Sales Is As Easy As ABC

A.  You can't build anything without a solid foundation.  The A is for Attitude - the foundation of all successful sales people.  Without a positive attitude and belief in yourself, your organization, It's products and services and the market, there is no foundation upon which to build success. 

Sales professionals need to reflect, confirm and take hold of their attitude, realize it is theirs, develop it into a millionaire's attitude, overcome fear and be able to deal with rejection, increase productivity and save time and money. 

Sales professionals need to reflect, confirm and take hold of their attitude toward the organization's mission statement, products and services and team members, while developing an owner's mentality.

Sale professionals need to reflect, confirm and take hold of their attitude towards the market, knowing how they are perceived, while profiling the ideal prospect and fully understanding their competition

B.  Sales professionals could have a fantastic attitude, but a positive attitude alone is not enough to guarantee long term sales success.  You need goals and an action plan to get you where you want to go.  The B is for Behavior - the daily actions that are  required to accomplish goals.  Goals and behaviours from a personal, organizational, and market targeting level.  Without these goals and behaviors there is no motivation, no ownership mentality or drive to go the extra mile.

Sales professionals need to learn the relationship between consistent positive behaviours and success.  The first step is to learn this on a personal level.  Sales professionals  need to identify and develop personal goals and action plans based on why they come to work.

Sales professionals then need to follow the same procedures to develop goals, action plans and behaviors for organizational objectives while improving their time management skills.

Sales professionals need to know how to target their sales efforts through the 80/20 rule and the ABC target model while obtaining  pertinent industry, organizational and client information.

C.  This is the area where traditional sales training has placed all its efforts - on sales techniques.  In this ongoing, non traditional sales approach the C is for Competency - the capability of following a sales results system with the appropriate sales competencies to build and maintain long term relationships.  Without a sales results system and without the sales competencies, time is wasted and there are no meaningful sales results.

In order to build a long term relationship, one must first establish rapport.  Sales professionals need to learn about the relationship selling model, the components of the rapport pie and how to build rapport in the first 30 seconds of meeting. 

Once rapport has been established, questions can then be asked.  Sales professionals need to learn why questions are so important, the type of questions that should be asked and how to deal with questions from the prospect or client without giving free consulting. 

When asking questions, sales professionals must listen effectively, and learn how to qualify opportunities by setting the parameters, uncovering buying motivators, financial ability, decision making processes and summarizing  prior to making a proposal or presentation, referred to here as a prescription.

Sales professionals need to learn how to prescribe solutions specific to the customers needs,  letting the customer buy, retaining the account, keeping competitors out and developing the account to its maximum potential.

Now that the prospect has purchased the solution, Sales professionals need to maintain the relationship, develop the account for more business and how to obtain new prospect introductions and referrals.