It cannot be disputed that certain people have specific strengths, which will certainly support them to be better at what we would traditionally call sales, than other people. I do however believe that, as we are all in sales, for our entire lives, from the moment we utter our first cry, where we try to influence our mothers to perform a specific task for us, to negotiating with our father at the age of five for a sweet at the grocery store, to negotiating with our high school teacher not to put us in detention, to negotiating with our spouses about which movie to go and see, to negotiating with our own five year old about which sweet they want in the same grocery store etc. We all have an innate ability to sell or should I say influence people to do things.

We are all born in Sales
Asking your mother to buy you a sweet when you are five and nagging her until she relents, is a form of influence, granted not one that will work with a million dollar deal, but it is a form of sales or influence all the same. As you grow up your natural ability to negotiate with or influence those around you also improves. So for example, when you are standing outside a cinema negotiating with your wife, trying to sell her on going to see the movie of your choice, instead of the romance she wants to go and see. Both of you have honed your negotiating skills throughout your lives and are pretty adept at putting your point of view forward. You are both very adept at trying to influence the other to person to see your point of view and thus go to see the movie you want to see. This is nothing more than sales or positive influence in action.

Any natural talent can be improved
I know this flies in the face of traditional belief around sales, where it is believed that sales people are born great. I believe that, as the ability to influence the people around you is a crucial survival and life skill and one that we all possess to varying degrees. Selling or the ability to positively influence people around you, is a natural life or even survival skill and is present in everyone and thus one of the easiest skills to teach anyone to hone and improve.

The hardest part, when attempting to help anyone hone their sales skills, is to get them to move the focus away from themselves, i.e. to get them to stop only thinking of themselves, when they are attempting to influence people and instead to focus on discovering a mutually beneficial solution, which sees both parties win. Once anyone make this crucial shift, learning the art of selling or positively influencing people, becomes merely a process of gradually learning a few new skills and then developing a few crucial daily routines or sales success habits, to support them to communicate value, build relationships, and ensuring they understand and meet the needs of their customers.

Long term success as a sales professional, is about:
Doing what you love
Believing in what you sell
Knowing the value you bring.
Believing that the value you offer is greater than the price your customers will have to pay.
Believing that what you offer will add real value to your customer and make a meaningful difference in their lives.
Thoroughly researching your markets so that you can discover prospects and customers, who are a perfect fit for your value proposition.
Creating a plan to introduce the perfect prospect to your value proposition.
Ensuring that the needs of your customer are always placed above your own.
Ensuring that you are prepared and have a specific purpose, before each sales call.
Promising plenty, but always delivering more.
Making your customers so happy that they gladly refer you to other prospects.
Take responsibility for the entire sales cycle, from start to finish. Get involved to ensure that your customers are always happy, despite the fact that it may be another department’s responsibility to support your customer.
Follow the recipe for sales success, described above and commit to introduce the tools and concepts described in this sales article, into your life and your sales will just keep improving and growing. Sales success is never achieved in a day, but can and will be achieved daily, through your commitment towards being of service, your drive to always help and then discovering ways to consistently add value to your customers and prospects.

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