Why are some salespeople more successful than others?

Why do some salespeople sell and earn twice as much, five times, ten times as much as others?

The difference is always knowledge and skill! The top salespeople are better at selling than the average producers.

Fortunately, all sales skills are learnable. You can learn any skill you need to achieve any sales goal you can set for yourself.

In fact, you are probably only one skill away from DOUBLING your income!

Give yourself a grade of 1-10 (with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best) on the 10 key result areas of selling described below. This will help you to understand your strengths and weaknesses, and what you can do to rapidly increase your sales and your income.

Successful selling is only possible when you become competent in the following areas. How are you doing?

1. Prospecting: you have a steady stream of qualified prospects that takes up most of your selling time.

a. 80% of your time is spent with pre-qualified prospects.

b. You have a proven system of developing new prospects.



2. Building Rapport and Trust: you have a pleasant, positive personality and easily make friends with prospects and customers.

a. You genuinely like people and they like you in return.

b. Your prospects and customers trust you and believe you, and are happy to see you again.



3. Identifying Needs: you have an organized series of questions to accurately determine the needs of your prospect regarding your product or service.

a. You conduct an effective needs analysis with each prospect.

b. After your needs analysis, you and your prospect are clear about what he/she needs, the budget and the timing for purchase, and the major objections to be answered.


4. Presenting Your Product or Service: you have a clear, proven process of presentation that demonstrates the benefits of buying to your prospect.

a. You begin with the established need and move step-bystep from the general to the specifics of what you sell.

b. At the end of the presentation, your prospect is perfectly clear about what you sell, how much it costs, how it will benefit him and how to proceed.



5. Answering Objections: you have thought through and identified each reason a prospect might give for not buying at the end of your presentation.

a. You have developed a clear and compelling way to answer each objection you receive.

b. Once you have answered a particular objection, the prospect is satisfied and it never comes up again!



6. Closing the Sale: you are skilled and comfortable when it is time to ask the customer to buy, to take action on your offer.

a. You have thought through and prepared your closing words in advance.

b. You recognize buying signals and are prepared to close the sale as soon as it is clear the customer is ready to buy.



7. Getting Resales and Referrals: you have a successful plan to get resales and referrals from each customer.

a. You have several proven referral systems that bring you a "golden chain" of new prospects and customers.

b. You have a "relationship management system" to keep in regular contact with your customers and good prospects.



8. Personal Organizational Skills: you are well organized, efficient, effective and punctual every selling day.

a. You plan and organize your months, weeks, days in advance, and set priorities on the use of your time.

b. You apply the 80/20 Rule to everything you do, and always concentrate on the highest value use of your time.



9. Time and Territory Management: you have a written plan to identify your best markets and prospects, and you work your plan every day.

a. You are clear about your target market, your ideal customer, who he is, where he is, why he buys, when he buys, and what benefits he seeks.

b. You plan your work and work your plan to assure that you are spending the maximum amount of time possible with qualified prospects.



10. Personal and Professional Development: you are continually working on your skills (the outer game) and your personality (the inner game) so you perform at your best.

a. You continually read, listen to audio programs in your car, and attend additional selling seminars and courses.

b. You make lifelong learning and growth a regular part of your personal and business life.