Everyone praises the feats of both Armstrong and Aldrin as the first humans to set foot on the moon, but what about the third guy, and what has that got to do with teamwork?
The third person who went to the moon with Armstrong and Aldrin was a guy called Mike Collins; he was the one that was floating around the moon in the space capsule alone while the other two set down on the moon. In fact, he went around the moon twenty six times, solo.
Lessons about team work
While the other two were down on the moon he had to fly his craft round and round the moon. If he pressed the wrong button or knocked the wrong lever he would leave both Armstrong and Aldrin stranded, to finally run out of air and die. Fortunately that did not happen and history was made.
A couple of great lessons here; the first is that you want to make sure that whoever is on your team you have absolute faith in them to do the job; and secondly you have selected the right person.
It’s a great time to review your team and see who would stand by you or would help you as the year continues to unfold.
Good selling.
Mike
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
Off the back of my latest vlog above, I want to talk about stories. Stories that motivate your clients to buy.
I have certainly over the years been taught to sell products; every sales process, every close- you name it, I have used them, even when I knew that my client should not have bought the product.
I don’t feel too good about that now, but at the time I thought it was about me, and not them. I just wanted to make lots of money and then move to the next sale.
Bang bang…. Next one, bank the money now and screw the customer!
Beliefs Matter
It changed for me was when I met my mate Rob Hall and observed his drive (and ability) to create belief in clients.
He lived every day with the belief that he could climb Mt Everest.
His belief is actually what made him such a success.
How do you do that? How do you create belief in your clients, which results in them wanting to come with you, and back you and what you sell?
One Thing
I work on helping sales teams find out the one thing that they sell which will ensure their clients to believe them.
I have a detailed workshop on this, but here in this blog, I want you to think about that one thing that makes you unique. Ask yourself: What is the one thing that I can do to get my clients to believe about my product or service?
Mt Everest and an Ice Axe
Rob Hall and I had to convince a huge multinational company to sponsor us to the top of Mt Everest. We had to create one thing that no else could do.
If we convinced them to believe that this was possible, then they would buy our idea.
That’s the key message, and it can be done through storytelling.
Live from the Top Mt Everest.
Our story was to get them to believe that their product would ‘walk with us to the top of Mt Everest, and we would do that using satellite phones broadcast live to 4 million people’ and, that it was only attainable through us.
They believed us! They bought us and went along for the journey.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
Clients that are confused do nothing. The challenge for the salesperson is his/her own familiarity with their product. Salespeople presume that their knowledge and understanding of their product is also in his/her customers.
That just isn’t so. If you think that your customer knows everything about your product, you might be mistaken. The secret is, you have to make it simple. A simple proposition to buy.
2. Unable to pay the price.
That’s why sometimes it’s important to get really clear on ‘would they buy your product or service on installment?’
If you’re selling anything that’s even slightly overpriced for the market, you can always get sales by making your financing attractive. Financial offers with more options.
3. Bad timing.
If we could control the timing and marketing of our products and services, we would be very rich people. Sometimes an irresistible offer, easy payment plans etc. are simply not going to help the timing of the sales your product. Sometimes people don’t want to buy for lots of reasons. So, what’s the answer to that?
Firstly, you have to be continuously, constantly, frequently in front of the same well-selected clients, day in, day out, week in, week out. And secondly, you’re right there at the right time.
4. Competition.
Competition can have a real effect on the way you present your product or service.
If your client has a well-respected, long-term relationship with a vendor, sometimes that’s more difficult to sell against.
This can be short circuited by offering different types of products that the competition doesn’t have, alongside the products that our competition does have.
The idea is to move the client away from comparing you to the product they have already got. That, in my view, helps you overcome some of the challenges you have when you’re selling against the competition.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
Having been married for quite some time, and to the same person AJH, I have over time learned a very valuable lesson in husband and wife relations.
Some may agree or disagree and even if you take the guidance of John Grey’s book, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, that proposes that indeed we are different, I think that in sales then it does run true in most cases.
There has of course been a lot of study about this subject from experts with wisdom from thousands of research studies, far more qualified than I ever could be.
I do however listen when AJH says that women could teach men a lot about sales.
Here is her take on it, and she does know, being in retail for 20 years in the interior design business.
Think and Feel
AJH has been a retailer for over 25 years and specialises in interior design.
Her view is that guys “think” and women “feel”. (Not all women) women, in general, respond on a ‘feeling level.
She says that a question such as “How do you feel about the cushion” gets a better response than, “What do you think about that cushion.”
As a salesperson, thinking about how you phrase questions when working with both men and women might just pay dividends.
AJH’s final comment is that women are better at picking up salespeople’s BS detector.
That is another article all by itself.
What do you think? We would love to hear your comments.
Good selling.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
In this week’s blog, I talk about the importance of understanding the basic human needs we all have.
In addition, what it means to you as a salesperson, if you discover a client’s wants and needs.
My view is that unless you do discover the needs and wants of your clients then getting a sale is harder, often blocked, and as a result, your sales will not move forward.
In this blog, we talk about needs, one in particular, how to understand it, and how to use it to dig deep into the core of your client’s problem.
Certainty/Comfort
I think the most important human need is the need for Certainty.
It’s our desire to feel in control and to know what’s coming next, so we can feel secure.
It’s the desire for basic comfort, the need to avoid pain and stress, and also to create a good outcome.
Our need for certainty is a survival mechanism.
It affects the level of risk we’re willing to take in life—in our jobs, in our business and finally, in our relationships.
The higher the need for certainty, the less risk you’ll be willing to take, or emotionally bear.
By the way, this is where your real “risk tolerance” comes from.
Knowing that, let me ask you a question
What and how does this relate to sales?
What does your client need to feel certain about your product?
What devices and assurances can you give them about your product or service?
What certainty can they get from you versus the certainty from working with others?
What risk do you take away from them when they buy your product?
Even though the product that is similar to yours is inferior or of lower quality than yours, why do they buy?
If you can use that as part of your sales presentation, you move towards helping to meet your client’s basic human need.
Good selling.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
The leads are weak is a well-known phrase from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin.
The movie is an examination of the machinations behind the scenes at a real estate office. In one scene Jack Lemmon, after working all evening on the phones trying to sell real estate, says with a rather large amount of frustration “The leads are weak”
Only to be lambasted and humiliated by Alec Baldwin in a scene watched over 4 million times on Youtube alone.
Our excuses.
While Jack Lemmon may have thought that the leads are weak, what are some of the excuses that you make up when you go to call a client or visit an advertiser?
Here are some I have heard.
He or she won’t buy our product. They tell me they tried us once and they were just not interested.
Our prices are too high, and the other guys are always discounting to get the business. It happens all the time.
The other company has a better product than me.
My sales manager doesn’t understand the business, it’s different now; she never comes out with me to see for herself.
The client list is weak; I always seem to get the clients that do not buy, while the other sales people have all the best clients.
I have been set a certain part of town to service and build business, and to be honest it’s not great. The prospects are just not there.
I do not get a compensation plan that rewards my efforts and it’s not fair I work as hard as the other guy.
Yes, the leads are weak, and selling wasn’t meant to be easy, and life is tough. Selling anything in this changing world of sales and consumer choice is difficult.
My question is:
What beliefs do you have to shed to move forward in your sales career?
Good selling.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
