6. Build urgency, anticipation, and excitement into your work.

The classic of all time on the subject of "enthusiasm" is HOW I RAISED MYSELF FROM FAILURE TO SUCCESS IN SELLING! by Frank Bettger. By infusing enthusiasm into his activities, Bettger went from failure to success first as a baseball player, then in selling.

Enthusiasm sells! Enthusiasm is contagious! If you can be enthusiastic about your (product, job, company) then you'll find your prospects and customers getting excited about them, too. And they'll get excited to see you come through their doors.

7. Overcome lack of confidence with competence.

I've spent much of my life lacking self-confidence. Mostly I was just sure that the other guy already knew more than I did, regardless of the subject. I credit sales trainer Dick Gardner for getting me over the biggest part of that lack of confidence.

After a number of years, I found that most of the people I thought were smarter than me had the same confidence problem I had. They just handled it differently. They compensated by various tactics to make them appear competent where they were not. That's not real self-confidence. That's false confidence.

Real confidence knows that you know what you know. Real confidence is the ability to be humble when you know that your competence is superior. Real competence is the ability to communicate competence and benefits to someone who may be predisposed to a contrary position without being confrontational or combative.

Know your product, your industry, and your company. Know how to differentiate your offer from your competitors'. Know your unique selling position/proposition and how to sell your strengths against your competitors' weaknesses.

Know people. Know how to determine and how to appeal to their dominant buying motives. Know their most likely reluctances to make a buying decision, how they will most likely express them and how to overcome them. Finally, the biggest cause of lack of confidence is self-consciousness. The way to quit being self-conscious is by focusing on the other person. Focus on "what's in it for her."

8. Overcome call reluctance and closing reluctance with practice.

Study your business. Study salesmanship. Practice, drill and rehearse. Napoleon Hill described his first experiences at self-affirmations as feeling embarrassed, and dishonest even in the privacy of his bathroom in front of the mirror, but he had promised Andrew Carnegie he would do it. Those affirmations changed his life! Practice! Then fill your days with sales activities. Always be performing the highest priority task before you at the moment. When other activities are not pressing, make some calls. Set up appointments.

When you are in front of prospects, ask closing questions. Use trial closes, tie-downs and final closes. Become an expert at getting into and through the final closing sequence. Ask questions in your approach, your presentation and to finalize the sale. Ask, ask, ask!

9. Listen! Want to impress people with how smart you are? They'll be more impressed with "how well you hear what they're saying" than "how much you know" every time! Was it Cavett Robert(?) or Bill Gove(?) who used to say, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

10. Build relationships with your customers and prospects. Build trust. Be available to them when and where they need you. People prefer to buy from people they know, like, trust and people they know they can rely on.

There are a lot of other "common sense money makers" for sales people. Maybe we'll discuss more of them sometime. I hope these have helped and will continue to help you as they have me. Even money cannot measure how they have helped me through the years. May God bless you with growth and character.

About the Author

Gene Shambaugh has been a salesman, sales trainer, training developer, seminar presenter, public speaker, and is author of DISCOVER STREET SMART SELLING and STREET SMART SELLING among other books.