The Blatant Truth: 50 Ways to Sales Success

In The Blatant Truth: 50 Ways to Sales Success, Adrian Miller, founder of Adrian Miller Sales Training, discusses the 50 indispensable truths” (and myths) to successful selling. Here’s a sampling:

MYTH - You’re a Natural born Salesperson: Having someone tell you that you’re a ‘natural born’ salesperson is a nice thing to hear…but it’s also total nonsense. You must accept that you have the potential –and the need– to cultivate every success-friendly characteristic that you want.

TRUTH - Sound Good on the Phone: Your tone is as important as your words, if not more important in some ways. For better or worse, we live in a culture that confuses hearing with listening. If your tone isn’t aligned with what your listener wants, then listening will almost certainly not happen. Sales reps can ensure that they are using an effective (appropriate) tone by keeping a mirror propped at their desk. It serves to “humanize” them all and helps the rep to maintain a smile on their face. Listening to tape-recorded calls is also valuable as adults tend to “self-correct” and will adjust their tone when they can actually hear how they sound.

TRUTH - Know How to Ask for the Business: Don’t assume you have the business until you have it. This may seem bizarre, but it’s a common error. Your prospect may be very friendly. That’s good. But that doesn’t mean the sale will happen. Pay attention to what your prospect is saying, and if he or she isn’t saying much, then pay attention to what isn’t being said. If your prospect isn’t asking key questions or helping you elaborate upon answers, then you probably aren’t heading towards a close, despite the friendliness of it all. If you run into this scenario, back up, probe deeper, and intensify your quality efforts.

TRUTH - Failure can’t stop you: Hall of Fame baseball hitters “fail” about two out of every three times at bat. Failure and success are intertwined and to imagine that one exists without the other is unreal and usually destructive. So know this: failure—or lack of success, if that term is more appealing to you—is a part of the whole.