Everything you need to know about getting started in Professional Selling.

INTRODUCTION

I imagined when I enrolled in a Business Course at Charles Sturt University that Sales would be a part of the curriculum. But it wasn’t. In fact, the subject is absent from most business and marketing courses including MBA programs.

If you accept the idea that ‘nothing happens until something is sold’ and that business is about making things and selling things, and that everything else is secondary, then this absence makes no sense.

When I asked one of my professors to explain the absence of Sales, he told me that if I really wanted to study sales, I could pay for a two-week evening course somewhere.

The truth is you could say the same thing about a lot of what the university taught, but no one was suggesting we go and learn strategy, or economics or communication, at night school.

The effects of this omission are catastrophic.

Many supposedly well-educated people in the business world are clueless about one of its most vital functions, the means by which you actually generate revenue.

When I became Head of Training, Education and Development with Westpac bank in the late 80s I decided we needed to teach sales to all our key frontline people, particularly those commercial managers who were dealing with business people all day long and if I was going to manage this project for the bank then we’d better start Sales training me.

This is when I met my long-time friend and mentor Robert E Johnson (Bob) from Greenville, South Carolina in the U S of A.

Bob was the General Manager of the Dale Carnegie organisation in Greenville and over time taught me everything I needed to know – and the skills I needed - to begin my journey as a professional salesman – and in time to be recognised as an accredited Master Sales Trainer.

Bob’s programs were used throughout the Bank and people still talk about them today…as life changing and absolutely magnificent when it comes to accepting, embracing, and applying selling skills to our careers, our business and our everyday life.

So here I am now – having had my own businesses for 30 plus years and having coached, trained and mentored over 5000 business owners and managers and the members of 83 accounting firms…at last count.

This has helped them to:

• Improve their business.
• Grow their sales.
• Increase their profits.
• Gain more control over their teams and operations and
• Inject greater harmony and balance into their lives.

They’ve also learnt - to do all this successfully they too must:

1. accept that nothing happens until something is sold.
2. embrace the idea of a winning sales and service culture within their business and take the necessary steps to learn and master the art and science of selling.
3. apply what they’ve learnt and continue to learn about sales - every minute of every day.

Here’s a home truth for you:

People know how to make the thing they sell, but most don't know how to sell the thing they make”.

…and that’s why many people get into trouble in business.

Businesses don’t fail- people just give up. One of the reasons they give up is because they’re just not selling enough of the thing they make.

Selling is not a sideshow or an annoying add-on to what people see as the real functions of business-like finance, operations, marketing, management etc…

Selling is business - in gorgeous Technicolour.

Richard Perry, the founder of Perry Capital and one of the most successful investors in America, puts it very simple for all of us: “It’s all about sales. If I have sales, I can create profit.”

Selling is persuading someone to do something they would not otherwise have done. If they would ‘otherwise’ have done it – then they don’t need you.

Selling is the catalyst that turns potential buyers into buyers.

It’s a process. It’s a form of leadership. Its education. Its helping. It’s sharing. Its removing ‘pain’ and providing ‘pleasure.’

Our award – winning Sales factor course for professional people, selling professional services in a professional manner is presented in 12 modules and covers three broad areas of knowledge:

1. Your Sales Mind-Set
2. Your Sales Skillset and
3. Your Sales Toolset

What this means is we’re going to show you how to create the ‘right’ mind-set to give you the best chance of success in sales.

We’re going to walk you through the skill set you will want to develop and finally we will give you a toolset to use to identify, attract, engage, get and keep a client or customer.

If you’ve read books on selling before or listened to ‘sales experts,’ you’re of being pumped with hot air – and told how you must ‘come alive’, be full of enthusiasm, and dominate the world around you - all the things that may not be a part of your basic nature.

Well, this course isn’t anything like that. In fact, this course was written to refute many clichés of selling that have been accepted without question for years.

The stereotyped image of the ‘born salesman’ is a mistake. You don’t have to remake your personality and become super-enthusiastic, super-aggressive, or domineering.

Not only are those traits not necessary, but they are also a hindrance to making sales.

And you won’t have to develop that uncanny ability to come up with the right answer at the right time. That super-human knack of having the brilliant flash of insight that is so prevalent in books on selling.

This course can truly revolutionize your selling career or whatever position you hold that inevitably involves selling-but only because it will show you that you no longer need to waste your time developing skills that are of no value to a salesperson.

For example, here are some of the points that will be made during the course:

1. Contrary to the accepted mythology, enthusiasm is not an essential sales trait. Used incorrectly it destroys more sales than it creates.
2. Positive thinking – while helpful is not critical to success. Being real and authentic will help you create more sales.
3. Sales success does not come from convincing people to buy things they don’t want. “a person convinced against their will – is of the same opinion-still”.
4. The salesperson who always has an answer for every objection is also probably plugging along with a very low income.
5. Extroverts don’t make the best salespeople; they are invariably outsold by introverts.
6. To be a good salesperson, you don’t have to be a ‘smooth talker.’
7. Another all-time sales fallacy is the statement “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”. When the going gets tough, I usually take a holiday.
8. The desire to be able to motivate others is unrealistic. Great salespeople know they can’t motivate people to buy – so they don’t try.

Having said that – there are many ideas and principles that are essential and work exceedingly well.

Many of these principles are self-evident and I expect you will be able to apply them simply and easily.

For example - If you take the time to understand why people buy things, it will open a whole new world of understanding for you. It will make it possible for you to increase your sales volume significantly and get more people, buying more – more often.

We’ll discuss ideas that will help you understand what happens in every sales

interview - even when you don’t get the order… and these same ideas and principles will improve your relationships with other business associates, with your friends and family- simply because you’ll understand them so much better.

And what may be most important of all, you will enjoy your work much more than you ever have before. No longer will you be afflicted with stomach aches from the uncomfortable task of trying to be something you’re not.

You won’t have to remake your personality or become a fast-talking extrovert.

This is the painless way to become a good salesperson, to influence others, to become more in demand-without remaking your personality, without becoming forceful, aggressive, or eloquent.

You can relax and be yourself; you can be honest and friendly, and you will be thanked by the buyer for what you have done for them.

Having said that I’m not going to guarantee your success.

I’m not going to tell you that you can’t miss- because that would be unrealistic. It all depends on you and your willingness:

• To accept selling as a vital function of business
• Embrace selling and do your best to learn all you can – and then some.
• Apply the ideas and principles in the course in your day-to-day activities.

I just read where young Melbourne Storm NRL player, Josh Ado-Carr, arguably the fastest player in the league, says “the coaching staff at the Melbourne Storm have turned me into the player I've always dreamed to be. Talent can only get you so far. At the Storm you've got to work hard, and it's shown in my football for the last couple of years.

Talent + Effort = Skill. Skill + Effort = Performance…

So, if you’re ready to take your talent and put some effort in and you have a strong desire to move to the next level – in all areas of your life then this is how the Sales factor course will help you:

• Discover the truth about selling and how to close the gap in your sales education and start to see more people, buying more – more often from you
• Feel what’s it like to take your confidence in selling to new heights and get more ‘yeses’
• Find out if you’re like most people who make the same ‘common’ mistakes in selling – over and over again.
• How to convert your message into money by understanding all we’re doing in sales is helping people make a buying decision
• Discover how you can quickly and easily have passion, purpose, and profits in your business without having to do it all yourself.
• Discover the ‘secret’ buried deep in the Sales factor and begin using it immediately to improve cash-flow, boost profits and create greater harmony and balance in your life.
• Imagine a simple method that creates a never-ending stream of potential clients – wanting to do business with you.
• How to create your ‘irresistible offer’ and watch as your enquiry rate goes ‘through the roof.’
• How to shorten your sales cycle and close more deals
• Learn three simple methods to handle any objection – especially price and competition.
• Become your own sales manager and only count what really matters...
  …and much, much, more

Okay – enough talk – time for action.

The first Module …Discover the TRUTH about Selling

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THE GROWTH FACTOR BUSINESS SYSTEM

for holding on to what you’ve got and attracting more of the same ...

“ A business improvement and growth system for ALL business owners.”

There’s a common thread that runs through those few businesses who are just bursting out the top - all the time.

They’re meeting and exceeding goals.

They’re realising their visions and aspirations.

They’re always over and above expectations….and these robust, energised, continually successful businesses seem to have a secret. And frankly, we have studied it, we have gone to school, we have consulted, we’ve done everything we can to find the formula that says – “We will be one of these businesses in this very small, select group that achieves perpetual success.”

The secret, the clue, the common thread is simply how you treat people.

It’s how you treat your fellow man, and how you treat your team members and how you treat your clients, your regulators, the public, your audiences, your communities. How you value the worth of an individual, how you bring the human factor into real importance and not just a statement you make in your ‘wish list’ of strategic objectives.’

If you treat people with respect, then you are well on your way to earning respect…which is what every business leader must have to even have half a chance of becoming successful.

If people don’t respect you, it follows they usually don’t like you either and therefore they won’t trust you….and trust as you know is the one thing that changes everything.

Without trust – you may as well go home.

So, if you want to improve your retention rate and remember a 5% improvement in retention will lead to a 25- 60% increase in profits and if you want to grow your revenue exponentially and all of this makes sense to you then a closer look at THE GROWTH FACTOR BUSINESS SYSTEM for ALL business owners is an essential NEXT STEP...