Do you ever find yourself in a selling situation
where you thought things were going well and then suddenly,
the prospect kind of disappeared
or it didn't go the way you expected?
Chances are, that was as a result
of missing a fundamental step in your sales approach
and so so often people ask me
you know, how do I deal with a prospect who does this
or how do I overcome this type of an objection.
But the reality is that those scenario type situations
aren't as important as understanding the basics,
the foundation of what makes
a successful selling interaction.
That's what separates top performers from everyone else.
It's not they're not necessarily handling
those outlier scenarios,
but are they using the basics of sales.
So in this video I'm going to show you
nine basics of sales that everyone must know.
Check it out.
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Number One- Trial and error is not a strategy.
It's crazy when we actually think
about the sales industry as an industry.
If you compare sales to any other profession
like law or dentistry or accounting,
there are all these governing bodies
that regulate who gets to do that job.
Yet when it comes to sales,
all we need in order to become a salesperson is a job
or something to sell and then suddenly we're in sales.
And so what ultimately happens is because so many of us
miss out on that foundational training
that other professions have,
we start to learn sales simply by trial and error.
So many of us got our first sales job
and we were just given a phone
or we were just given a list of prospects
to go knock on their doors
and maybe follow some kind of a framework,
but in a lot of cases it's very trial and error
based in terms of how we were learning sales.
But that doesn't work.
We don't want to be using trial and error
as our fundamental strategy.
That is never going to get you to where you want to go
and that is why we want to think
in terms of having a process.
Number Two- Have a process.
I've already set up the importance of why
we can't use trial and error, but now we have to understand
why is having a process so important in the first place.
Having a sales process is just as important
as a CPA understanding how to balance a balance sheet.
We need to have a sales process that we can follow
that we know works and so that way
when we use the process the same way every single time,
when things don't go as expected,
now we have some way to diagnose what might have gone wrong.
All the hordes of salespeople
who are trying to learn sales through trial and error
are never actually getting useful feedback
on what's working and what's not working
and so as a result, they never really improve
and so you see tons of salespeople
who either get weeded out in sales or never make it
as a result of simply just never having the process.
It wasn't because people didn't like them
or it wasn't because they weren't
potentially good enough to be effective in sales.
It was simply because they didn't have that process.
So have a process that you can follow,
a step-by-step process that will take you through
each part of the sales phase.
Number Three- Bring insight to the table.
Now this is the first part of your process.
This is the first part of our Sales Insights' methodology
is you need to bring insight to the table to your prospects.
Now so many prospects are showing up at prospect doors
with one of two approaches.
They're either opening up their jacket pocket
and they're saying, "Hey, let me show you
all the amazing goods that we have."
They're like that sketchy guy on a street corner
selling watches out of his jacket.
That is really old school and doesn't work
so if you're doing that, you got to stop that.
But there's the whole other group of people
who are trying to engage prospects in conversations
using more updated approaches, but equally ineffective
where they're saying something like
"I'd love to learn more about your business"
or "I'd love learn more about how you're using XYZ"
and the prospect is thinking
why would I want to teach you and show you
and get you up to speed on how I'm using something
with the hope that maybe
you're then going to help sell me something.
That's not an effective approach.
You need to engage your prospects with insight
by demonstrating that you know
what the hell you're talking about
and you do that by giving them information
that maybe provoke them
or something that they hadn't thought of before.
That's how you bring something to the table
that really gets them to say,
"Hmm, I'd want to have a conversation with this person."
Number Four- Disqualify prospects.
Now this may feel counter for those of you
who haven't followed a lot of my content before,
but disqualifying prospects
is probably the opposite of what you've heard.
Maybe you've been taught to qualify prospects
or you need to convince or persuade prospects.
But the reality is is that your prospects don't need you
to convince them or persuade them
and they don't even want you to really qualify them.
What you really want to be doing
is determining whether a prospect is a fit.
That's it and if they're not a fit, that's cool.
You want to disqualify people that aren't a fit
and you want to move on.
And by having a disqualification mindset,
it's going to allow you to focus your energy
on the people that are a fit.
Let's say you meet with 50 people
over the course of the next couple of weeks.
25% of those people were never going to buy from you
and that's okay, but what you want to do
is have a process in place that allows you
to move on from them
where you have a systematic set of questions
that you can ask
to determine that you know, what,
these people don't really make sense for my time and energy.
The 50% who are left over, the other 50%,
are people you want to spend your time with
and so those are people,
once you've proven that they're actually qualified,
now you're going to present your solutions,
you're going to actually demonstrate
how you can solve their problems.
Number Five- Solve, don't present.
So even I use the term present just a second ago
because I haven't set this up yet,
but what we don't want to be doing is pitching.
We don't want to be psyched and excited
to just give some presentation
where we give features and benefits.
That's some really old school stuff.
Instead what we want to do is simply demonstrate
that we can solve our prospect's challenges
and so when we take them through
that disqualification process,
we're going to have asked them a lot of questions
about what's going on where we can really understand
their key challenges and so that way
we ultimately only present to those challenges.
We're presenting the solutions to those challenges,
not the features and the benefits.
They don't care about your features and benefits.
What they care about is can this person
actually solve my problems.
Number Six- Be N.S.O.
Now you're probably thinking
what the hell does N.S.O stand for.
N.S.O. stands for next step obsessed.
You want to be obsessed with next steps
in your sales process.
One of the biggest reasons that sales fall apart
is simply a result of the salesperson
not scheduling a clear next step.
Now you may have a prospect
that genuinely wants what you have,
but things happen in life and we get busy
and maybe they were on the fence
and they were kind of not 100% sure
and they say something like
"You know, what, why don't you
follow up with me sometime next week."
And most salespeople say,
"Sure, I'll follow up with you. How about Wednesday?"
And they're like "Sure, try me on Wednesday."
And then you try them on Wednesday and what happens?
They're not there.
We need to be next step obsessed
which means that we're always scheduling next steps
in the current situation that we're in.
So if you're in a selling situation
where you're face-to-face with a prospect
or you're on a Zoom and you're at the end of the meeting
and it seems like it's gone well,
what you want to be doing is scheduling that next meeting
in this current meeting always.
You never let a prospect out of your sight
without either them telling you no, this is not a fit
or let's schedule a next step.
And of course schedule the next step could be a sale.
That's fine too.
But always have a next step in place
and be obsessive about scheduling next steps.
Number Seven- Use a prospecting blueprint.
This is so key in terms of sales basics
because when I was learning to first prospect
and generate my own leads,
I was just banging on the phones old school style
just making cold calls
and the reality was is that was really, really hard
and in most cases it was pretty ineffective.
Most of my best sales came as a result of inbound leads,
a solid introduction or maybe a cold email
or maybe some combination of those,
but just the pure cold call is hard work
and it's pretty low yield.
I did get some really good sales
as a result of cold calling of course,
but there's no need
for you to go through that whole process.
Instead what you want to do is use a prospecting blueprint
that mixes all of your tools together
and so that way you're taking a prospect
through the entire prospecting process
by sending them an email
and then following up on the email with a call
and then leaving a voicemail
and then sending another email
and then maybe sending them a package
and then leaving them a LinkedIn connection request
and then making another call and then sending...
I'm making this up, but that's what
your prospecting blueprint wants to look like
is that it should be a whole process
that you take every prospect through
so you know exactly what's going to be
the next step in the process if they don't respond to you
or if they don't answer.
This way by time you ultimately get them on the phone
or you send them that fifth email,
they're like "Oh, man, yeah, this person left me a message.
They tried me a couple of times.
They sent me a LinkedIn request, they sent me a letter."
And now they're like "Okay, yeah, this actually sounds
like something that makes sense. Now I'll respond."
Remember it can take more than 20 touches
of a prospect before they're going to respond.
That's why we need that blueprint in place.
Number Eight- Think like a top performer.
Now I have had the very fortunate experience
to both myself be a top sales performer,
but more importantly is that I have been able
to work with thousands of top performing salespeople
over the past 20 years and as a result,
I've been able to see what top performers do
and what they think.
What's amazing is that the biggest difference
between top performers and average performers
isn't usually very tactical.
It's actually so much more about mindsets.
It's how they think and so what we want to do
is challenge ourselves to start to think
like a top performer.
If you currently are not a top performer
and maybe you are, that's great,
but if you're not, what you want to start to do
is challenge yourself to start to think
like a top performer because that is going to eventually
lead to you truly becoming a top performer.
Top performers, they call high up on the organization.
Top performers are waking up early
and they are immediately getting to their sales activity.
Top performers aren't afraid of getting that no.
Starting to think, just think the way a top performer thinks
is so important in eventually becoming a top performer.
This is an important distinction
that is not really about tactics and strategy,
but is simply about the way you think like a winner
and ultimately you become like the way you think.
Number Nine- Have a sales mentor.
Maybe you already have a sales mentor. That's awesome.
But if you don't, you must have a sales mentor.
If you are just trying to figure
this whole thing out on your own,
it's going to be a very long and arduous process
and there's a good chance that you don't make it
out on the other end of that tunnel.
Having a sales mentor who can guide you,
who can take you through that process is so important.
Make sure that you commit to having someone
who is where you want to be,
who has done what you want to do
and can really guide you through that process.
Now at the end of this video,
at the end of this training video,
I'll actually give you an opportunity
to register for a more in-depth training
where you can learn more about how
even I might be able to mentor you,
but either way, I want you to commit
to having a sales mentor,
someone who can really guide you, coach you,
push you and hold you accountable.
So there are the nine basics of sales
that everyone must know
and if you enjoyed this video,
then I have an awesome free training
on the data-driven approach
to closing more sales in today's marketplace.
Just click right here to get registered instantly.
Seriously just click right there.
This is an in-depth training
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