- Ask awesome questions. I've mentioned this more than once. But the ability to ask great questions, tough probing questions, penetrating questions, is one of the most effective ways to increase your sales
- Deliver great presentations. Don't confuse this with the ability to stand up in front of several hundred people and deliver a keynote presentation. The key to delivering a great sales presentation is ensuring that it addresses your prospect's primary issues and that it focuses on their needs and objectives, not your agenda.
- Adapt your approach. Do you ever consider the personality style of the other person when planning your sales presentation? Do you know if your prospect prefers correspondence via email, texting, face-to-face or telephone? Is your prospect a 35,000-foot-view person or do they like to know every detail? Adapt your approach accordingly and you will increase your sales.
- Set high goals. People with the highest goals tend to achieve more. Are your goals challenging and motivating? Do you even set your own goals or do you simply take what's given to you by your boss?
- Be persistent. Four or five years ago it would take an average of seven calls to connect with a new prospect. Now it's a safe bet to say that it can take as many as 12 or more, just to make that first contact. You need to be diligent and persistence.
- Forge relationships. Developing and maintaining great relationships with prospects, customers, friends and other people in your network is one activity that will ALWAYS pay off.
- Show respect. I have seen, firsthand, how poorly some sales people treat gatekeepers and receptionists and it always disappoints me because I am a firm believer in treating people with respect and dignity. Yes, that person may only be the receptionist in your eyes but they often hold the key to the Presidential Suite. Treat them accordingly.
For more on sales techniques, see:
