Neil Keltgen has over 16 years of sales experience and is the Director of Customer Engagement for Liberty Business Systems. These are his sales tips.
#1 Believe or Leave
Sales is a transfer of belief from one person to the next. If you don’t believe in your product or service, you’re not going to be successful. This also goes for your team. If you don’t believe in the mission, vision, or leadership, it’s time to leave otherwise you will be hurting the team. The best salespeople are huge advocates for their products, services, and organization.
#2 Smile More
You can be a miserable person and be a pretty good accountant. That doesn’t work for sales. It is the most important profession to have a happy mindset because doing so directly affects the level of success you will have. In my opinion, the key to happiness is to stop looking for it. It’s not coming on the other side of a bigger house, a better job, or a big sale. Be grateful and have perspective in the present and realize everything is actually really good.
#3 Don’t Follow Your Passion, Be Passionate
Rarely do you become passionate if you suck at something. However, usually sales does not go well when you first start. Give it time. You usually find out you’re selling something other than a product. You’re selling an experience, time, or just a better way of doing something. When you get better and learn more, you become passionate.
#4 Protect Your Energy
Daily habits are so important because they will determine whether or not you have the energy to perform.
- Get better sleep. Go to bed at the same bedtime and wake up at the same time, even on weekends.
- Put down the energy drink and replace it with water.
- Eat less processed food and more protein.
- Move your body—go for a walk for your next meeting.
These will all help create more energy. Once you have it, you must protect it. No person or circumstance can take it away
#5 Become Unattached to the Outcome
Don’t cling to the outcome of a sale. Let it go, and who knows, the universe might send you something even better.
#6 The Man in The Mirror
Stop blaming everybody else when you lose a sale. It’s so easy to blame the customer or outside forces, but 99% of the time, it’s your fault. That’s great because that’s a lot easier to fix.
#7 Love Problems
If the customer doesn’t have a problem, you don’t have a sale. So, love all problems. If you have hard decisions and big problems, congratulations, you’re doing big things.
#8 Use Social Media, Don’t Get Used by Social
A personal brand is so important today, especially since attention is the new currency. Be careful, social media is a double-edged sword—you can either be the news or the person watching. Most of us are just watching and watching doesn’t usually get us very far in sales.
#9 They Don’t Have to Like You to Buy From You
I buy things all the time from places I don’t like. Take Amazon for example. I’d much rather buy local. It’s just so easy and frictionless to buy from Amazon so that creates value. Be an expert in what you do. Be fast in your response. Deliver what you promise. Do that consistently and it would be hard for them not to like you.
#10 If You’re Not First, You’re Last
It’s all about timing, that’s why the fortune is in the follow-up. Hence you follow up like the liquid terminator, you’re first in the customer’s mind. So, when they finally decide they want to try a new service or product, they think of you first because of the last email and voicemail you sent. The customers’ needs change at different times, and you have to make sure you’re first in their minds when they need your solution.
#11 Discipline is Better Than Motivation
If you’re going to wait to feel like cold calling, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. Nobody feels like getting up early and working out. Nobody feels like having a tough conversation. Nobody feels like prospecting. The discipline of doing hard things daily creates habits that make you unstoppable. When you keep commitments to yourself to do the hard things you get confident and that creates motivation. Action kills all fear.
So go!
