Sales Tools

Happy New Year!

If you were asked to name the three most powerful tools in selling, what would you include? Please explain WHY after each.

Please base your answers only on your own success and/or your own experience--not that of others or from something you heard or read.

__________________
Gary A. Boye
Senior Editor,
Selling Journal/SalesPractice

Not knowing WHAT you mean by a sales tool, I'll wait till you CLARIFY what you're looking for...

Phone, Car, and Computer.... the reasons are obvious... IF that is what you're looking for in "tools".

Much Aloha...

I would expect that almost all answers would be derived from what each member interprets "tools" to mean. Therefore, Phone, Car, and Computer is as readily acceptable as intangibles that some members might view as tools. For that reason, it should not be necessary to clarify. Your response was most welcome.

Anybody else?

Perseverance - gotta be willing and able to accept a "no" and keep moving forward.

Ingenuity - creative thinking and a willingness to share & use outside information that may seem (at least on the surface) to be inapplicable.

Sincerity - less than sincere is unacceptable today, and customers have too many options. If you can't be sincere - about your product/service as the right solution, and about the needs of the customer - remarket your resume...

While I agree with you that these are necessary, I'd consider them personality/character traits... not tools.

Much Aloha...

I agree - they are traits. Unfortunately, they lie dormant and therefore, like a tool, must be used intentionally.

I have encountered very few who are able to persevere, to be creative (ingenious) or to be sincere without some level of conscious effort. For some, these things may come more easily, but intentional and consistent application will make all the difference.

Everything we do in life, takes conscious effort, take away your heart beating and breathing. Perserverence and sincerity are either part of your makeup or can be learned. Like a diet, it has to become habit. You quit smoking by developing a habit, and if you consider them to be tools, then you have to use them consistently by habit.

As far as sincerity goes, I don't think you should have to force yourself to be "SINCERE". I think honesty is a natural tendency for most and sincerity in my understanding of the word is a similar trait.

I DO have pinned in my Briefcase a old manila folder that I have in Green Colors underlined in Red, Smile, Be Sincere, Take the First Step.

I don't know if it became habit, or I followed what I thought were choice words from Mark Victor Hansen and adopted them for myself, but it's been 40 years now I've had that damn thing pinned in a briefcase...

Aloha... Tom

Awesome stuff, Tom. I love the insights, and the alternative viewpoint, as it's forcing me to reconsider. Though I am inclined to stand firm on the idea that without practice and intentional use, these three traits (perseverance, ingenuity and sincerity) will atrophy and die, I also agree with your take that forced sincerity is of little or no use at all. It's in those instances that I would recommend re-marketing one's resume...

Continued success!
Brad

Gentlemen, so that we do not get hung up on interpretations, it's OK for the word "tools" to strike different chords among different folks.

One of the (unfortunately) too often ignored aspects of sales education consists of knowing the distinctive and varying mind patterns of those people who make their living in sales. To know more about them, and how various individuals interpret and think, is to know more about the various types we compete against.

To learn about sales without learning about salespeople only half prepares us.

So please let's accept the interpretations of others.

Thank you.... on your other topic... creativity... this is one that I BELIEVE you need to work at. When I think of how people have used that word to describe others, it's usually because they have done something different, bold, or possibly even outrageous.

I think above all things, to be creative, as you suggest, DOES require constant conscious effort, attention, study, and help from others you might associate with.

You hear some creative ideas on here from time to time, and though some of these things might sound off the wall occasionally, trying everything at least once will at least give you a new perspective and as you see how it works, you can then modify it.

When you talk about creativity, tell me how does one become creative. What process would you employ to be different? Where do you draw your ideas from? How do you measure creative worth in an idea?

Thanks in advance... Tom