When I first started in sales it was on the premise that if I wanted to be a great manager, business owner, lawyer, president, I needed to know sales. That is what a successful business owner told me after I had told him that I wanted to be a manager. He was a great leader and still has people working for him that were with him since he opened his company in the mid 1980’s. I was not sure why I needed to know sales to be a good manager to be honest, but I knew I would figure it out.
At first, I was hesitant to change careers. Six months of hesitation and discussions to be exact. I did not want to be a salesperson because all life had taught me was that they were evil. All I had ever been told was bad and experiences were also proof to that same point.
When I did decide to try this sales thing out, I quickly learned that there was a key ingredient to being a successful sales professional. Once I figured out that ingredient, customers started opening up to me and sales increased. I was awarded the prize of top salesman for the United States and had taken the territory to where it had never been before.
I literally had customers asking me about what software would work best for their business and other things that had nothing to do with what I sold. They trusted me and were asking for my insight on various things that they were struggling with in their businesses. That key ingredient is Influence. In sales the more influence you have the more you sell. The same is said for leaders.
As influence increases, people trust us more and are willing to go deeper in relationships with us. This can be in business ventures, nonprofits, community support, etc. The more influence someone has the more they excel in whatever they are doing with others.
What I found is that the sales process that I keynote and perform trainings on helps people build amazing amounts of influence fast! That is right, selling correctly helps us build high levels of influence!
Keep in mind that selling is not just a product or service. It can be selling a vision, idea, or that we are going to lead those that report to us. Building influence using the sales process, leaders gain more engagement from those around them. Utilizing the sales process to sell our vision and our mission will grant us more influence and greater buy in from those around us.
As you look around your organization look at those relationships of those that go out of their way to help you and those that don’t. See how much influence you have with these relationships. Ask yourself, “Why do I have more influence with this person as opposed to another? What is different with each of these individuals?” What you’ll learn is that the level of our influence determines how much we can say and do with each individual.
The more influence you have the farther our organizations can go.
“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with customers. How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits? I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWIVasmkFsoYL4h0AqIZgH6LC3qaw_gI/view?usp=sharing – client profile sheet
https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - Book