15 Essential Questions To Achieve Success in Selling

While there are many factors, I have found that much of the long-term success in selling is due more to consistently and persistently following a sales process, a system, and establishing a reputation of being an expert, a trusted advisor to the clients and the marketplace, rather then having any "magic bullets".

In addition, in my experience, much of that sales success begins with having clear answers to some key questions. Some of those are:

1. What do sell? Think not just in-terms of your products and service (tangibles) but also what the perceived value is to your clients (intangibles). Ask yourself, what business are you really in.

2. How strongly do you believe in what you are selling? In other words, would you say sell it to your mother?

3. How does selling what you're selling and for whom you're selling help you live the life you want to live?

4. Who do you want sell to?

5. Where will you find those you want to sell to?

6. How will you get your message to them, of what you have to offer and the associated value? For example, where will you speak? network? How will you reply to the commonly asked question, what do you do?

7. Why should they buy your products/services, and why should they buy from you?

8. How will you get your first meeting?

9. What questions will you ask and what will you say in your first meeting to move the conversation forward?

10. If/when they don't buy from you right away, which is quite often the case specially in B2B sales, how will you stay in touch, maintaining top of mind awareness and building the relationships?

11. How will you get them to try you?

12. Once they do buy, how will you serve them, engage them, move the relationship forward, so they buy from you again?

13. When something goes wrong, which invariably will at one point or another, how will you handle it?

14. How will you ask them to refer you to others?

15. Last but not least, have clarity on what success looks like, how you will know if you're on track as you do the necessary day-to-day work, and how you will know when you have achieved it?

What has lead to your success in selling? What's your best sales tip?

Who Do You Trust?

• Would you let a doctor operate on you if you didn't trust him?

• Would you eat at a restaurant if you didn't trust the food to be safe and clean?

• Would you invest your hard earned money in a financial institution that you didn't trust?

In the Washington Post recently, there was an article entitled "Soldier Dies, Insurer Profits". It shared how some major insurance companies mislead (not fully & correctly disclosing key pieces of information) insurers and their beneficiaries.

As I had significant amounts of money (for me anyways) in one of these financial institutions mentioned, reading the article shook my faith and confidence in the institution and I immediately pulled out my funds. Logically, I am sure they were safe and sound but deep inside of me, in essence, regardless of all logic, I simply lost trust in the institution. I can't help but wonder how many others felt the same and took similar steps.

I then further realized how strong a factor trust is in in our lives, not only personally but also professionally and for our enterprises. Without trust, we have nothing. When it really comes down to it, all meaningful and lasting relationships are built on trust. When trust is strong, everyone wins and grows. When it breaks down, eventually everything breaks down cause all successful relationships and enterprises are built on the foundation of trust.

So, how does one go about building trust? After much reflection, I come up with several key elements that provide the foundation to building trust. Here they are:

1. Communication & Accountability: Do you communicate clearly, authentically, honestly, fully, and consistently? Do you hold yourself accountable, doing what you say you're going to do? Do you keep your words?

2. Understanding Each Other: I find that many of us do not truly understand human behavior, and therefore each other. For example, if someone say is being "aggressive", in the absence of proper understanding, such folks are frequently labeled as being pushy, a jerk rather then for the true gift they offer. It's often a question of intention vs. impact, fact vs. judgment. As an aside, it is this lack of understanding that often leads to misunderstandings and leads to disengagement which in turn has significant negative impacts on our enterprises and our various relationships, personal and professional.

3. Walk and Talk Alignment. Are your words, deeds, decisions, behaviors & actions aligned?

4. Systems & Processes: Do you have systems and processes in place that provide forums actively seeking open & honest feedback? And when feedback is provided, do you do something with it as well as communicate with those who provided the feedback that you heard them and took appropriate actions?

In the end, trust is built by the little things, such as the the words you speak, your behavior, your actions, your body language, your tone. And when we have trust, organizationally speaking, as the graphic above depicts, it leads authentic conversations, stronger relationships, genuine engagement rather then just going through the motions, some risk taking in the spirit of innovation, real caring service and all that ultimately leads to on-going renewal and growth. Everyone wins.

For those you trust, what is it about them that leads you to trust them?

How The Mighty Fall?

Jim Collins in his recent book "How The Mighty Fall" presents the five step-wise stages of decline. They are:

1. Hubris Born of Success
2. Undisciplined Pursuit of More
3. Denial of Risk and Peril
4. Grasping for Salvation
5. Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

While this may apply to specific organizations, what I have been reflecting on is how does an entire industry fall? What keeps them from reinventing themselves? Does the answer lie in how they define their business and the unit of measure they use to measure success? Please allow me to elaborate.

For example, thinking of the music industry, in connection to the graph above, here's what comes in my thoughts:

WHY: To record and distribute music
WHO: Target markets for various types of music
HOW: Sign-on artists with various labels
WHAT: To distribute music via various mediums. Initially the record, then tapes, CDs and now electronic distribution.
IMPACT: Enjoyment by music by many while achieving business success

So where did they go off-course? The more I reflect on it, the more I believe it's in how they defined their businesses. For example, we use to hear terms like: record stores, which record label did a musician sign with, how many records sold, and so on. And profits were tied to number of records sold and therefore infrastructures were developed to sign on popular artists with the express purpose of selling more and more records. Thus the measure of success was number of records sold.

In other words, they were in the record business and success & profitability was defined and measures by how many records were sold (and later tapes and CDs). Then came in MP3 players and as they say, rest is history.

I wonder how would they have functioned and where they would be today if they had defined themselves as more as being in the music business and measured success by number of songs sold, rather then being defined by the medium through which music was recorded and distributed?

What are your thoughts? What business are you in? How do you define and measure success for your organization?

What Were Your Early Jobs? What Lessons Did You Learn?

As Labor Day approaches, I am reflecting on some of the jobs I held early in life when I was new to this country, and what lessons I learned that continue to serve me to this day. I like to share some of them with you as well as like to request you to share also.

My early jobs, included newspaper route, dish washing, cleaning offices, warehouse clerk, store clerk and pizza maker. Here are some of my lessons:

1. Good service pays: When delivering newspapers to the elderly up in Johnson City, NY, I used to make it a point to always deliver their paper right to their door. As a result, when came time for collections, I was frequently invited in for milk and cookies, had many great conversations, learned a lot, developed many friendships, and invariably left with great tips too, consisting of nickles, dimes and quarters. Big money for a kid in those days.

2. Everyone counts and everything matters. No job and detail is too big or too small. Imagine, for example, great servers and greeters, nice clean surroundings, and tasty pizza-but delivered in dirty dishes. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.

3. Be dependable. When someone doesn't show up, others have to carry the load. Be the solution, not the problem. Others are counting on you.

4. Help others succeed. Always be asking "How can I help you?". Look for opportunities to serve, both internally and externally. While don't expect it, my experience is that when you help others, they will help you when you need it.

5. If you make a mistake, just apologize and ask "what can I do to make it right?", and then just fix it. Don't play the blame game for no one wins. Make it right and everyone wins and very importantly you feel good knowing you did your very best and that you did the right thing.

6. Be an expert in what you do. Once a customer came into store asking for a shirt with European cut. Not having any idea what that meant, boy did he chew me out-and I deserved it. Know your stuff for then you know what questions to ask, to determine what the customers really want, and then help them get it. For example, this guy didn't want just a European cut-what he really wanted was to be comfortable and to look good.

7. It's OK to ask for help. Not everyone knows everything. Asking for help in not a sign of weakness but of strength.

8. Dignity of labor. No job is beneath any one. Never ask others to do what you wouldn't do yourself.

9. Talk less, listen more. This leads to new learning, to new growth.

10. Treat everyone with respect. We all have similar dreams, we're all human, we all matter. It's takes everyone to make this world go around.

What Were Your Early Jobs? What Lessons Did You Learn?

What Are You Responsible For?

This weekend, we stayed at a Hilton Property in New Jersey. As we were having breakfast at the restaurant, we experienced lots of hustle bustle, sensed tension between the staff and the restaurant manager, and the manager was running here and here, talking quickly and abruptly to staff and guests.

Her intent from what I could sense was to be efficient, get the guests in, feed 'em and get 'em out. While the food was fine and prices reasonable, we left not feeling good. Somehow it dampened the experience, not just related to the restaurant for the overall experience. As we were leaving the restaurant, I overhead her on the phone saying she was responsible for the restaurant.

As I reflected on her self-view of her role, I wondered how she would have managed herself and her team had she seen her role as not only being responsible for the restaurant but also being responsible for and contributing to the overall guests experience, as being part of a larger system delivering on the Hilton's brand promise. Clearly while she was in management, it became apparent she saw her role in a very narrow way, as if the restaurant was somehow apart from rest of the system.

I then recalled hearing of an incident from the 1960's where President Kennedy was visiting a NASA facility. During this visit when he met a janitor and he asked him what he did. The janitor proudly replied, "I am putting a man on the moon". The janitor clearly saw the bigger picture and his role as part of a much larger mission.

As many of us move through our days, I am left wondering, what would we do differently, how would we fulfill our roles and carry out our responsibilities if we better understood and saw ourselves not just as our individual roles but as being part of something much larger? In other words, as individuals, what do we see as our responsibilities?

Customer Service. Why Bother?

3 years ago, we purchased a car for my older daughter. As my family has driven Toyotas for many years, we naturally took her to a nearby Toyota dealer first.

Initially, the sales rep was acting friendly and showed us around. Then at one point he asked us if we will be purchasing that very day. As soon as we said no, mentioning that we had just started to look, his attitude suddenly changed. He appeared to lost interest, becoming indifferent–a total turnoff, especially for my daughter.

We then went across the street to the Honda dealer. There the experience was very different. We were asked a similar question as we were being shown around and we gave the same response. Yet this time the sales rep's response, tone and body language were very different.

The sales rep replied, that’s perfectly understandable and he still continued to patiently show us around. As we were leaving, all he said was that if we did decide to buy a Honda, he kindly requested we buy it from them. He further went onto say that if we had any questions at anytime as we were looking around, we ought to feel free to contact him, he'll be glad to answer our questions, and gave us his card. Much better service.

Quality of both cars being nearly equal, we decided to buy the Honda, in which the sales rep's attitude had an important role. We simply felt much more comfortable with the way we were treated by the Honda rep and the dealership overall.

Fast forward 3 years later, we had a similar experience all over again. Same two dealers, different sales reps, similar experience. Our younger daughter too went with the Honda.

In total we spent about US $5o,000 on both cars. More importantly, given the life time value of customers, Honda gained big for I am sure the girls alone will purchase many cars over their life time, and even more expensive ones, as they get established in life. AND as an aside, whenever the conversation comes up in regards to cars, they encourage their friends to buy Hondas too. What a loss to Toyota, much of it due to attitude.

Here’s the kicker. Good service doesn’t cost more and bad service doesn’t cost less. Yet the direction of the paths they set businesses on is vastly far apart. One leads to customer loyalty, growth and profitability while the towards other decline. Therefore, as I see it, building a culture of superior service is what ensures a sustainable competitive advantage.

What are your experiences and thoughts in regards to service?

Keys to Career Satisfaction & Success

When an individual is unhappy in their job, a common first reaction is something like "I need to do something else, go back to school, start another career". In my experience, this is the last move one should make before taking such a step as moving into a new direction.

There are many factors that contribute to career satisfaction and success. In this post, I want to share with you the key factors that I have come to realize through my own journey. If you are unhappy in your job, I encourage you to look at each one in depth and find out where your dissatisfaction lies before you make major changes. In addition, I invite you to share your experiences and lessons learned as well so that we all may learn and grow through each others experiences.

As I have come to understand it, the factors that contribute to satisfaction and success can we summed under the groupings listed here. Let's look at these and then I'll go a bit deeper into each one. They are:

1. Why
2. How
3. What
4. Where
5. Type

WHY

• Is the work you're doing aligned with your values, beliefs, mission, and your life's purpose?
• Are your intrinsic motivations being satisfied?

HOW

We each have a unique energy and when our work is aligned with our natural inherent strengths, our natural talents and abilities, we find "flow" in our work. For example, some are reserved while others are outgoing, and some are more task focused while others are more people focused. So say we put a very reserved in a role that required very outgoing personality, it leads to tension and on one wins.

WHAT

Every organization can be divided into some common areas. Major ones include:

• Leadership
• Management
• Operations
• Customer relations
• Sales/marketing
• Customer service
• Accounting
• Human resources
• IT
• Research

Are you working in an area that is aligned with who you are?

WHERE

In my experience, when there is dissatisfaction, assuming you are in the right role for you, this is the area where majority of dissatisfaction arises from. Let's look at these.

• Are your values aligned with the values of your organization?
• Do you have confidence and trust in your management and your colleagues?
• Do you feel respected, recognized and rewarded?
• Are you satisfied with your role and that it's a good fit?
• Are you given opportunities for personal growth and development?
• Do you take pride in your organization?

TYPE

There are 4 types of businesses and each of have their own unique cultures and ways of working. Which type most resonates with you?

• Low Cost: Aim is to be the low cost provider of products and services. Given tight margins, they must be operationally efficient and that's where their focus is.
• Product Innovation: Aim is to stay ahead of the curve in-terms of new product development and therefore they tend to be more entrepreneurial.
• Product Quality: Aim is to continuously improve the quality of it's products rather then develop new ones as in product innovation.
• Service: Aim is to provide the best possible service, both to internal and external customers.

These are the key factors in my experience. Of course, it can be difficult to find a situation where one gets all of these matched perfectly. However the greater number of these you can match, the more satisfied you are likely to be. And the more satisfied you are, the more you will put into your work which then leads to both career success for you AND business success for your employer.

Therefore, before you embark on any major changes, review first each of these factors to find the source of your dissatisfaction and then see where you can work to make improvements that will contribute to overall increased satisfaction for you. If you are considering potential careers, give each of there factors careful consideration for in the end, it's not just what you do but also about the many factors that are presented above.

I wish you the very best on your journey!