Universal Principles For Selling Professionals
As the seasons change
So does the market
Both creating and destroying opportunities
Revealing new problems and challenges.
Like water seeking it’s own level
The market seeks balance.
Today’s solutions are tomorrows problems
The master seller is awake to possibility.
Know the features
Yet focus on benefits.
What the buyer values, exceeds detailed minutia.
Listen for goals, needs and problems
Repressing lofty orations on specifications.
Speak to the why and the sale will advance.
At the first scent of objection
The fool avoids it
Deluding themselves the deal is won.
Like rotten wood covered with new paint
The sale soon crumbles when bearing weight.
Better to shine a bright light on issues
Addressing them as best able
Accepting the truth for what it is.
A destination can be reached by more than one path.
Seek the truth and let the sale be.
Crooked with words
the sale goes sideways.
Rushing the close
the deal comes to a halt.
Showing off and preening
Shows little.
Clinging to a few leads
Chases business away.
Hard rules on handling, manipulating, and fooling the buyer
never acknowledges what truly rules.
By not controlling the sale, the sale is controlled.
Each deal has its own course
Just do your job , then let go.
Questions leads to sharing
Sharing leads to appointment
Appointment leads to possibility
Possibility leads to belief
Belief leads to a quote
Quote leads to purchase.
The largest of sales begin with a response to the smallest of acts.
This is called advancing the sale.
The great Marketplace flows everywhere. All business is born from it.
Though it doesn’t consciously create new markets
It pours itself into its work.
It makes no claim this business is good or bad
Yet it nourishes emerging markets
And doesn’t hold onto them.
Some grow and some vanish,
Yet All are contained within it.
The Master Seller is aware of its greatness.
Never “lead poor” they find leads like shells on a shore.
Daily they walk the beach to uncover new business
And Delight in new opportunities.
A Master Seller knows their not perfect.
When they make a mistake, they realize it.
Having realized it, they own up to it.
Having owned up to it, they correct it.
They consider clients who point out their faults as their teachers.
They think of their competition,
Being as perfect and flawed as themselves.
When the Master sells, prospects are hardly aware of it,
To them it’s just a conversation about their lives.
Next best is a seller who is loved.
Next, one who is feared as sleazy.
The worst is one who is considered a huckster.
If you don’t trust the customer, you make them untrustworthy.
The Master Seller doesn’t talk, he acts.
When the sale is closed the people say, “We chose wisely”
Be a stranger to no one, a cousin to all,
Like family you see rarely at the wedding or funeral.
Respectful yet genuine
catching up on their lives.
Gregarious while authentic
Accept them for who they are.
The Master Seller is easy to know
Trusted at the start.
Fill your presentation to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your pitch and it will blunt
Chase after money and the deal will spoil
Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back and it will all work out.
The Tao Te Ching of Sales 