One Question That I’ve Seen Asked Is

“How Can I Be A Better Salesman?”

Today we will answer that question.

I’ve been a salesperson in a lot of different scenarios. From platform speaker, to door to door, business sales, advertising sales, selling large ticket real estate education systems and network marketing.

I can tell you, there are three P’s, that will dictate you becoming a better salesman.

The first P word will help you understand why you’re making sales or not.

The second will help you understand why you are frustrated in your sales conversations.

And the last will help you increase the percentage of people that you talk to, and get them to want to buy your product.

Alright, so what’s the first P word?

The first “P” word is pipeline.

Pipeline refers to, “how many people are you talking to? How many people you following up with? How many appointments are you setting?” Depending on the type of sales…. how many presentations are you doing.

In real estate maybe it’s how many houses are you showing? Or how many listings are you getting?

Pipeline dictates performance.

Too often people struggle in a sales scenario.

They don’t understand “why,” because they think it’s magical or mystical.

It’s not.

It’s how many people are you talking to? How many people you asking “if they are they open to taking a look at what you have?” Are you following up with them? Are you setting presentations with them, etc.

Understand, if you want to increase your sales, increase the number of people in your pipeline.

This is very understood in many sales careers. But there are also some people that just don’t understand this fact.

We have a lot of network marketing students and there are a lot of network marketing students who have not been taught how sales work.

You have people that are against network marketing that say “very few people make money” and my argument is, “well, very few people work the pipeline.”

It’s very simple.

Do you have a pipeline of people that you’re talking to, following up with, setting appointments with and setting presentations with or do you not?

If you don’t, then you shouldn’t be making much money.

What’s the second “P” word?

The second P word is position.

Position will dictate if you’re frustrated with your sales presentations or not. If you’re frustrated in your sales career or not, position has a lot to do with it.

Position in this context means understanding “where your prospect is at in the process.”

Let me give you a fun example.

A guy walks up to the girl to hotel bar and says, “Hey, I got a room upstairs.” I’m not saying that will never work, But that’s a little bit out of position.

What would be the right position?

The right position would be “hey, are you here with anyone?” “Can I buy you a drink?”

So that would be an equivalent to “I’m trying to determine if you’re open to my offer or not.”

When someone goes to another individual without any knowledge, and just tries to get them to purchase something that’s out of position. You could also call that spam.

(Spam is assuming the position of the prospect without any evidence.)

When you see someone post on social media, “hey, you should buy my thing” and they don’t know anything about anybody, whether they want that thing or not…..

They’re out of position.

They’re a spammer.

Instead, always understand position. It starts at zero. Position zero is “I don’t know if you’re interested in the benefits of my product, service or opportunity.”

I don’t have any idea so what should I do?

I should find out if you’re open to learning more.

Instead of going to someone I don’t know and saying, “Hey, I have this thing you should totally buy it,” I’ll say “I have this thing…It does this…would you be open to learning more about it?

See? no one’s mad about that.

No one’s upset if you’re asking them if they want to learn more about the thing that you don’t know if they want or not.

An example where position is broken….I remember before the pandemic I was walking through the mall and all of a sudden I felt a dap and I looked down and someone in one of those kiosks had hit me with some dead sea salt.

I’m like “what the hell?” and he started saying “this helps with dead skin….” I don’t care what it helps with…”You didn’t ask me to do that right there.”

I have no interest in buying your product even if I did, I’ll go online and buy it…but you didn’t even ask me if you could hit me with it…

That was out of position. had this person said “hey man, I got this dead sea salt. It helps you with rejuvenation and helps you have softer skin (or whatever it does)….would you be open to me just putting a little bit on your arm?” I might have said yes.

Might have said, “yeah, that’s okay.”

But when something is done out of position, it usually turns off the prospect, not turn on the prospect.

If you find yourself in frustrating conversations, it’s very likely that you don’t understand their position. Find that out. You can use this throughout any sales process.

For example, let’s say that you are a realtor and you go to somebody and say” hey, I’m a realtor, I represent this school district…Are you looking for any homes? Are you looking for a new home to purchase?” and they say, “Yes”.

Awesome.

All right, great.

“Well, I have this home….Let me show you.” You show it to them, but they don’t like it. What position are they in? They are in a position where you now know, they’re looking for a home in that school district. So guess what? You can use that information to show them another home in that same school district.

Understanding position is your friend. Pitching out of position creates frustration.

What is the last “P” word?

We’re talking all about P words, right?

The last “P” word is posture.

Posture is the belief in what you have regardless of external acceptance or approval.

That’s you believing in whatever you’re doing, more so than someone with a differing opinion. This is a very powerful way for you to understand your self-worth and not get frustrated when someone is critical or cynical or skeptical about what it is that you do.

As always, I want to give you some examples.

My first example is… I remember when I was building a network marketing business and I was the number one income earner of that company. I flew out to Sacramento to work with some of my team out there. There was a guy there who was an attorney, a very successful attorney, and this guy owned a law firm, very wealthy, made millions and millions of millions dollars.

And he says to me, “Man, I just don’t get it, what’s going on?”

Well, he was this very successful attorney, but he had also joined our network marketing business and he said, “You know, I go to people, I tell them…it’s a no brainer, I tell my friends, it’s a no brainer, and none of them join.”

I asked, “I’m just curious….Is that how you approach people with your law firm? You go to them and say, Hey, you should use me as an attorney, because I’m a no brainer.

And he says, “No, they have to give me a retainer and there’s a six month waiting list.”

“Oh my oh, okay….So you’re postured around being an attorney, just not in network marketing.” And he’s like, “Oh, right.”

When you understand the solutions that what you have can provide, the value it can provide, the help…that whatever it is that you do… can give somebody, you don’t have to beg, chase or bug. You don’t have to take abuse in trying to wiggle in your sales.

I remember a conversation that I had, where one of my teammates got me on a phone call with this guy…we start the phone call and he says, “I’ve tried a bunch of these things and none of them ever worked.”

Right!

What would be the postured response?

Well, first, what’s the non postured response?

The non posture response would be, “oh, this is different and this one’s really awesome and we you do really well.

It would just it would not be very powerful.

So a postured response is “I know what I have, what do you have?”

And he says again, “I tried all kinds of these things, and none of them ever worked.”

I said, “Well, what makes this any different?”

He paused for a second because he wasn’t ready for that….and He said, “well, I’m really coachable and you know, I really do need to make some money.”

“Okay.”

“All right.”

“Great.”

I can speak to you when we’re at that level when you’re trying to big time me there’s no point. I’m not going to try to convince you or chase or beg or plead, that’s not going to work.

Be postured around what it is that you do.

Be postured around what your product does, what the service does.

If you know for sure that it helps people, then stand in that knowledge. Don’t let people push you around.

Understand that those prospects that treat you poorly, it doesn’t get better when they’re a customer. They’re going to treat you just as crappy.

Every business owner has had their alarm bells go off when they were talking to a prospect, but proceeded forward anyway to bring on one of their worst clients that they wish they never would have accepted.

Be postured in who you are, what you represent and how you help others.

And know that you don’t have to accept everybody to join your business, to buy from you, to be a customer or to be a client of yours.