10 Life Tips for Salespeople

The ABC’s of sales -  Always Be Closing.
Easier said than done. Here are some life tips for salespeople that will make you kick ass!
Simple things, great impact.

1. Stop Selling!
2. The Principle of Reciprocity
3. Do It With Passion, Or Not At All.
4.  Plan Your Day
5. Morning Routine
6. Avoid distractions
7. Picture your end result
8. Don’t take it personally
9. Leverage Momentum
10. Create email templates

1. Stop Selling!

Communicate value first. Don’t think of selling. Customers like people who bring value to their lives and dislike those who only care about getting a sale out of them.  Look for ways to improve your customer’s life. Act as a mentor with great expertise in your field of operation. If you are the point of contact for potential customers they will also trust your judgement and solutions to their problems. Remember that people buy you first, and then your products. Therefore, always be genuine! Authenticity makes it easier to gain people's trust.

2. The Principle of Reciprocity

“I am obligated to give back to you the form of behaviour you gave to me.”, as Robert Cialdini, Prof. Psychology and Marketing, explains in an interview with HSM. People feel obligated to say ‘yes’ to those they feel they owe a favor; therefore, start by giving of yourself first! In sales, this could translate to  something as simple as opening the door for the other person, offering some mints, paying for their coffee,, etc. If you’re genuinely friendly (but not over the top), then your customer will feel less inclined to refuse your offer.

3. Do It With Passion, Or Not At All.

People that are passionate about the product they’re working with don’t even need to fret over their sales skills. Aim to become ‘one’ with the product you’re selling by knowing all of its features and benefits inside and out. If you truly believe in the value it brings to the customers’ life, you don’t need to obsess over the process of selling. The best salespeople follow their gut and try to communicate the value of their product through their enthusiasm. From there, the product basically sells itself.. Tim Cook famously told his shareholders: “I don’t even care about ROI (Return On Investment). We, here at Apple, do it in the way we do simply because we think it is right and good!”

4. Plan Your Day

You only have 24 hours in a day. What’s the secret to being more productive? Planning. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”, some very insightful words from Benjamin Franklin. Properly plan your days and learn to squeeze more into those 24 hours. Remember that small improvements can have major impacts.

How do you do this? Start right now!

Keep a digital to-do list that you can easily access from anywhere at any time.

Some guidelines when planning your day:

• Set times for each task. This will avoid you dwelling on one task for too long, losing sight of other important tasks. Keep consistent with each task.
• Start by eating a frog. Start your day by doing the thing you’re most uncomfortable with. People feel better when they’re most productive, so don’t spend all day fretting over that uncomfortable task. Just get ‘em done.
• Set realistic goals.  If you take a setback too hard,  you’ll suck time out of other activities that need attention. Realistic goals, however, will make you feel much better at the end of the day, helping you to maintain a positive mindset.
• Be consistent. Don’t jump between tasks that are drastically different from one another. Switching between tasks dilutes focus and will slow you down, because your brain needs to adjust to each task.

Part of effectively planning your day is being prepared for unexpected changes. If a customer suddenly cancels an appointment, make sure to have a plan B in place. You could, for example, use a tool like Badger Maps which helps you to quickly fill in a sudden gap in your schedule. This way you won’t be losing time hanging around a coffee shop waiting for your next appointment.

5. Morning Routine

You’re not going to become successful by mimicking the behavior of the most successful people. However, there are some winning routines that are universally successful.  One of them is waking up early. If you start your day a little earlier to accommodate the things that are important to you. Meditate, exercise, enjoy a healthy breakfast, and finish your morning routine by planning and visualizing your day ahead. As mentioned before, successful people plan their day before they arrive at the office.

6. Avoid distractions

Multitasking is a myth. Studies show doing multiple things at once kills productivity. Turn off your email (and other social media) notifications. Put your cell phone out of sight. With the many inputs from all the apps we have running in the background, these notifications can cause unnecessary distraction.

7. Picture your end result

Successful (sales)people always picture the end result in mind. They see how grateful people are after buying your products. They visualize the end result even before they start selling.  Even if you have no idea about how you are going to manage something, or how impossible it may seem, start with envisioning the end result. This will not only allow you to set clearer goals, it will also help you find ways you can’t see right now.

8. Don’t take it personally

Learn how to deal with rejection. Jean Paul DeJoria, the co-founder of Jean Mitchel Systems and founder of Patron Tequila once said: “When 100 doors are slammed in your face, go to  door number 101 and be just as enthusiastic as you were at the beginning.”

Remember, the most successful people are the ones that aren’t afraid of straying from their comfort zone.. Don’t take rejections personally! If people say ‘no’ to your idea, they just may not be prepared for it. But never let this make you doubt yourself. Instead, believe in yourself and gravitate toward people who will support your ideas!

9. Leverage Momentum

When a salesperson experiences success, they often take a short break to pat themselves on the back. The best time, however, to make a call or book an appointment is right after you had a great call or made an important appointment. This is when your confidence is at its peak and that carries over into your sales process. So if for instance, you’ve set aside 2 hours to make calls, don’t stop before the time is up, even if you’ve had some very successful ones.

10. Create email templates

Even though it’s important to tailor every message to the individual, you can save a great deal of time by having template emails in place instead of starting from scratch every time. A great Gmail Extension for this is ‘Gorgias Templates’. It lets you save multiple templates and assign specific shortcuts to insert them.

Go through your sent email, check what messages were effective in the past, and save them somewhere you will remember. Reusing them allows you to easily do A/B tests, track effectiveness, and stay consistent.

What life tips for salespeople have you come up with to become more productive? Share you ideas on Twitter with @badgermaps!