Tim Connor - Your First Year in Sales

If you were to ask one thousand people to define selling, I guarantee that you would get one thousand different answers. Some might say its one of the following:

• persuading others to buy

• moving products and services

• closing the deal

• helping others get what they want

• selling ice cream to Eskimos

• convincing people that what you have to offer is the best there is

But finding a narrow definition of selling isnt as important as understanding the bigger pictureafter all, most of these definitions are in some way right. A more important question might be, do you think selling has changed in the past ten years? One hundred years? One thousand years? Before you spend too much time coming up with a clever answer, let me tell you that this is a trick questionthe answer is of course yes and no. There are any number of factors that have influenced the sales profession for thousands (yes, thousands) of years. Lets go back just a few hundred.

A few hundred years ago, selling was about relationships, friends buying from friends. People buying because they trusted that their neighbor wouldnt cheat them. Was this trust always merited? Of course not. In every age there are crooks, scoundrels, and people without an ethical bone in their body. But generally speaking, selling in its earliest days was about relationships grounded in trust and respect.

Flash forward to the year 2000, and you can see how many variables have affected the selling profession. For starters, theres the Internet, cell phones, webinars, and countless other technology-based selling strategies and approaches. Have these helped organizations increase their sales? Again, this is a tricky questionand again, the answer is yes and no. Yes, because its often easier for buyers when they have unlimited access to information about products and services, even before they have contact with a salesperson. No, because this information overload in many ways undermines the trust and respect that were originally parts of the sales relationshipwhich now becomes about the product or service only.

At the writing of this preface, the year is 2009, and for the past several months the world has been in an economic situation (I hate using the words dire and crisis, as I have heard them enough in the past few months to last me a lifetime) that has challenged both buyers and sellers. Buyers have to make better and wiser choices, and sellers have to help maintain respectable sales results in a climate where people have more choices but are more discriminate and are buying less.

Is there any way to define a type of selling that would have worked a thousand years ago, would work today, and will work a thousand years from now? Well, its a challenge, but here I go: Selling is persuading and influencing people to take action. Whether youre selling a product, a service, an idea, or a concept. Whether youre selling to your children, your employees, your church members, or your customers. Whether its Tuesday afternoon or Saturday morning or the end of the month or the beginning of the week. Whether youre dealing with a first-time customer or a long-term client. Whether youre selling to someone who is wealthy or someone who is living on the street. Whether youre selling to someone who is retired or a child who is making his or her very first purchase.

What is the common thread here? People sell to people, and people buy from people. I will even go a step further: successful selling is about building and maintaining trust and respect in a sales relationship. If your employees dont trust you, its unlikely they will buy your ideas. If your children dont trust you, Ill bet you will have some trouble selling them on their curfew. If your customers dont trust you, Ill wager that they will resist buying the latest version of your product.

So, selling is influencing and persuading others to take action in a relationship that is grounded in trust and respect. This definition has been proven throughout the ages, and it will be the bedrock of selling in years to come.

There are no fewer than one thousand sales books on the market todayI know many of their authorsand Ill bet that if you asked them to define selling youd get a different answer from each. Heres what I suggest. After you finish this book, you decide for yourself what selling is and how you will best function in the industry.

Many salespeople tend to embrace the latest fad, technique, or technology as the greatest way to sell quickly and easily. I have been selling for more than fifty years, and I can tell you that I have seen it all. I have read the latest books, surfed the Internet, and attended more sales seminars than I care to admit. Having said this, I can also tell you that these latest and greatest sales fads are all myths. If we keep going on like this, working up to a point where selling no longer involves any human interaction at all and just uses technology instead, selling will no longer be the great profession that it is. I firmly believe that selling is one of the greatest professions of all time. After all, nothing happens until somebody sells something to someone.

This book is grounded in the fundamentals, the basics that have stood the test of time and, I believe, will stand the test of time for years to come. Selling is a noble profession, but only when the seller has a mind-set of integrity, service, and knowledge. Many things have changed over the years in the sales profession, but one has not: Salespeople who routinely embrace the basics outsell their counterparts again and again.

In times of challenge, uncertainty, and unrest it is particularly important to get back to the basicsthat is to say, the techniques, concepts, and approaches that will always be more effective than the latest fad.

Just what are the basics?

Let me ask you. Can you manufacture antiques? Can you reinvent water or air? You might ask, what do water and air have to do with selling or the basics? Well, they are fundamentals required for life. Eliminate either of them and life will cease to exist. Yes, many things can be reinvented, improved, or modified, but does this always make them better? No. Yes, some things can be improved with age, research, and rethinkingbut some things should just stay untouched.

Theres a story about Vince Lombardi that I love and think helps explain the point Im trying to make here. Every year he would start the first practice with a group of seasoned professional football players with the simple words, Gentlemen, this is a football. He would go on to say that if they mastered the basics of blocking, kicking, and tackling, they would win the day. Did they experiment with new plays, approaches, and strategies? Of course, but the testimony to his success as a coach was simple. He insisted that each player master the basics.

This books goal is to illustrate and explain many of the basics, but Ill get ahead of myself for a minute and list some of the simplest and most straightforward now: