X, and I learned that last year!" They completely miss out on the differences, especially the subtle ones, and therefore fail to learn as well as they could.
Real Life Example
Fred the sales professional is talking with Macey the general manager and Macey seems "contrary". Initially she explains that she has a problem with one of the manufacturing processes, but when Fred refers to this later, using Macey's own phrasing in order to cut out any misunderstanding, Macey denies that there is any problem! Macey even mismatches her own statements. (Author note: People like this do actually exist, and I can point to a particular senior manager at a major organisation who did exactly this, repeatedly throughout the encounter.)
A seemingly difficult situation becomes extremely easy to influence when you realise that the mismatcher is fatally predictable. Fred can simply say "Macey, you might not agree with me that there could be an easier way, but I wonder if you wouldn't find it less costly to ....."
Fred could go on to say (getting closer to wrapping up the deal): "Macey, this particular model isn't for everyone and it might not be attractive to you ...." (she'll be thinking "oh yes it is" because she can't help herself). Once you fully understand all the personality traits you'll find it impossible to clash with your client's "style" ever again.
MILLION DOLLAR QUESTIONS
Elite sales professionals use 3 little questions to understand the client's needs on a very deep level.
These 3 questions can rightly be called "million dollar questions" because they absolutely highlight the client's core values in relation to the product or service being offered, and even tell you the precise words the client needs to hear in order to make a decision to buy.
So these questions really are pure gold. Not only do they add to your chances of selling, but used non-manipulatively (ie, to understand the client's needs better) they also enhance the relationship and make it much more likely to lead to referral streams.
PRECISION CONTROL OF YOUR EARNINGS
Can you simply decide how much commissions you'll earn in any given month and have 100% confidence in hitting or exceeding that?
Top performers can pull in their desired income year after year because they know and use their own mathematical equation that leads inevitably to a certain sales result.
So far as I'm aware, Frank Bettger was the first professional sales person to formulate and use this mathematical equation to literally choose his income. Even though selling activities have changed, and the skills I've discussed certainly increase effectiveness over older methods, the mathematical equation still holds.
You can calculate your own equation by making a list of all your direct and indirect selling activities along with the time it takes to perform "one unit" of each activity. That's what's leading to your current sales level. So you have your equation. However most people can improve that dramatically by eliminating or reducing activities that aren't paying their way, and implementing others that are more effective. In all my years of sales training, I haven't yet met a single sales person on commission who couldn't at least double their income within 90 days of implementation of this method.
But to actually come through on this equation, you have to plan, document, track and analyse each activity. Otherwise you're still flying blind, and you're not being accountable - not even to yourself. If you are prepared to do these things then I'm excited for you, because you're nearly there!
TAKE OUT YOUR MAGIC WAND AND MAKE THAT FEAR OR DOUBT DISAPPEAR!
Have you ever known what you had to do, and certainly been capable of doing it very well, and yet you procrastinated or self-sabotaged so it still didn't get done? This is what fear or niggling doubt can do, so obviously it needs to go!
So what if that's holding you back right now, and every time you think about doing a certain task that's essential for your sales success, you actually feel sick in the stomach? (Or if there's just enough of an unconscious "niggle" that you sabotage yourself anyway?)
For several years we've had available an incredible technique to eliminate these types of fears and doubts literally overnight (including stuttering, by the way) but very few people have known about it.
One of the most powerful of all these techniques is "NeuroStim". It's capable of eliminating depression, chronic pain, fear and anxiety in just days, and sometimes even overnight.
STATEGIC NETWORKING *PAYOFF*!
In the old days we always recommended that our clients and students join a business networking organisation in order to build relationships that would benefit them personally and professionally. We toiled conscientiously and for years to teach a philosophy and methodology that we knew worked.
But you know what? We don't see any evidence of networking organisations even UNDERSTANDING the principles of effective networking, let alone teaching them to their members.
So today we say that if you want to be successful, you need to form your own network of business friends, and engage with it in a quality way, in business hours because after all it's a crucial business activity. A network like this automatically delivers great relationships, superior peer-mentoring, advocacy, joint venture agreements, sharing of resources and expertise, and of course referrals.
With this strategy you'll save time, money and effort on networking organisations that turn networking into a predatory game. You'll stop wasting time trying to build relationships with people with whom you have nothing in common apart from business. You won't have to put up with (or use) those silly elevator pitches, or tolerate a mass of complete strangers stuffing their business cards at you or treating you like some captive audience to sell to. Most importantly, you won't be robbing yourself and your family and friends of precious family and social time. If you'll only network like this, it will REALLY pay off, personally and professionally.
CAN YOU PUT THIS TOGETHER AND REACH THE TOP?
Even though there is always more to learn, especially in terms of communication skills, if you can only do the 7 things I've discussed here, you will absolutely achieve your dreams, and you will have earned them!
Article Source: http://www.orbitaloc.com/
The complementary ebook " Speed Business Networking - The Manual" spells out the detailed principles and methodologies that deliver effective networking. It's available to people and networking organisations who want to network more humanely and more productively.
Please Rate The Above Article From The Marketing Category
Article Title: The 7 Secrets of Top Sales Performers - That Can Also Be Yours!
Not yet Rated
Syndicate Marketing Related Articles Via RSS!
Subject to Orbitaloc.com's Publisher Terms of Service, you may reprint this
article on your own website, blog, and ezine. (English only) You may also syndicate
the article via Really Simple Syndication (RSS). It is free of charge.
Free Articles on Marketing and Other FREE Content Article Topics
The preceeding is an informative article from the Marketing category.
