It’s about the Fundamentals

You read a lot in my stories about basic sales fundamentals. I write a lot about fundamentals because if you are not always practicing, you may be getting soft. It is no different than getting your physical exercise. You always do your warm-ups and your basic routines first, even if you are working on specific strength building or endurance training. So why wouldn’t you continue to review and refresh fundamentals of selling.

If you are getting bored with fundamentals, I’ll let you in on the next level of selling. You may not be too impressed. You may think I am cheating you. You may think I am just blowing smoke. But like the children’s fairy tales we all love, you have all you need inside you already. You just have to be trained to use these traits and you have to be ready to use them. Look at all the masters of any pursuit. You will see that the advanced work is in the “doing”.

Lance Armstrong may do a lot of training and a lot of work on fundamentals. But when it comes to race day, he is peddling and he is pacing himself. That is about it, isn’t it?

Some of you may like to golf. Do you think Tiger Woods or any of his peers go to a tournament without playing lots of practice rounds and working on all the aspects of their game that they think need attention?

Some of you may like Chinese martial arts flicks, like the old Bruce Lee movies. Bruce Lee developed a style of fighting that incorporated all the styles but had no specific style itself. Bruce Lee studied many styles and perfected their forms and fundamentals. Then when the fight scene came, he improvised based on his opponent’s approach and let all his forms fly to the wind. He just fought.

Some of you like jazz music. Many of the jazz musicians have years of training in theory and performance. Some went through classical training and could perform with any orchestra. But when it is time to do a solo or improvise off of a popular tune, you get whatever the musician is feeling and whatever counter-play the other musicians are creating.

So it is in selling. When you know your basics, you throw yourself into the selling arena with abandon. Your goal is to make a new friend, pre-empt obstacles or concerns that might threaten the sale and politely, professionally and persistently make the deal.

You do not know what sort of a prospect you have until you start to ask some good questions. You don’t know where the advantage in your offering lies for your prospect until you listen to the answers. You won’t know how to help that prospect talk himself into the sale unless you can handle the obstacles and concerns that you tried to pre-empt.

You won’t know if you can seal the deal now or later until you start asking for a decision.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

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