My career as a stock broker barely survived the crash, but I then went on to thrive in that tough market moving into the top 1% of all brokers and going on to become the youngest branch manager at a national brokerage firm.

Want to know how I did it? I’ll reveal all the answers in my free teleseminar on Dec. 1: Six Steps to Sales Success. Sign up here:
http://www.salesencyclopediablog.com/previewcall/

After leaving the brokerage industry for several reasons, I moved on to two other industries. In 21 years, I’ve been in almost every type of selling situation and have sold in some of the toughest markets and economies. I’ve sold products, services, tangibles, and intangibles locally, nationally, and internationally. I’ve sold extensively both face-to-face and by telephone. Sold business-to-business and to individuals. Both established products and services as well as completely new, first-time-ever products and services and have sold for companies both large and small. And I’ve been a number 1 producer in all those venues. There are certain common denominators to success that will work with whatever you sell and I will share those with you in this free teleseminar.

This teleseminar is a preview call for my 4 week sales success teleseminar series.

Here’s the link to register or to get more details:

http://www.salesencyclopediablog.com/previewcall/

Hope to “see” you there!
John Chapin

Okay, on the surface this doesn’t look like it relates to sales, but it does. Facing and overcoming fears changes more lives than almost anything else. If you overcome your fears, it will have a direct impact on your life and your sales. Especially if it a fear such as public speaking. Why? A fear such as public speaking is what we’ll call a communications fear because it involves communicating with other people. Other such fears are: the fear of being assertive, the fear of leading a group, and the fear of being on TV or radio.

The good news is: whatever fears you have and overcome, even a fear of snakes, will have a positive impact on your life and your sales career.

The bottom line: Step out of your comfort zone by facing your fears and conquering them. On the other side of the fear, you will find a more whole, positive, and fulfilled person, and you will see a positive impact on your sales career too.

John Chapin  co-author of Sales Encyclopedia     www.completeselling.com

For example, when I was in the Banking Industry I sold ATMs, vaults, alarms, video equipment, and all sorts of other items that banks needed, including general contracting work. With all the areas we covered, it would be very easy for customers and prospects to forget EVERYTHING that we did. As a result, they had to be continually reminded. Not in an obnoxious, e-mail everyday kind of way, but just with casual reminders here and there. For example, every time they built a new branch office, I’d review everything and let them know ALL of our services. I’d also send out information when we ran a special on something. Another idea was to send out a quarterly list of the things we did, basically, “Did you know we do…”

The bottom line: Make sure your customers and prospects are aware of the full array of your services and how you can help them.

John Chapin co-author of Sales Encyclopedia   www.completeselling.com

What are you doing to catch good ideas when they come? A lot of your best sales ideas may hit when you least expect it, and when you’re least prepared to get them down. It could be in the shower, in the middle of the night, or driving down the road, as in my case.

The bottom line: Always be prepared to capture good ideas when they come to you. Have a pen and paper, a recorder, or other device close to you at all times. 

John Chapin  co-author Sales Encyclopedia    www.completeselling.com

An important key to your sales success is consistency. If you are hot and cold on important tasks and actions, your success will be hot and cold. If you cold call a prospect, but then don’t follow that up with anything, you might have some spotty success, but not much.

The bottom line: It’s important to be consistent in sales. Consistency starts with goals and a plan to follow to get to those goals. It then requires that you do what must be done when it must be done. You must have a plan for follow up with prospects and customers and you must follow it.

John Chapin co-author Sales Encyclopedia   www.completeselling.com

Does this sound familiar? Let’s face it, most of us have had this happen at least several times in our selling career, and for some of us, we run into this several times a week.

In a tough economy it’s more important than ever to NOT waste time chasing pipe dream leads. Many of us are so anxious to get a lead that we don’t qualify the lead quite as well as we should. In other words, having a lead, or a lot of them, gives us hope for a lot of future sales.

We must fight the urge to simply fill our pipelines with lots leads and focus instead on the quality of leads in our pipeline. The way to do this is to be more direct with prospects and ask direct questions, thus finding out up front if we have a true lead versus a pipe dream lead. At the end of the day, using this method may generate fewer leads, but they will be better leads and thus, we will waste less time and be much more efficient.

The bottom line: Cut lots time, effort, energy, and cost by being direct with prospects thus getting more solid leads. Spending time only on quality leads will ensure much more efficiency.

John Chapin – co-author of Sales Encyclopedia   www.completeselling.com

There are many advantages to calling high. First, the people at the top recognize and care about value more than the lower levels. Second, deals get done more quickly. Third, these people are more likely to be around over the long haul. There are other reasons, but these are the primary ones.

Eventually you want to have some kind of relationship with the people at the top no matter what you sell. This way, if the person you usually deal with leaves, you still have a solid relationship with that account. Also, if there is some sort of roadblock to the sales process at some point, the people at the top can resolve it.

The bottom line: The higher levels are where things get done and real decisions are made. When you first begin calling on an organization, you want to be calling as high as possible. Even if you get bounced down a level or two, it is always better to say: “(The president’s name or name of president’s assistant) said that you’re the one I should talk to regarding this.” As opposed to a straight cold call to that person. This also opens the lines for future communication to the higher levels.

John Chapin – co-author of Sales Encyclopedia      www.completeselling.com

They say that in a tough economy, the average salesperson cuts face-to-face calls by 37%. This can be due to several factors, one: trying to cut costs, two: hiding behind the phone and e-mail because of all the bad industry news, and three: less work is easier than going out and making those calls.

In a tough economy, or during other difficult times in your industry, you want to be making more calls not less, working harder, not pulling back. You need to get to your prospects and customers and let them know you are still out there, but you also need to get to the competition’s prospects and customers because chances are, the competition is getting to them less.

The bottom line: Try to INCREASE the amount of face-to-face time you spend with prospects and customers. Now, more than ever, it is very important to stay in touch with prospects and customers but it is also a great time to get out and expand your business.

John Chapin – co-author of Sales Encyclopedia   www.completeselling.com

Join Linked In, Twitter, Face Book and others and put information up there that lets people know what you do. Also, join some of the sites such as Classmates.com so you can connect with people you went to school with.

The bottom line: The more places you post your name and what you do, the more people you will potentially reach and the more prospects and customers you will potentially get. Get your name out on all the social networking sites and join other groups that will allow you to connect with new people and also people from your past.

John Chapin – co-author of Sales Encyclopedia  www.completeselling.com

Do you believe you need 8 hours of sleep a night? Do you believe you’re good with numbers but not with names? Do you believe that it takes you a while to learn new things?

Remember: whatever you believe to be true, for the most part, will be. Whatever your beliefs are, I challenge you to look at them if see if any may be holding you back.

For example, I have a friend that used to believe she needed about 9 hours of sleep. She also believed that she was not good with names. What she discovered after questioning her beliefs was that she only needs about 7 hours of sleep and, after learning a strategy to remember names, she is now great with names. The benefits? 14 hours more a week and no more embarrassing moments where she forgets someone’s name. Those are just 2 benefits, I’m sure we could come up with others.

So what should you do with your limiting beliefs? Question them, put them to the test, and get educated about them.

Again, she learned some strategies for remembering names such as name association and saying the name to herself a few times. With regard to sleeping, she took the clock out of her bedroom and got up when she woke up and felt pretty good. Obviously she wouldn’t get up if it was still dark out. :I

Also, where did this belief come from? Do you know it is absolutely true? Is it true in ALL cases? Does everyone have this belief?

One other strategy is to adopt a new, empowering belief and decide to believe it, while refusing to believe the old belief.

The bottom line: You are what you believe you are. We all have beliefs which hold us back. Question yours, challenge them, get rid of them and replace them with new empowering beliefs.

John Chapin    www.completeselling.com