2011 WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO THE PROFESSIONAL SALES PERSON?

Today, I met a great sales person for lunch he just happens to be one of my best friends. I have known him for more than 10 years and we have collaborated on some greatest business sales. He understands the game of selling as well as anyone I have taught. My friend, a great student of the 9 process steps of selling principles. He was inquiring as to the future outcome of selling in 2011. To us the game of selling is both an art and a science with a little magic sprinkled on top. My friend made a statement and then he asked me a question. The statement was “I finished the year of 2010 at 152% of my required sales plan, but in November of 2010 I was only 51% year-to-date of my sales goal. The 101% push came in December with a prospect I had worked on closing for more than two and one half years”. His question to me was “Will I have to work under that same presser conditions in 2011?” By that he meant will the sales cycles continue to be as long and as completed in 2011. My friend was reflecting on the days gone by in the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s when the sales cycle 60 to 120 days long or at times shorter. My statement to him was; we are in a newly improved and embellished world market an international world market with a more knowledgeable buyer, with new more well-informed supplier, with more aggregative pricing on premium products lines and great after care services. What ever your product or service, be it English apples to German zinc, selling has become a mastered skill. The sales person with the best skills gets the golden ring. You no longer get the sale because you are the part of the good-o-boy network. Skills separate loser from winners every day of the week. Your networking skills, prospecting skills, probing skills, appointment setting skills, interview skills, presentation skills, proposal skills, close skills and follow up skills must be razor-sharp. If you want to work smart in 2011 each of the listed skills should be on par or above par. The answer to my friend’s questions is sharpening two skills each day. Read a book on a skill, watch a video on a skill, and review with another sales person a skill, and learn the new and improved way these skills are being applied. If you do this, sharpen your skills daily, at the end of the year you will have 730 new lesions under your belt that will put you in the top 95% of all sales people. More sales people in sales 5 year or more never retrain themselves they just move to the next job. Don’t job hop sharpen your knife. A sharp knife cuts the red tape in the selling process. A sharp knife shortens negotiation time. A sharp knife separates the fat/lies from the lean/true. A shape knife penetrates hard surfaces and gets to the core of the problem. A sharp knife cuts closing time in half or in fourths. A sharp knife eliminates BS and will help you spot it very early in the selling cycle.