Monday, August 6, 2007

Sales Rule #1

From time to time I'll put in here my top rules for sales. These are the key philosophy's and points of knowledge that I first learned as a beginning salesman, and the ones that have stuck with me ever since. Although alot of what I blog in here will be more advanced subject matter, these rules are the basics, and you can't win without knowing the basics. One of my tricks is that everytime I go through a slow period (and they do happen) I go back to these basics. Without a strong foundation, a house will collapse, and these rules are the foundation. They will be written in here rather randomly, and not in any numeric order, but that's the joy of basics...their really isn't a first and last.

Since this is like the first real post with any substance here, let's start with rule #1. Rule #1 is actually three rules, but they all kind of roll into one and are all tied together. It's all about product knowledge. Know your product, know your inventory and know your competitor. IF you don't know any one of these things you will be at a severe disadvantage at some point. If you don't know your competitor, you have no idea how to defend against competing sales people. If you don't know your inventory, you run the risk of selling product you don't have, or not selling the right product at an opportune time. If you have pricing flexibility in your job knowing your inventory will help with that as well, as you may have a bit more leeway with something you have a surplus of. And finally, know your own product. You really don't ever need to know the engineering roots of a product, that's someone else's job. And you really don't need to know how to fix, configure, set up, prepare your product; again that's someone else's job. BUT...if you do know those things, you give yourself a huge leg up on your competitor.

Two things I positively HATE to hear from a sales person: 1) "Uhhhhh.... ummm... uhhh" and 2) a lie of any sort. If you know your product well enough, you don't need to do either of those things. There will always be occasions for you to say "Well, gosh, you got me; I actually don't know the answer to that. Let me find out and get back to you as soon as I can. Is this a deal breaker for you, or a curiosity?". Never be afraid to admit you don't know the answer, but if you can limit the instances of having to admit that you're 4 steps ahead of 90% of the sales people out there.

So, to summarize: Know your product, know your competitor and know your inventory. And don't ever lie about not knowing it. Thanks to Tom Hopkins for giving me this rule oh so many moons ago.

Until next time, continue to sell with integrity and honesty.

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