For those of us in sales, we often find ourselves riding an emotional roller coaster of the highs and lows of our profession. From moment to moment, we’re either riding a wave of adrenaline, or we’re attempting to pick ourselves up from the depths of despair. We’ve either just closed a sale in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity, or tearing ourselves apart for allowing another missed opportunity to slip just beyond our grasp. 

We’ve either succeeded at doing what most others couldn’t, or we’ve been dazed and confused as to where the perfect presentation failed to deliver our anticipated result. While we cannot “control our results,” we can “control our process.” After all, controlling a prospect’s ability to decide could also be considered a felony. The profession of sales is also widely known as the highest-paying profession in the world, as well as the least. This will depend on what we are selling and how close we’ve come to mastery.

To succeed on this rolle rcoaster we refer to as a sales career, we must find a way to consistently implement a process that influences others to choose us. And we must do so repeatedly in the face of Three Bids, Brand Concerns, Stalls, and Cheaper Competitors.  We must also do this with integrity, while never lying, cheating, stealing, or misleading a prospect. In our quest to scale a reputable business, while serving our community in a way that would make our mother proud, selling with integrity becomes our moral responsibility.

We believe “sales” can be distilled down to three overarching principles: a transference of emotion, the earning of trust, and the lowering of risk. While some might consider this an oversimplification of what constitutes the profession of sales, we believe it to be accurate.  To achieve the results we desire, we believe we must consistently commit to the implementation of three foundations before our sales calls, and three foundations post-sales calls.

The 3 Foundations Before The Sales Call

1. Ultimate Preparedness

Preparing for the sales call begins days, weeks, months, years, and perhaps even decades before we run the call. Sales is an honorable profession if treated as such. But many treat a job in sales as a stepping stone to pay the bills until something better comes along. Or because the boss feels we are “good with customers.”

Preparing to become a master of influence is a lifelong endeavor and will require a consistent commitment to forever growing. I once heard someone say, “If you’re green, you’re growing, and if you’re ripe, you’re dying.” We recommend working one hour per day on the following three specific areas to become the best in our chosen field and to remain there.

First, we must work on our mindset. Rest assured, the challenges in our lives will never stop coming. Our results will be a reflection of how we respond to life’s challenges, not the challenges themselves. In addition to everyday challenges, most customers are likely to test our product knowledge, want the most for the least, communicate their brand preferences and their need to think about it, talk to an unavailable party about it, share their plan to get additional bids, and of course, ask us for a lower price or tell us our product or service is simply too expensive.

Second, we must work on our process. This includes communicating with the prospect before our visit. Each process can be vastly different from one organization to the next. However, we recommend that each process has a beginning, middle, and end, and that it contains a significant amount of discovery. Seeking first to understand and learn what is important to the customer is vital to serving our customer with high service vs. high pressure.

Third, we must be prepared for the prospect to voice their areas of concern once we’ve asked for the order. As Zig Ziglar said many years ago, “Those that can’t close are going to have skinny kids.” Without closing the sale, we become nothing more than a brilliant conversationalist. Simply put, we can’t deposit excuses or “I feel good about it.”  Are we ultimately prepared for bids, brands, stalls, and price concerns?

2. Immediate Preparedness

As a sales professional, have we prepared for this particular sales lead? Knowing what to do is simply not enough. We must be our best from the moment each sales call begins and remain laser focused through the very end. Even the fastest human in the world only wins an Olympic race if they run their absolute best from start to finish each time.

Being prepared for each new call will require a commitment to servitude, to our profession, to our organization, to the customer, and to ourselves. Even the tiniest of details matter. The little things are everything in the world of competitive sales. We believe we must wake up, dress up, and show up for every single call at our very best. If we want to be great, we must look the part, act the part, walk the part, and talk the part on every single sales lead. 

3. Three Hours to The Finish Line

Even the most masterful presentation will end in disaster if we are not prepared to work through our closing sequence and customer concerns on each sales call. Our closing sequence is the time to implement everything we’ve been working so hard for. Performing what we’ve been preparing so diligently for are the moments that matter most.

Imagine training intensively in the military for years to go into battle. Physically, mentally, and tactically. Imagine traveling halfway around the world. Imagine flying through the cover of darkness, evading enemy radar, traversing many miles of nearly impossible terrain, and packing in all our ammunition. Then, as the battle begins, never firing a single round. We will waste our intensive training and preparation if we were unprepared to use each of our skills and ammunition.

Preparation is vital. So are the execution and implementation of our preparation when it matters most. While this may almost sound silly, it’s one of the most common challenges we find with sales professionals. Understanding the necessary steps to close a sale but not being mentally prepared to consistently execute them in those critical moments.

Over an extended amount of time, the best closers will outperform the best presenters.  The most effective closers are not required to close with pressure and bludgeon the customers. 

The most effective closers button up their sales with professionalism and class, much like a world-renowned surgeon operates precisely with a scalpel. This is also possible in the sales profession and will require a tremendous amount of work.

The 3 Foundations After the Sales Call

To achieve consistent growth in our sales career, a commitment to a post-sales call routine will be paramount. The 3 Foundations After the Sales Call that follow are straightforward, concise, and will help us continue to work toward mastery. Constant, consistent improvement and refinement will help to ensure we are always working to improve as a trusted sales professional.

1. Immediate Evaluation

If we run even two or three calls per day, by the end of the day, they will all begin to run together. By the end of the week, the early part of our week will be nothing but a blur.  

We highly recommend implementing one of the newer artificial intelligence technologies to record and analyze each of our sales presentations.  If this is not an option at this time, we recommend making as many notes as possible as soon as we’ve finished the call.

Make detailed notes answering three specific questions in the following areas: Proactive Preparation, Presentation Performance, Product Knowledge & Design, Word Choice, Transition Statements & Generalizations, Sharing Relevant Stories, Body Language & Eye Contact, Closing Sequence, and Handling Areas of Concern.

     a. What did we do well, leading to the results we desired?
     b. What did we fail to do, or run out of time to do?
     c. What did we do poorly?

2. Intermediate Reflection: As we compile a list of these things in our Immediate Evaluations, we will notice a pattern emerge. These will become our the leveraged activities that we identify to place focus on and continue working towards mastery.  

3. Consistent Refinement: Of the areas in which we identified weaknesses, which specific ones will we need to work towards mastery this week?

When we commit ourselves to a life of proactive preparation before our calls, and have the courage to closely examine where we may have fallen short, we may soon realize that a career in sales does not have to be an emotional roller coaster.  When we focus on ultimate preparedness, serving others, and consistent refinement, we believe we will find our career to be much more rewarding, and our numbers will justify our efforts.

Doug Wyatt, founder of Synergy Learning Systems, is an award-winning industry expert with over 20 years of experience in home services. He's trained 5,000+ HVAC and plumbing technicians and collaborated with 1,000+ businesses. Synergy, recognized by Service Nation as a top value-adding partner, specializes in live and virtual training for call centers, service, sales, and leadership teams. Doug, a certified 7 Habits Leadership Instructor, delivers groundbreaking industry content. Contact Doug at info@synergylearningsystems.net or visit SynergyLearningSystems.net.