I wonder when we decided to become a sales person. I know when I was at school all I ever wanted to do was join the Navy and see the world. My best mates wanted to be a truck driver or Fireman, Policeman, Soldier, Banker, Doctor, Pop star, Football player and so the list went on.

I have yet to meet anyone who knew when they were young that they were going to be a salesman or woman. So where do we learn our trade? Most of it will be through mentoring, reading and actually learning 'on the job.' Here are a few tips to help you continue to grow your wealth and personal happiness through your sales efforts.

1. When cold calling sell yourself and the appointment. Do not even try to sell your product or service. Your purpose for the call is to find out if there is a need for you product or service. If it seems likely there is then make an appointment to introduce your product or service to your prospect.

2. You have two ears and one mouth. Selling is about solving problems. Solving problem is easy if you listen. Rule of thumb: listen at least twice as long as you talk.

3. Your prospect is more interested in themselves and there problems. Most really do not care too much about you and what you have done. Give your prospect time to talk about them and you will have ample opportunity to find out the real problems, needs and wants and what you need to do to make your prospect desire you, your service or product.

4. At your first appointment find out if the prospect can make a buying decision. A simple question like “is there anyone else involved in the decision making process”? Works great If there is, ask if they can be included in this and further meetings. Doing this one thing at every appointment will save you hours of wasted time selling to someone who can't buy!

5. Dig, dig, dig. Find out what the real needs and wants are. Never ever invent one, you will have a reluctant buyer and a difficult client for the life of the product or service. You will also start to make a name for yourself and company as hard or pressure sellers. This is now treated like a contagious disease in the business world. Once tagged with this label you need to find another career or move on.

6. A positive way to get the most from your prospect is to determine their Dominant Buying Motive (DBM). It is well recognised that people buy on emotion. So why do we as sales people insist on selling them the technical specifications of our products and services? Finding out WHY some one will buy what we have gives us such a powerful advantage over the competition it is almost a crime to use it! So find out what emotion your prospect is going to use? As an example: After asking some great questions such as “what annoys you the most with your current method or service and why?” Listen to the answers carefully; your prospect will give you a lot of personal information using this simple question. The response may be; “ well I hate the way three people have to work on an order. I just want the computer to do it all. If I could do that I would not have the problems with staff being stressed out all the time and not making deadlines” From this the DBM is clearly anger and fear. Anger at the inefficiencies and fear of not having people doing the job properly because they are too stressed. So how does this help you?

Firstly, If your product or service can reduce the number of people working on an order you can reduce the anger, so you could say “ If my product or service were to reduce the number of people working on the orders to two how would that make you feel?” Now you have the prospect 'feeling' and it is a positive feeling because you know he wants to reduce it. He will feel good about the solution even though he as of yet does not know what that solution is!

Secondly. Remove the fear. You could say for example “due to the way my product or service operates we are able to automate most of the manual input required. This will reduce the errors and allow your staff to concentrate on the tasks they have do manually, however, they now have more time and are less rushed so the stress levels for the staff are reduced and the jobs go through the system faster with less trouble. How do you feel about that?” Again he will feel good about that and now he is ready for the sale, and because he already wants the outcomes he is pre-inclined to want what you are selling. Easy!!!

Using the DBM is a powerful tool that will win you business day after day after day. (A much more detailed rationalization of determining and using DBM's can be found at www.totalmanager.net)

7. Now ask for the order. So many times sales people have the order and then talk them selves right out of it. Once you have asked for the order and they say yes. SHUT UP. Stop selling. Enjoy the feeling of success and use those positive energies in providing the best possible after sales service you can.

These are a few of the many ideas in a huge toolbox of strategies, actions methods and tactics, called “selling your way to success” Why not visit my web site www.totalmanager.net and have a look. You will even be able to download even more in an extract of the book for FREE!

Enjoy the day and if selling really is your destiny, the journey will be wild, amazing and very very profitable Read, learn and reap the rewards!