The One Minute $ales person
Selling On Purpose
Tammy Johnston is the president and CEO of The Financial Guides.
By Tammy Johnston
If you know me at all you know I’m all about learning, especially through reading good books. As a business owner, one of the books you need to have in your library is The One Minute $ales Person by Spencer Johnson.
And no, that isn’t a typo it is a dollar sign. Why? Because sales is about selling and making money. $ales make the world go round. Every single person in the world is in sales whether they know it or not.
We sell our skills to our employers, we sell our ideas to our friends, our spouses, our parents, and our children. Becoming a better sales person makes our life better.
When we are in $ales, we need to be aware that we are selling to others AND we are selling to ourselves. The purpose of a successful $ales Person is to help people get the feelings they want – soon! We never try to convince someone to do something they don’t want to do or do something that is not in their best interest.
A successful $ales Person is someone that helps people get the right product or service to fulfill their want or need. That is all.
In order to be more effective and profitable when we are selling to others we need to remember the three steps of every sale: before the sale, during the sale, and after the sale. Before the sale we need to know what problems we solve, how our product or service works AND how it benefits our customers, and learn how to effectively communicate.
During the sale we need to invest time as a person, we need to ask questions to determine the client’s true needs and wants, and we help the client solve their problem with our product or service if, and only if, it will genuinely help them. After the sale we follow up, solve any issues, and ask for active referrals.
When we are selling to ourselves we need to set goals, celebrate our successes, and properly reprimand ourselves when our behavior is not what we want from ourselves. To get the most out of our goals they need to be in writing, we need to review them daily, and they need to be measurable.
When we succeed we need lock in the positive feelings by acknowledging when we do something right or make any positive progress. We need to take the time to feel the good feelings and encourage ourselves to repeat the good behavior. When our behavior is unacceptable to ourselves we need to tell ourselves specifically what behavior (or lack of) we are upset about. We need to feel the negative feelings and then we need to remind ourselves that we are valuable, we deserve more from ourselves.
Then we need to get back in the game.
These steps only take about a minute a piece, but they make a huge difference in our results. I suggest you add The One Minute $ales Person to your library and your sales habits. You’ll be glad you did.
“I quickly reduce my stress because I no longer try to get people to do what they don’t want to do. When I sell On Purpose it’s like swimming downstream.”
Spencer Johnson
Category: Business Strategy
About the Author (Author Profile)
Markham began his journalism career writing columns in the mid-1980s for Western People Magazine, then reported for a small Saskatchewan daily. He has spent most of his career in media and communications, likes to dabble in politics, was actively involved in economic development for many years, thinks that what goes on in the community is just as important as what happens provincially and nationally, and has a soft spot for small business (big business, not so much). Markham is a bit of a contrarian and usually has a unique take on the events of the day.
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