…Sell More

Selling comes down to a verbal exchange between two people. Understanding what flows between two people is the best way to improve your selling results.

The single most important exchange of information takes place between the salesperson and the customer. This is where decisions are made that have the greatest impact on your company’s cash flow.

It’s pretty simple actually; it all comes down to talking and listening. Too many times the salesperson thinks that the talking part is most important. It makes no difference how smooth your delivery is if the reception is closed. 

People think faster than they listen. If your customer is talking at a faster rate than you are listening, you may fail to hear some very important information. Salespeople, intent on making the sale sometimes start thinking about their responses before the customer finishes talking. Missing one key point from your customer could easily cost you a sale.

You will enjoy more selling success by concentrating more on what your customer is saying than what you want to say back. Listening when you want to talk can be difficult if it is not your habit.

Developing good listening skills is like establishing any other habit. Practice makes perfect, but you need to be certain that you are practicing the right way, not the wrong way. Practice this at home and in your social activities so that when you find yourself with a customer it will come more natural.

Keep your ego in your back pocket and let the customer talk. Your time will come, and when it does, your presentation will more likely be on target than if you jump in assuming that you know what the customer is about to say. Remember also that non verbal communication is revealing as well. Watch as you listen to pick up on small body language messages that can keep you in synch with your customer’s thinking.

And always remember that selling is for the customer more than you. Your customers are most likely to have what they buy from you much longer than you will have the money they give you.

Nice Setting
Conducting Success Rallies at Surf-n-Sea on the 1st Monday evening of the month (tonight) is always a real treat.

Goal Setting
Joe, Eddie and I go over the numbers and set the goals.

Happy Sells!
This team shows up happy, eats the pizza, soaks up the information and then goes out there and sets records.
April was another record month and they are on the way to a record year.

Born 12-19-1951
Died 4-16-2008

Hawaiians have a way of saying goodbye to their deceased beloved unlike any other place in the world. A gathering of family and friends on the beach, a sunset sail, words from a Kahuna, the scattering of ashes into the blue pacific, the tossing in of flowers, (and in this case some beer and rum) folowed by the women in Don’s life taking a last swim with him, and then capping it off with dinner for all at the exclusive Outrigger Canoe Club. He had to have loved it all.

If you knew Don these pictures speak for themselves. If you didn’t know Donald Benjamin Olson, you missed out on someone special.

Aloha Don, we will all see you again someday. And, God Bless Kulani Fernandez for the 25 years of devoted love and understanding she gave to Don while here on this earth.

Micro-Manage Your Success
Six long (very long) years have gone by since President Bush landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced, (and I quote verbatim), “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.”
 
3,924 members of the U.S. military have died since that staement. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since that declaration and millions have been displaced from their homes. And there are currently more U.S. troops in Iraq than there were when the U.S. invaded with a contingent of other coalition forces.

This Blog post is not about politics or the war in Iraq; that’s just a great example of a self serving, pre-mature declaration of success. This message is about getting a job done, and done right. We would all like to declare victory early. Managers often times think they have achieved a mission as soon as they have delegated it to someone to do. When delegating a task, the arm of responsibility remains connected to the delegator. YOUR JOB is not done until THE JOB is done.

When you ask someone to do something, you need to check and see if it was done, on time and right! You cannot “ass/u/me” you did the job when you delegated it.

Some may call this “micro-management”; I consider that an over used term for “management”. Another well used expression is “You must inspect what you expect”. Not doing so can lead to failure and embarrasment.