Infect!

Enthusiasm is infectious.

If you are enthusiastic about something, you are enjoying yourself, you have energy, you want to share, you want to give and have the other person feel and experience what you have for themselves.

You could say it’s altruistic. I don’t believe commission or your pay cheque make you genuinely enthusiastic – and that’s why enthusiasm is genuine, and why prospects notice and trust enthusiastic people. And trust is the biggest asset of the sales person.

I find that “professionalism”, that stern convention, can stifle enthusiasm. It’s not professional to become excited, to say what you think in the real words you would use in your everyday life. I say, put aside that concept of professionalism and let go – get excited, say what you think, enjoy yourself and see the reaction!

LinkedIn

I am finally getting round to properly updating my LinkedIn profile and I'd like to ask any regular SalesItch readers who genuinely finds what I write interesting, helpful or entertaining to take 60 seconds to recommend my writing on SalesItch. Nigel at Sales2.0 has already done so, so thanks Nigel!

Thanks everyone. All the best

Ed

P.S. I will be reporting back to let you know whether LinkedIn is working (i.e. helping me make sales.... watch this space!)

Getting noticed

I just got a great bit of direct mail. A standard letter in a window envelope landed in my in tray this morning. At first glance it looked like any other letter, but then I saw hand-written on the top right of the envelope "Ed, there's a few ideas for shortening your sales cycle in here".

Its uniqueness caught my eye and I couldn't help opening it first. More than anything it made me think, "At least this person cares enough to spend a few moments adding this extra touch". A 10 second job with a big payoff.

What’s really driving decisions?

So why did your competitor win that work when you didn’t? There are often many potential rational reasons a prospect could give you – lower price, functionality differences, service, experience, etc. Sometimes though, if you question a prospect hard enough after a sales loss there seems to be little substance to their reasoning. They can’t back up their thinking or you just get the feeling that they’re plucking reasons out of thin air to get rid of you.

I recently read a fantastic book unrelated to sales, that had as one of it’s core concepts the idea of decision-making by “head” and “gut”. “Head” is rational decision-making. “Gut” is, for want of a better phrase, emotional, primeval decision-making, unconnected to the rational mind. It’s why, for example, you get that feeling that you just don’t like someone, even if you can’t explain why.

The world of business is ostensibly highly rational. So now is sales, with the widespread adoption of sales methodologies like Solution Selling. In trying to make sense of our world, have we swung too far towards seeing it as a solely rational place? The prospect who cannot give you a solid reason for the lost sale gives us the prime example of “Gut” decision-making. As we try to unravel why we lost the sale, are we prepared to entertain the possibility that the reason may be ridiculously trivial and irrational? It’s not something we want to do, as it doesn’t fit into our supposedly highly rational world.

“Gut” may be driving the decisions that impact your success.