10 sales principles that will increase your sales results by 25-40% during the next 12 months

TODAY, we are taking a closer look at 10 sales principles that will increase your sales results by 25-40% during the next 12 months.

These 10 sales principles will work wonders regardless of the industry you work in. These are the great sales principles that have evolved over the centuries and, when followed, they create the outcomes that will lead to tremendous success.

Each of us, as a sale’s leader and professional was given the god like power to create his or her own sales career and each of us does exactly that throughout our sales career.

Often, we put in place sales procedures and actions that will determine the shape and substance of our career and success. For some, those sales procedures and actions lead to extraordinary achievement and rewards.

For most, they tend to lead to middle ground which a great number of sales leaders and professionals will just imitate their peers without questioning if their sales behaviors are the right ones. For many sales professionals, those behaviors lead to repeated frustrations and problems as they spend their sales careers in the bottom layers of their organizations.

Success or failure of a sale’s leader and professional is not a matter of luck or circumstances or faith or myths by which the non-successful sale’s leader and professional tend to excuse themselves. It’s a matter of following a set of principles that every sale’s leader and professional can follow.

The sales principles we talk here don’t change. They apply to any industry or sector. They apply to any sales situation. We never have to say: “I wonder what will work in this situation”.

All we have to do is make these sales principles our own.

And we begin with what I call: sales is a contact sport…

Sales is a contact sport. Your end goal is to sign a new client and getting to your goal has numerous obstacles. Some of these obstacles are individuals in your way who will do their best to not help you reach your goal. We call these individuals your competitors.

I often hear salespeople say, “I don’t have competition, or the only competition I have is in front of the mirror, this always make me chuckle”.

Regardless of the competition, if you think your product, solution or service is the best or totally unique, there is always someone trying to stop you and trying to win the client over. What is even more interesting is that your competition in certain situations is your client’s best friend, their spouse, and colleagues. Let’s just say I have learned this first-hand when leaving a meeting with a client, certain this client was going to hire my company’s services, only to find out later that a spouse influenced my client to change his mind to move forward with us. I was speechless.

When you are excited about something, human tendency is to share our excitement with someone else. This someone else has now the opportunity to share their thoughts and influence your client’s decision. Some of their thoughts might be: “It’s great to hear what you plan to do, but have you contacted other providers just to compare?”. How often do you think this happens? In fact, it happens ALL the time. Not believing it is having our head stuck in the sand.

Regardless how great of a salesperson you think you are, people around your clients are always trying to influence them.

Just like any sport, to be great in sales you must practice, practice, and practice.

To unleash your true sales power and potential and achieve phenomenal and legendary results for your clients, without studying sales and without practicing you will be confined to be an ok or average salesperson. I am not convinced this is what you want. In fact, I have never met a salesperson saying, “I want to be ok and average”.

I’m often asked if a salesman is born a salesman, I’ve never seen an unborn salesman and to be honest, I really don’t want to meet one either.

Do some people have more tendencies that relate to salespeople, some do but the reality is that everyone may learn to generate phenomenal and legendary results for their clients, and therefore become a sales legend.

Here are the 10 best sales principles that will turbo-charge your sales results and guide you on the path of becoming a sales legend:

1. Understanding the foundation of sales. First you need to be enthusiastic of the product you are selling. If you’re not enthusiastic, your client will notice it, and this will have a negative outcome. Part of the foundation is really identifying what’s on your client’s agenda. If you don’t understand their world, you won’t get very far. In the foundation you also need to understand social styles. Once you have identified your social style you will be able to adapt to your client’s social style which will definitely help your business relationship. Part of the foundation is also to understand how the 3V’s play an improved part. The 3V’s are verbal, vocal, and visual. Understanding the importance of these 3V’s is critical as there weighting of importance is not the same.
2. You need to connect with your clients quickly. This seems easy, unfortunately over 80% of salespeople don’t understand the importance of a great verbal agenda. A strategic verbal agenda helps the client to focus and sets the tone of the meeting.
3. Understanding where your client is being under serviced. The only way to identify where your client is being under serviced is to ask great questions. Once again, many salespeople think they ask great questions, unfortunately many salespeople ask a lot of questions, not necessarily great questions. Asking questions is an art, if you don’t have at least 5-7 questions prepared in advance, then there is a problem. How many of your questions start with the word “why”, if you have at least one, then there is a problem. You need to understand how closed ended questions, open ended questions and impactful questions all have a huge impact on the outcome.
4. Learn to take great notes. Without taking great notes, it will be almost impossible to show your client that you are a great listener.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for the client’s commitment before you decide to prepare a proposal. Asking for a commitment is not asking your client if you may send him/her a free proposal. Who doesn’t want something for free? Accepting that you send them a proposal doesn’t mean the client will deal with you. If this is what you thought all this time, then this is a great wake up call.
6. Fire the competition. Over 90% of salespeople don’t know how to do this effectively and don’t understand the psychology around this. This step is SO crucial. This is where you get a hard commitment from the client. This step prepares your client to get that call from your competitors.
7. Create a well-crafted and winning presentation. Most importantly, practice, practice, and practice.
8. Understand objection handling. There are hundreds of objection handling scenarios. Only robots can remember them all. Learn the 2-3 that are the most common in your industry, allowing you to focus time and energy on other critical elements during your meetings with clients.
9. If you manage a sales team, learn how to empower your salespeople to self-evaluate themselves and to figure out what they need to improve. If you are telling your salespeople what they need to do, you’re not creating sales legends. Your role is to guide them to figure that out.
10. And keep practicing, practicing, and practicing. True legends in any sport or industry spend countless hours practicing and perfecting their skills.

BOOK YOUR FREE 30-MINUTE COACHING NOW with Domenic Presutti by clicking here if you wish to be #1 in your industry and reach phenomenal and legendary sales results.

Domenic Presutti is a high-performance sales mentor and coach to successful sales leaders and professionals. He is an author, creator of the 10X10 Sales Legend Growth Scale(TM) and creator of the 8-Step Sales Legend Journey(TM), the only high-performance sales training program that creates sales legends. He works closely with sales leaders and professionals across industries worldwide and has more than 15 years of experience in sales managerial roles, mentorship and coaching to unleash the true power and potential of sales leaders and professionals for the greater good of their organizations, communities or for everyone they wish to influence positively. You may contact him at 1-866-489-2199 or via email at [email protected].