Three Ingredients to Being Successful in Sales
In a world of information overload, it’s easy to find the “7 Magic Steps to Financial Freedom”, or the “10 Most Important Attributes of a Great Sales Person”, but the real challenge is in assimilating all this information and consistently implementing whichever various tactics work best for you.
Over the past twenty years, we’ve interviewed 100’s of top sales people and simply asked them what makes them so good. We even followed many of them out into the field to watch them in action and reviewed their sales personality-test results. Interestingly, we found that while each of them had a slightly different sales style and various different sales tactics, they each followed a specific recipe that could be attributed to their success in sales.
Based on this analysis, we coined the ingredients to this recipe, “The 3 Rights”: the Right attitude, focus on the Right things, and persevere until you get it Right.
The RIGHT Attitude
First, and most clearly, we noticed that sales people with the highest success rate, approached everything they did with the right attitude; yes, everything.
We saw these top sales people approaching prospecting, overcoming objections, and even cleaning out their car after a long day on the road with the right attitude. While there are many different variations of the “right” attitude based on the industry and the situation, each person showed a diehard positive vibe regardless of the task at hand.
Every time we meet with sales professionals, it’s easy to pick out who will be a top performer by their attitude towards the toughest, and in some cases menial, tasks they face each day. While honing your sales skills are critical to success, if your attitude is off, you’re not setting yourself up for success.
Focus on the RIGHT Things
Second, we saw a common element in each top performer’s commitment to a specific sales methodology. We noticed that each sales person had her own way of overcoming objections, presenting the product or service, and following up.
The key to success was not which sales book she read, but rather her laser focus on figuring out what worked best for each scenario, and committing to it every time. In our research, the best sales people were always learning new sales tactics and were always ahead of the trends in their industry. However, as they implemented tactics that worked, they latched on to them.
No matter how attractive a shortcut might have appeared, they stayed focused on their near perfect methodology.
Persevere until you get it RIGHT
As we looked for common threads among the top performers, we noticed they all were proud to share stories of their top clients and all the challenges they overcame to make the initial close. While each story was different from the other, they all shared the same theme: ‘It seemed impossible’; ‘I kept trying’; ‘I eventually had a small success and ultimately I came out on top’.
Perseverance seems to take the first two Rights and wrap them in Kevlar®. When hit with a meeting cancellation, top performers brushed it off and got back on the calendar; when told “no”, top performers knew it just meant the prospect hasn’t said yes, yet. And most importantly, for each negative response, top performers had multiple “yes’s” in their pipeline, many of which had said no a few times before.
So, don’t shy away from reading that new sales book that’s on the best sellers list, go ahead and register for the sales training seminar next week, but be sure you actively pursue a personal mantra of The 3 Rights and make them the foundation of your sales career.
Comments
Succinct and on Target!
1. Attitude exudes confidence
2. Focus on the right things! Don’t introduce anything off topic, it could intro objections
3. Persevere – Learning and growing from mistakes or just misses!
Suggest people print out the image and post it over their desk.
Thomas, thanks so much for your comments.
Focusing on the RIGHT thing, is FOCUSING on the key problems or challenges that
your client has. If you do this, you will gain trust, and be more relevant. If you do not
have a good solution for this, move on to someone you can help.
Very well said… many sales professionals focus on hitting their bonus or closing the deal during client meetings instead of solving the prospect’s challenges.
Perfect ????????
Glad you liked the post David!
Glad you liked the post David!
In other words, it’s all about discipline and knowing what’s the best thing to focus our energies on, and a high sense of professionalism, as well.
Great summary Jun K, you got it!
Thank you for checking out the post Jun, glad you liked it!
Very useful article
This is a great illustration to codify key sales success attributes. I’ll be showing to my team for their benefit and asking where they would place;
•Passion
•Strategy and,
•Sense of Urgency
Thank you
Thanks for checking out the post Jim, glad you found it helpful. Sounds like you have a great exercise in mind for your team, I’d love to hear how it turned out. Feel free to post the results here… I’ll chime in on your questions too!
Focus on the Right Things would also include or subset – do what they ask you to do
Preserve until you get it Right – I would add that “it” refers to solution
Right Attitude – positive attitude positive results negative attitude negative results
Tom, you’re spot on. Too many sales professionals have a difficult time identifying the right things to focus on. We tend to focus on our needs instead of the prospect’s.
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So glad you and Janet were able to apply the information. Reading a blog is easy, it’s applying the information that is tough… so congrats on standing above the crowd!
Out of the 3 rights, having the “Right Attitude” is the most important right to have in order to be a successful salesperson. I am currently in sales right now and all I can say is that if you don’t have a motivating and positive attitude, nobody is going to want to work with you. In addition to that, no one will want to purchase a product or service from a salesperson who isn’t confident and knowledgeable in what they’re selling.
Having the right attitude will help me become successful in my career because if I show consumers that I believe in the product and that I can positively advertise the benefits of the product, then someone will most likely purchase it.
First of all, selling is certainly not for everybody. I truly believe you have to be a people person and love what you are selling. If you don’t believe in the product or service, then you will most likely not be successful. That is where these 3 rights fall into place.
Having the right attitude will be a game changer in a persons sales numbers. If you go into work thinking it’s going to be a crappy day, then you’re going to have a crappy day. Having a positive, optimistic outlook will guide a sales person through their day. Although it varies heavily on what it is you are trying to sell, having the right attitude can certainly help a person overcome objections. Focusing on the right things will keep you in check and make your sales pitch more professional, I believe. Although I do see relating your life and connecting on a personal level rewarding, I think it is important to remember key factors to bring up. In my opinion, you want to be viewed as the friend helping a friend out, not just a “salesman” trying to rob the consumers wallet.
Life is all about learning from mistakes. Selling isn’t easy. There will be times where you lose a huge client, or times where you sell a huge unit. But it is important to remember to preserve until you get it right. If you mess up, try a different approach until you find something that sticks.
Great points Kelsey, thanks so much for sharing!
The 3 Rights are a very interesting topic as well as a useful tool even outside of the work spectrum. The first right, – and in my opinion the most important – having the right attitude, is extremely helpful when facing any task or challenge at hand. Currently at work, I am having some difficulty with this and am not looking forward to working with someone who I don’t feel brings a lot of skill to the table. However, if I were to look at this situation with a different, more positive attitude, I should be able to see that this person may be able to bring something to the table that I wasn’t able to see before. Having the right attitude really makes all the difference in a situation!
I think all of the rights really tie into one another well, because without having the right attitude, you will definitely struggle with persevering through the task because you won’t be able to focus on the right things and ideas.
Here’s to a positive attitude!