What is “real sales” these days? My email is full of gimmicks and gadgets for avoiding cold calls, getting more followers, flooding myself with leads, and I assume closing more deals. The ironic part is very few of sales wins come from those gimmicky techniques.
Don’t read me wrong, I’m not anti-social Web. I believe these are increasingly powerful tools; however, you are probably in the business of closing deals. So, I want to talk about real sales. Techniques that really close deals.
Getting Involved
The fastest way to land sales is to engage lots of people. That means turning off the TV and getting up off the couch. Get involved in your community, in service organizations, in schools, and in athletics. Customers are people, surround yourself with prospects.
Giving back and helping make our world a little better is humbling and invigorating. It puts your attitude in the right place to generate trust in clients.
Being Nice
You know if you make smiling and being helpful your primary attitudes you will bring deals. Our world is full of hustle and bustle, people stressed out, and folks bee-lining from one task to the next. Your quick smile or a moment of pause to help a passerby will win you sales.
You probably won’t make a sale from that person, but someone else will catch a real glimpse of you–they’ll buy from no one else.
Getting the Word Out
Most first conversations start something like this: “…so what do you do?” Don’t be shy. Make sure you are ready with that one line pitch.
Not, “I sell enterprise software.”
But, something more like…”You know when you book a plane ticket online and you get all your dates picked, selected just the right seat, and entered your credit card? Then it pops up and says ‘unable to process your transaction’–I sell software that makes sure that never happens to a customer.”
They will remember that and tell someone.
Relationships
Nothing produces real sales like relationships. Taking the time to build meaningful relationships will net real long-term results. Relationships are built on things like:
- Checking in from time to time, for no reason
- Looking for opportunities for others
- Putting yourself out a little to help
- Doing things “on the house” occasionally
Relationships are built on action and engagement, not invoices.
Referrals
Relationships yield referrals and referrals close 90 percent of the time. The biggest mistake most sales people make is mishandling referrals. These are gold–they need to be handled as such. That means:
- Immediately follow-up and contact with the referral
- Immediately follow-up with the referrer (don’t forget to say Thank You)
- Do back flips for the referral–they are the key to more
Nothing a theme here? Real sales come from real people, doing real things, making real contact. Virtual is not real sales, budget your time appropriately.
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