No-Fear Sales

A Real-World Guide to Customer-Focused Sales Success

Crystal D. Smith

• Publisher: Bravier Publishing Group
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780578766331
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

A career in sales offers a unique opportunity for the salesperson to determine their own salary! But even though hundreds of companies are posting sales positions, many people are too afraid to step into the role. Or perhaps you are new to sales and you haven't quite found your path to closing more sales each month.

No-Fear Sales: A Real-World Guide to Customer-Focused Sales Success is a compilation of sales basics and professional coaching strategies that I have used to help my sales managers achieve their sales goals and ultimately increase their income.

If you are considering a career in sales or perhaps you've started a sales position or business and need a roadmap to the sales process, this book will give you the foundation you need to overcome your fears and sell with confidence!

INTRODUCTION

Real-World Coaching

In 2016, after reading five sales books in one year to sharpen my skills as a sales director, I became aware of one thing that was lacking: real-world application. There was great advice and there were stories but, as a sales director, I found that the books were great for a theoretical knowledge of sales and I understood it because, at the time, I had been selling for over a decade. But I couldn’t help thinking that these books would not have helped me when I was just starting out in sales because they were written with a premise that you are already selling, just not to your full potential. They assumed that you knew your product but there was something about your sales style, process, or outlook that needed an adjustment.

I was looking for a book that would teach what I was preaching to my sales team. I wanted something that not only helped them rethink their attitude about sales and customer service, but also gave them the sales steps and call scripts to get started. To be fair, there are hundreds if not thousands of sales books that have been published and I only read five of them that year. I did, however, select the top five books according to ratings on Google, Amazon and the New York Times Best-Seller lists for the category and I highly recommend them if you are looking to sharpen your skills as a sales professional. But I concluded that if those were the best books on the subject then I was going to have to write my own sales guide for those just getting started in sales. This book is the result of that quest.

No-Fear Sales is about selling in real life, in the real world. It is a conversation held between you and me, a sales director who has been trained by the top brands in my industry and has trained sales managers from barely making 10 percent of their goal to exceeding their sales goals and getting bonus checks nearly every quarter. I say “nearly” because things can happen to affect your sales that are totally out of your control: cancellations, catastrophic events, and pandemics. No one can predict the future, right?

The global crisis of COVID-19 in 2020, where the Coronavirus caused millions of viral infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths, proved that nothing is certain. In fact, not even taxes were on schedule as the annual April 15^th deadline was pushed back due to the Federal government closing offices during a national quarantine. As countries around the globe began to understand the correlation of health to economy, what became clear is that there will always be a need for sales. Even as sales teams were being furloughed and laid off during a sharp economic downturn as a result of the need for social distancing to stop the spread of the virus, the top sales teams and professionals were able to outlast their counter parts in their jobs because they were too valuable. Sales is everywhere! There will always be a need for people to purchase and there will always be a need for someone to help someone make that purchase.

There will always be companies looking for salespeople. After an economic downturn sales jobs are typically the first to return. The United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted in 2018 that employment in sales occupations would maintain 2018 levels through 2028 and that demand for sales workers in service and wholesale sectors will continue due to the critical need for building and maintaining customer bases for business. The Bureau of Labor also predicts a drop in employment growth in the retail sector (cashiers) due to an increase in Ecommerce. ¹

What does that mean to you? It means that those who know how to build a base of loyal clients and who genuinely care about creating benefit to their clients and their company will always be able to make money. If a salesperson presents a high-value to their department or company, in the form of revenue or relationships, you can carve a recession-proof niche for yourself in almost any organization. If you master basic sales techniques, your own business can prosper even in times of economic uncertainty.

This book is my offering up to anyone who is contemplating a career in sales or anyone who is unsure of where to start in sales. I believe that with the right mindset, an understanding of the foundation of the sales process, and practice, this book can help you become skilled in finding new business, help you to build long-lasting relationships, and ultimately help you achieve your sales goals.

More experienced sales pros may find that much of the information in this book is similar to the information you get through your company’s sales training. Sure, it is! But here’s the thing: if we all retained everything we learned during training for years and years, then every salesperson would consistently hit their goals. But as you start to build your clientele, and your closing ratio increases, it is necessary to get a refresh of your sales knowledge so that you don’t fall victim to “burnout.”

Burnout happens when you have been selling the same product the same way and you feel like there are no more new tricks to learn. As a new account manager, you may find quick success as the sheer energy of meeting new clients and closing your first few deals radiates from your personality and causes every client you interact with to enjoy doing business with you. Your sales may be as high as your energy level. But after a while, you may start to experience challenges. Your follow up suffers because your client base is too deep. You can’t trace them all on a regular basis, so you focus only on the “important” or “easy-to-deal-with” clients. Sales can start to decline as the next new salesperson woos your clients away with dedicated time and attention. Burnout can make you feel like the only solution is to find a new company to sell for, a new product to sell, or even get out of sales altogether.

I’ve been there. And what these last twenty years of selling has taught me is that everyone can use a refresher. Investing the time in reviewing the steps of the sales process and taking inventory of what you were doing to be successful when you began and then what you are not doing now is the first place to start to re-energize your sales efforts.

This book is my offering to anyone who is considering starting a career in sales or is at the beginning of their sales career. I believe that with the right mindset, an understanding of the foundation of the sales process and practice, this book can help start you on a path to become skilled in finding new business, help you to build long-lasting relationships, and ultimately help you achieve your sales goals.

My vision for you is that by the time you reach the end of this book, you will feel more confident in those first 90 days of starting a new sales position. You will be able to find, qualify and build relationships with target clients. With the tools presented in this book, as a novice sales rep, you will be able to make an instant impact in your role, even if the training offered by your organization doesn’t begin right away.

For the veteran sales professional, I believe that this book will breathe new life into your sales efforts and routines. Your sales senses will be sharpened, and you will be inspired to approach new and existing clients with a refreshed perspective. Your clients will notice the difference in your service, your superiors will notice the difference in your productivity, and you will notice the difference in your pocket!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PART I: MINDSET

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE (PMA)

Most sales professionals can agree that whether you are starting your very first sales job or taking over a sales leadership role with years of experience under your belt, there is one thing that your superiors will be looking for within your first 90 days and that is quantifiable results!

Every manager or director realizes that in a new sales role, you will need training, experience with the product and face time with clients in order to build a customer base. But after 90 days, grace runs out and you are expected to produce. As you discover or re-discover the proven tools and tips in this book, you should be able to make considerable headway in your sales role by closing new deals or creating a pipeline of potential clients for your company within your first three months.

If the words “results” or “produce” cause a cold chill down your spine, then keep reading. This chapter is distinctly for you. Being successful in sales doesn’t begin with the client. Sales success begins the minute you wake up in the morning and with the way you view yourself and your product. If you start your day with an attitude that says you can’t win and your product is hard to sell, you are defeated before you begin because your thoughts are powerful. Negative thinking can cause you to attract the results you don’t want. Thankfully, that principle works in the reverse. If you exude an energy that says, “I win and my product is awesome,” then people will be more inclined to invest time in learning about what you have to offer.

This is not intended to be an oversimplification of the principle of positive mental attitude. A positive frame of mind is merely a daily choice that individuals intentionally make that determines the outcome of their day. If we dive deeper into the idea of positivity you will see how critical positive thinking is to your sales success. Mastering your thoughts toward a positive outcome is a principal that has been taught since the days of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. ²

The way you feel about yourself is reflected in your daily habits and behaviors. We are constantly informing the world around us about our self-image and values via our conversation and behaviors. You might say our actions speak louder than our words. It is hard, for example, to take a co-worker seriously who is trying to advise you on healthy eating habits if they smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. Your first reaction may be to write them off as a hypocrite. How can someone effectively advise you on healthy choices while simultaneously making an unhealthy choice? Even if the advice is good you might not listen because they aren’t credible. In the same way, it is difficult to believe that what you are being asked to purchase will have a positive impact on you if the salesperson has a dejected tone in his voice and an unhappy facial expression.

As human beings, nature has taught us to think negatively in order to survive. In primitive times, this tendency for negative thinking kept us safe because we were always watching our backs with the fear of being attacked by a wild animal or a competing tribe. This fear kept our eyes, ears and minds sharp and we stayed alive to fight another day. In modern times and in the absence of tribal spies or saber-tooth cats, that instinct has led us to develop a way of thinking that keeps our minds searching for a problem until we find one.³ This survival mode can serve a good purpose where there is definite danger. But where the threats are imaginary or contrived, it can cause a state of apathy that perpetuates the idea that if you don’t expect anything good to happen, then you won’t ever be disappointed. This is counterproductive to sales success because a key skill in sales is the ability to be able to bounce back after meeting rejection.

It is your positive mental attitude that will sustain you through the less than glorious moments in sales. Staying positive keeps you from taking it personally when a prospect hangs up on you before you can finish stating the name of your company. It may sting for a minute, but...

Table of contents

• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE (PMA)
• ENERGY AND HEALTH