Learn to Sell in the Time it Takes to Read this!

- Anyone & Everyone Can Do It Sit down & pin back your ears for some really great news – there is no such thing as a natural salesperson and neither is being thought of as having ‘ the gift of the gab’ better expressed in my view as being ‘gobby, full of yourself and generally speaking like an idiot!’ Each one of us can win new business from new customers, or from existing customers in other words – SELL. How I hear you ask? An absolute gem coming up so pay attention. This is why: ‘People do business with people they like’ Now unfortunately I am able to claim to have been a ‘salesperson’ for more than 30 years – which does not necessarily make me good at it but, it means that for 30 years I have been reading books about how to sell, attending seminars being told how to sell, being put on training courses to be shown how to improve my selling skills and spent millions of hours with those ‘professional’ salespeople. After this extraordinary amount of money has been spent on me do you know what I have learnt? ‘People do business with people they like’ Learn how to be liked (yes this is something you can learn) and you will never look back. Don’t switch off now, stick with me and you will see that it is not about being the centre of attention, nor is it about being the life and soul of anything, or being in the limelight. Here is the second absolute gem: ‘Be genuinely interested in the people you meet’ However we were created the end result was that we have two ears and a single solitary mouth; if you practise to make sure that you always, without fail and never forget to use this equipment in the proportions that you have them you will have taken a huge step toward being a very successful winner of business. In a clear sentence I mean speak for no more than 1/3rd of the time and listen for the rest – in fact if you can get this to an 80 / 20 split you will be flying! However, when you are doing this it is essential that you use your ears to LISTEN and not to hear. It is just as important that in your early client meetings you use your mouth to ask questions about the person, their business and their problems. Do not use your mouth (until much later in the process) for speaking too much about yourself, your business and your product or, service. This is because in very simple terms – no one is interested.

The key to being liked is as I said very simply: ‘Be genuinely interested in the people you meet’

Altogether there are 6 basic principles that if you put into action you will be liked by most people that meet you and you will therefore become hugely successful at winning business. It might surprise you to know that – again my personal opinion – a huge proportion of people currently employed as salespeople are actually not very good at it because they have read too many books, been got at by too many people making a living out of training salespeople or, have the dubious benefit of learning from experienced salespeople who weren’t very good to begin with. Imagine that, a whole bunch of salespeople who think they Can, but actually Can’t. This leaves the field wide open for any of you reading this and willing to put the preparation and effort in. Selling is all about preparation and hard work – along with being liked. So back to those 6 points for you to put into action – I should say that they are not my words of wisdom because if they were I would have no need to be sat here this morning writing this for you. The cool fact about these wise, wise words is that they

were written in 1936 by a guy called Dale Carnegie – and despite many attempts I can confidently tell you nothing better has been written since. I attend colleges, universities and seminars to listen to how selling is taught and occasionally I come across one that is good. You know what? In modern fancy language, supported by theories for this and that; they all basically say what Dale said more than 70 years ago! P1: Become genuinely interested in other people. P2: Smile. P3: Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest & most important sound in any language. P4: Be a good listener and encourage others to talk about themselves. P5: Talk in terms of the other person’s interests. P6: Make the other person feel important – but do it with sincerity. Now is that simple or what! As I mentioned earlier many thousands of pounds have been spent on building me into the salesperson I am today and I can with all honesty say to you here and now at the end of this; the best money ever spent on making me into anything was the money Graham Petty spent on me in 1978 when he made a present of Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ book to me. Now to my dismay I can’t make a present of the actual book to each of you loyal readers, but I can make a gift of the knowledge and suggest that you rush out as soon as possible to get yourself a copy and read it cover to cover – can you believe that to read it will take you less than a day and yet the knowledge will last you a lifetime. Recently a client of ours (Ian) did just that and it cost him £5 from Amazon – now if his employer had done that it would replace tens of thousands I am sure they will invest in Ian over the years. To buy the book visit: http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254819555&sr=1-1 Let me know how it goes for you and what successes you gain from it: phil@scarletopus.com Thanks for sharing your time with me.