^{By Jeff Watters}

The Sales profession as a career offers many opportunities for advancement with the benefit of a lot of freedom. It's easy to get involved in sales when you're young but mastering selling isn't as easy as many think. Because a selling career is easily misunderstood by the novice I have put my step by step training guide online to help those that sell gain an accelerated ability. What follows is a compilation of 30 years of selling experience, common sense, and practical tactics used in the selling profession. Understanding the material here will give you the confidence needed to be a success in selling.

In the first part of this instruction you learn how to streamline your sales techniques making you one of the best salespeople in your company. You'll gain the understanding of what it takes to be a salesperson, how to plan your presentations, and get your customer enthusiastic about doing business with you. Without the corner stones of what is called the sales pyramid you cannot and will not be successful. These cornerstones are the trust and confidence your customers place in you.

Dependable Confidence

Persuasion skills strengthen your chances of earning a large income from selling but you will not be successful for long if you don't have thorough training. You must learn to be at ease talking to strangers as no person can sell to the crowd if not able to deal with the crowd. For that reason developing a level of comfort is the first thing you must do to become a successful salesperson. Fortunately this is the simplest thing to do and will take little effort on your part. All that is required is that you be yourself. Become comfortable with the people you talk to and they can be comfortable with you; believe in making friends as way of helping you sell.

Your focus & attention must be on developing your mind, in such a way, that no person can harm you by saying no to what you offer is critical in selling! We all to often worry so much about what the other person thinks of us that we are not ourselves. The professional salesperson knows that hearing no is common, even to be expected in the daily life of a salesperson. No person can embarrass you or belittle you into thinking less of yourself because they said no to your offer. In fact, once you begin keeping records of your sales calls you can count the "no" answers and know how close you are to getting a "yes" answer. Common sense says to establish yourself as a competent salesperson you must focus on strenghtening your abilities and not what other people think of you personally.

Of course you cannot be obnoxious or overly aggressive either. Being a pleasant diplomatic person with a level of execllence is expected of anyone that deals with the public. You must have a reliable reputation that can be recommended with confidence to potential clients.

My First Sales Lessons

When I first began selling a few words of basic guidance were my entire instruction before I took my place on a showroom floor. I was told "Sell yourself, sell the house, and then to sell the product. This was the full scope my very first sales training. Not too much of a sales lesson, as it took less than ten seconds and hardly the wisdom of the ages. Useful information, yes, but it was certainly not enough information to become successful either. Looking back after 30 years I wish I had been told to stay true to the process and then taught the process I am going to teach you.

The brief introduction I received to sales is the training most small companies conduct in their sales meetings. Particularly small companies that have a sink or swim attitude. The sales manager or management team will impart bits of wisdom, "such as sell yourself," a little at a time during weekly meetings and you are to gather that wisdom and learn. That is if you make it far enough to keep your job without losing your house. The reality often is you are hired to do the job with little or no experience and expected to do it well. If not, you're let go after a brief training period or when your training salary has expired. If you have potential you may be put on straight commission, but only to scratch out a meager living by chance. Of course this isn't fair to employee or employer.

Most businesses choose not to afford professional sales trainers so it becomes the employee's responsibility to learn the job. This is the very definition of sink or swim survival in the sales world. It has no prejudice, no favoritism. This is why I after 30 years of learning and training others I have undertaken the job of producing an instruction manual covering selling. It is important to furthering the profession of selling. In this book I am putting the power of competent selling in your hands.

The Corner Stones

It took me years to learn that selling easily, is selling naturally! That is, being yourself and not acting in some trained mannerism that seems unnatural to your clients. Getting to this point isn't easy because of a natural uneasiness people often have with one another when not well acquainted. Gaining this ability can be difficult because few trainers will tell you how to be competent before you get to the closing stage of selling. All of the books I read only dealt with closing the sale. These expected that you would say or do this, then this, then this, as if you were a machine reading a script. Selling is difficult to understand if a process hasn't been taught but worse if it seems unnatural or you need to act in a way that is unnatural to you.

It is also difficult if you are new, anxious, or lack confidence in every sales situation. Almost impossible when you're uncomfortable talking with people you barely know or that you haven't discovered that there is a psychological process that takes a prospective client along the path toward ownership of what you sell? Fortunately for us part of that process is making friendly conversation with your counter part in the sales call. Part is following a plan of action and transferring the knowledge of your product to your customers so they understand what they are buying and are comfortable with you.

Corner Stones of the Sales Pyramid

Selling requires you know three cornerstones as all-purpose rules. They are the base of the sales pyramid and you cannot be successful without knowing them. They are:

• 1. Be yourself
• 2. Follow a plan of action.
• 3. Know your product.

This book will teach you how to sell while teaching you ideas of how to handle conditions and objections with techniques that you can use to immediately increase your closing ratio. This book is your guide. It will give you insight to what is going on in your customers mind and how to gauge progress by a simplified process of selling. Once you understand how the development occurs in the customers mind, a sales transaction becomes second nature for you and your client. Then and only then can you sell anything easily.

There are fundamental building blocks of all transactions you need to be aware of before you can sell efficiently. Every person goes through several phases before purchasing any product. Simply these are:

1. Becoming aware of the product or service
2. Gathering information
3. Justifying the purchase
4. Acquiring the product or service

This is the very beginning of understanding the profession of selling. It is the knowledge that allows you to help more clients by being sympathetic of the mindset of a customer and how that state of mind justifies making purchases. This is the key to that unlocks doors when selling. Since all of your prospective customers, 100%, will follow this set pattern it makes it easy to guide them toward a sale as long as your product fulfills their needs.

The cornerstones are numbered with #1 being at the base of the "selling pyramid." Once you conscious of how the processing of information in your customer's mind, you are able to properly determine your progress while making a presentation. Once you discover these selling rules and realize the power of control you now have by smiply recognizing your customer's mental phase, you will easily increase your sales closing ratio. With this in place you become a enthusiastic guide your customers' place their confidence in for their purchases. You listen to them, monitor what step they are currently focusing on, then lead them to the next step (numbered above), then to right product. Closing becomes systematic if you have hit all the numbers.

Getting Ready

What you are learning are the methods of selling created as professional sales people and pitch-men shared experiences hundreds of years before we were born. Their expertise became a procedure that worked for their current business environment. The methods worked then and continue to work in today's fast paced business climate. This is assurance that these methods are still valid and worth replication with only slight modern era modifications. These methods are the established essentials that are used as your building blocks.

If the Pareto Principle is true, following a method will put you 80% farther along the path of success then salespeople who are winging it. Then following a planned course of action would put you in the top 20% of income earners in your sales department. What you are learning now is a planned course which also provides an understanding of how and why it works. Then using the primary four stages control the sales process. Traditionally the stages are called the "Opening Stage, Information Stage, Presentation Stage, and the Closing Stage." These stages are the four more building blocks that happen to coincide with the customers mind set as he or she goes through the purchasing process.

Customer

1. Becomes aware of the product/ service
2. Gathering information
3. Justifying the purchase
4. Acquiring the product or service

Salesperson

1. Opening Stage
2. Information Stage
3. Presentation Stage
4. Closing the Sale

The process shown above is a fact that cannot be changed. There are no possible modifications, not even using the Internet in step two is a modification, you're still gathering or giving information. The cornerstones and the building blocks are constant.

The Process of Selling

Brief Explanation

• 1. Opening Stage: Prospecting, Introductions & Greetings. Used to find agreeable footing and allows each person time to become comfortable with the other. This is the "Sell Yourself" phase where you and your prospective client take time to become acquainted. Take as much time as you need to become friendly with one another, build trust and goodwill.
• 2. Information Stage: Qualifying, Educating & getting Feedback from your prospect. The information stage is used to discover customer needs, explaining your product features, benefits, discovering the customer's ability to pay. A two way exchange of information takes place in the information stage.
• 3. Presentation Stage: Confirmation, Validating, Positive Feedback, & Test Close. The presentation stage is used to perpetuate information given in step two while asking summary test closes. This step also includes Justification, Rationalization, more Positive Feedback, and Test Close Questions.
• 4. Closing Stage: Satisfaction Surveying & signing of documents, Follow-up, and Referral Prospecting and Gathering Testimonials

I believe this structure is the simplest explanation of the sales process. There are selling programs that may break it down into many more phases, however it is important to recognize selling in its simplest format. I assure you that using it will give you not only the order you must follow to sell, but the benefit of the confidence needed to interact with customers with a structured plan regardless of what they are purchasing. Your immediate benefit is the ability to make a planned, confident presentation that will put customers at ease when dealing with you. While structure equals success in selling, confidence equals trust. I learned long ago to make a plan and work the plan and gain the trust of the client.

Second level building blocks include action on your part. It is important since each part of the process is designed to allow you to segue from one step to the next; making a natural progression as you go through your presentation. You cannot go from step one to step three using the above plan. You must take them in order. Of course consumers are not trained to follow the process and quite often will jump ahead with excitement, so you will have to control the situation as new questions or actions are introduced. Fortunately, because of etiquette, customers are fairly neutral when in your place of business, so the action required beyond learning the process is controlling the sales process. Control wrest with you.

You may wonder why you should stop if a customer shows they want to buy immediately to follow a process? It is for the reason that they will be unfulfilled at some later point and cancel the order or feel embittered. They may get buyers remorse. Don't worry about losing a sale if someone seems to want to jump ahead and you momentarily hold them back. They will still buy, but be satisfied in their minds that they bought the correct merchandise, from the right person, because you took the time to explain everything while taking all the steps along the way. This allows us to complete the entire process with a customer that understands what they are buying, what it costs, and when it will be delivered without misunderstandings.

You must plan for patrons who are off the game plan. As example, if someone were to ask you the price before you are prepared to give it, you would simply say, "I was just coming to that, but I wanted to tell you about this "THINGAMAGIG" first," and continue your presentation as structured. If you were to stop and give the price the customers mind would start to wander and once your customers mind starts to wander your controlled presentation is over with your customer leaving your store to complete the process at the next store. You see if you don't complete the sales process the next salesperson will. Complete the process and never give up control of the presentation. Interruptions should not present a problem since most products have many interesting features integrated into them and most customers will be polite while in your place of business.

You may find that explaining a feature will generate questions about the benefit so the client gets back on track as you move through your presentation. Stick to features and benefits early in the presentation, making mental notes on points of agreement as you go. This will set up several closing scenarios later in the presentation, such as the Assumptive Close or the Benjamin Franklin Close to name two.

Making a good presentation necessitates learning the intricacies, nuances, and options your products feature. There is no way around it, product knowledge is important as it shows your competence and allows your client to trust what you tell them. It is helpful if you own your product when possible, ownership gives further insight in the value of your product. If you are new to the product or if you don't have years of experience with it, you will need to study your product so you can make an effective presentation. A planned presentation method works no matter what product you sell. It is the control structure and map that gives order over a course of action. Product knowledge is the power that moves you in the right direction.

Using technique and an organized presentation you take away the, "ship without a rudder" drifting that often occurs as customers ask questions. Let the less experienced and untrained wing it. You are in sales to make money and presenting with complete product knowledge will help you do that. The benefit to you is that with product knowledge you gain the trust of the client. The benefit to the client is they have found someone they can trust with their purchasing decision who is giving them correct information. This win-win situation benefits both parties in the transaction.

Since we are making planned, structured presentations, we have to be aware when something is amiss. Your customer will give you clues by their comments and questions where they are in the process. You have to be aware of what is asked and question why this is being asked at this point. Questioning is important! We want questions to occur naturally in the sales process. When they occur unnaturally we need to be suspicious of why and aware of when they are being asked. For instance it would be normal if you were making cold calls if someone asked if you had such and such. It would not be normal if they asked your delivery terms before they knew anything about your product. Such a question should be a warning that they have purchased or in the process of purchasing something similar to your product but are having trouble getting delivery or want to confirm they paid the lowest price for what they have already purchased. The chance may be they have not purchased yet but you must learn what they know before you can continue.

You have to know where in the process they are at the moment so you can capitalize on the competitions weakness of not closing the deal. Because you have learned the process you also know delivery questions would not be asked before the Information Stage (step two) at the earliest. It will be your signal that something is out of the ordinary. An unnatural action of your customer is a signal that you must gain other information. So ask probing questions to better qualify your potential customer. This is the reason we have a structured plan. Not only as our course of action, but also as our method of detection.

As you delve into the process you'll become better at gauging clients. Like a thermometer tells temperature we must be able to take our clients temperature as we advance the process of selling. A thermometer never goes directly from zero to one hundred. It must hit every number along the way. This is natural selling; bringing your customers from zero to boiling hot. If they start at seventy-five degrees then you probe to find out why they are at seventy-five degrees.