When I was 21 and just beginning my sales career, I asked an older colleague, whom I respected, how many sales calls he would make on a prospect before giving up. He told me: “It depends on which one of us dies first.”
In more than 40 years of selling, I’ve passed along a lot of good sales advice, some I’ve written and some shared by others. I like these aphorisms so much that I’ve used them in my books, columns and speeches. They are perfect for motivating and teaching sales professionals:
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*They don’t pay off on effort – they pay off on results.
*Sign on my office door: “If you know where you can get us some business, come on in.”
*Sign on my desk: “Our meeting will not be interrupted unless a customer calls.”
*There are no jobs until someone sells something.
*One of the primary reasons most salespeople fail is simply that they don’t make enough calls.
*I don’t care how many pails of milk I lose, as long as I don’t lose the cow. In other words, it’s OK to lose an order or two, but don’t lose the account.
*Go out on a limb – that’s where the fruit is.
*It’s not what’s up front, it’s being up-front that counts.
*You only get one chance to make a good first impression.
*Initiative is important. Finishative is vital.
*Nothing sells itself!
*You can win more customers with your ears than with your mouth.
*A salesperson should never have to make a cold call. Ever. There is no reason you can’t become an instant expert on a prospect company in advance.
*Little things mean a lot – not true. Little things mean everything.
*Practice shaking hands. It’s the best way to make a million-dollar first impression.
*Don’t just meet your quotas. Exceed them.
*You don’t have to close every sale to be a success. No one bats a thousand.
*If you want to beat your competition, you have to show up, on time, with a plan, committed to excellence – and then execute.
*Nothing is more deadly to a sales relationship – or any relationship – than a broken promise.
*Two kinds of deliveries your customers never forget: late deliveries and early deliveries. Guess which one destroys your credibility, and which one pays off forever?
*If selling were just a matter of the low bid meeting specs, the world wouldn’t need salespeople.
*Never stop tinkering with your selling technique.
*Customer loyalty is the most valuable asset a business can have and the hardest to earn.
*Most people avoid risks their whole lives by assuming the other person is going to say no.
*Selling is not the simple business of convincing someone to buy. It is the art of creating conditions by which the buyer convinces himself.
*Look at your supplier list. Shouldn’t these people, who are dependent upon you for their livelihoods, be a major source of both business and prospects?
*The mark of a good salesperson is that his customer doesn’t regard him as a salesperson at all, but a trusted and indispensable adviser, an auxiliary employee who, fortunately, is on someone else’s payroll.
*People, not specs, will always be the key in determining who gets the sale.
*It’s not the sale that makes a salesperson. It’s what he or she does to ensure the next sale that makes that person a pro.
*People buy from people they like.
*Position yourself as No. 2. If you are standing second in line, in enough lines, sooner or later you’re going to move up to No. 1.
*Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more than you promise.
Harvey Mackay is author of The New York Times best seller “Pushing the Envelope.” He can be reached through his Web site: www.mackay.com; or Mackay Envelope Corp., 2100 Elm St., Minneapolis, MN 55414.
