Breakthrough selling focuses on understanding customers' needs and viewpoints in order to build trust and become a valued partner. It emphasizes asking thoughtful questions, constructively challenging assumptions, and providing helpful solutions. Goals include gaining more customer face time, making headway with tough customers, and ultimately driving sales results. Critical behaviors like avoiding conflict, overloading customers with data, and focusing too much on one's own agenda are addressed. Sales training and leadership coaching are personalized rather than one-size-fits-all. Positioning strategy and public relations techniques can generate buzz for new products on a small budget. Mastering breakthrough selling leads to customer relationships, sales growth, and personal fulfillment.
The sales process starts with having the right mindset. A single person with the proper attitude can accomplish more than an entire team with the wrong approach. Harvard Business School identified four key factors for sales success: attitude, product knowledge, intelligence, and skillset. Their research found attitude accounted for 93% of sales effectiveness while the other three factors combined contributed less than 7%. There are six components of a positive sales attitude: First, take pride in the profession. Sales is the highest paid field globally. It also serves as the foundation of consumer economies like the United States. Sales professionals should feel pride about choosing this career path. Second, feel passionate about the product or service. Top performers feel genuinely excited about the benefits they provide customers. Their enthusiasm spreads to prospects. Third, dedicate time and effort to the sales process. High achievers devote energy, commitment and personal reputation to the work. Making a significant personal investment creates incentive to maximize every sales opportunity. Fourth, continually build knowledge and skills. Successful salespeople consistently improve their understanding of products, selling techniques and customers. Fifth, stay positive when facing rejection. Top performers creatively persist through early nos. They gauge when to keep pursuing a lead versus moving to the next prospect. Finally, learn from every setback. Positive professionals use failures as opportunities to gain new perspectives and insights. The main obstacle preventing sales excellence is fear. Confidence, expertise, relationships and vision help conquer fear. Confidence grows from setting and meeting ever more ambitious targets. Completely understanding a product provides assurance when engaging deeply knowledgeable customers. Developing rapport and shared interests with prospects eases anxiety. Visualizing products improving lives offers inspiration to push past fear’s paralysis. Ultimately, people buy from other people, not faceless companies. Sales comes down to networking – building personal connections and trust with potential buyers. Friendship forms the foundation. Understand what motivates and matters to the other person. Show friends they are important by learning their priorities. Inject originality into ordinary interactions, like printing quizzes on the backs of business cards. Send congratulatory notes when connections have wins. Each month, befriend four new people and understand their challenges where opportunities hide. Join nonprofits attracting desired prospects for doing business. Give icebreaker gifts featuring products or company information. Compile profiles documenting client interests to easily start meaningful conversations. Little things also impact sales results. Studies determined: The top salespeople handle the last 5% of details setting them apart. That extra polish and creativity sparks more sales. About 80% of underperformers simply fail to do enough outreach. Most struggle due to disorganization rather than deficient skills or knowledge. Systems to efficiently schedule and minimize paperwork helps achievement. Small courtesies like thank you’s, promptness and regular contact build profitability. High performers add value wherever possible. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and trackable goals provide feedback to stay motivated. Mentally rehearsing spurs the skill mastery needed for peak results. Early recognition often catalyzes greater success. Training programs giving rookies initial wins inspires confidence to attempt more. Essential sales traits are service-mindedness, customer-attunement, action-orientation and resilience. Definitive guidelines help newcomers maximize potential. Some initially succeed by taking on problematic accounts no one else wants and delighting them with care. Others build competence via phone sales before face-to-face meetings. An effective telemarketing infrastructure provides information sheets on features and benefits, reasons to buy, handling common objections, product comparisons, call objectives for each stage, willing references, opening scripts, a personalized motivational workspace, and call recordings for coaching. Availability of these tools breeds achievement.
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