If you want to succeed at sales, my one piece of advice to a newcomer would be a small list;
1. Get organized; make lists everyday (besides it feels great to cross the things off as you do them) Get a day planner and use it. Get a good hardbound notebook and keep notes on you customers. Keep your desk neat.
2. Learn how to look things up; Everybody concentrates on becoming knowledgeable. It’s a great idea of course, but it’s very hard to know most of anything much less everything about your products. If you learn how to get the information fast, you’ll look much better to your customer.
3. Get a great attitude; We can’t necessarily affect the things that happen to us, but we can affect how we react to those things as they happen. The way we react is all about our attitude. Get a good one, or get out of sales!
4. Get the right appearance; You don’t want to over or under dress, but you always want to look right in front of your customer!
5. Learn, learn, learn; Read something about sales, salesmanship, organization, attitude, etc. every day!
Wear the right hat! In the end, salesmanship is about selflessness. You need to be selfless to build a good, solid relationship with your customer. You need to be selfless so you can add value to your customer’s business or life so your customer can see that you represent more than just some product or serve. If you are in sales for selfish reasons you might make it for a while, but sooner or later your customers will see through you.
Bill
