Let’s get real, right off the rip here. Sales ain’t for everyone. I know the media makes it look all sexy with Wall St and Boiler Room type of movies, but the nitty gritty truth is that sales is hard AF. If you aren’t a leather skinned, coffee drinking, sailor mouth having, work-a-holic, you are gonna have a real hard time working in sales.
Sadly, some people never realize this. They spend their whole life chasing the holy grail of sales. The big commission check. But for most, that big check never arrives. Sales is a lot like Hollywood. People have these big hopes and dreams of making it on the big screen. Only to quickly find out it’s fiercely competitive and no where near as easy as it looks.
In sales you have a choice to make. A choice to stick with it and get better, despite all the odds against you. Or to tap out. Assuming that since you’re reading this, you want to improve your sales game, I’m going to help you. Bur first, before we can improve, we must admit where we are weak.
I’m going to give you 7 key areas of sales that you can examine yourself in. If any of these 7 signs fit you, seek a book, a training program, a seminar, or a mentor immediately. If you think any of the coming sings are not signs of weak sales game, YOU prolly have a weak sales game. Just saying…
1: You’re a full time business card vending machine – It’s 2019! Our job in sales is to collect data, not give it out. The internet gives out information, a good salesman collects info. Back in the 80-2000s you could give out 100s of business cards and someone would call you. It doesn’t work that way now. People no longer go to a rolodex of cards when they have issues. They go to Google.
Your job is not to hand out your contact info to people. Your job is to collect contact information so that you can follow up with the contact and see how you can help them. The real money in sales is in the follow up, not the first meeting. Collect cards, don’t give them out. I haven’t had a business card in 8 years.
2: You have no existing book of business – If you don’t have a list of prospects you can call right now for business, you are doing sales all wrong. If you’ve been working in sales for over a year, and you don’t have a book of business you sell to on the regular, you have a weak ass sales game.
The name of the game in sales is not pump and dump. No matter what you sell, you never plan to sell it to a customer only once. I did 3-5 loans for some of my clients back in the day. The hardest part of sales is getting a customer. Once you have a customer, the easiest part of sales is selling to them again.
3: You don’t have a steady stream of referrals – No matter what you sell, if you don’t have customers you’ve closed sending you their friends and family on a regular basis, you suck at sales. Referrals are the lifeblood of sales professionals. But in order to get referrals, you have to be good at sales and good at delivering exactly what you promised.
So many salespeople never get referrals because they focus on making the sale, not serving the prospect. If you treat your clients like gold, they will send everyone they know your way without asking. Everywhere I’ve ever worked I’ve got a ton of referrals. Matter of fact, all my Elite coaching clients are referrals.
4: You bounce from sales job to sales job – I got bad news for you. It’s not the product. It’s not the leads. It’s not the company. It’s not the delivery. It’s you. If you’ve had more than 3 sales jobs in the last 5 years and shit hasn’t worked out at any of them, that’s on you, not the jobs.
Damn draw monkeys! Hopping around, running up the draw, then swinging over to the next job to get more draw money. We all know and have seen people who bounce from job to job, getting a draw and never getting ahead. If you can’t make it work after job #3, it’s time to go see Harold in HR and apply for a job in the mail room.
5: You don’t follow up with leads – It’s funny that I even have to point this out. After all, everyone knows that the FU money in sales is from the FOLLOW UP. Yet so few salespeople do it. So few that do it, do it correctly. Right now, on average, you need to follow up with a prospect 20+ times. Yes 20+ times. Most salespeople give up after 3.
The key to follow up is not to pester and pressure the prospect. But rather to give them value. Every time you follow up, come with a gift. An article, a video, a blog, a t shirt, a card or something of use and value to the prospect. This earns you the ability to keep in front of them while waiting on the follow up to close the sale.
6: You’re not comfortable handling objections – If you don’t already know the rebuttals to your top 10 objections, you need to order closercards.com right now. You need to have your industry’s top 10 objections written down, and the rebuttals to them as well. You need to read and memorize these like flash cards.
If objections scare you, use closer cards to remove the emotion from the process and make it an automated response that just kinda happens when you hear the objection. If you’re gonna make it in sales, you better get good at hearing and handling objections. Weak people starve in this industry.
7: You earn less than 6 figures per year – This one prolly hit a lot of you right in the guts. If you’ve been working in sales, selling anything for 5 years and you don’t make at least $100,000/year, I got bad news for you. No matter how many excuses you want to give me or yourself, you are weak at sales.
I’ve been earning 6+ figures per year since 2004. It was my 1st full year as a commission only, 1099 salesman without any guarantee or anything. Removing that safety net, pushed me to make $109k that year. The following year I made $773k. Also, I want you to remember, 6 figures is only entry level money in sales. The Closers make 7+ figures annually. Remember, there’s always a bigger fish.
So there you have it. Now you have a choice, ignore the signs or adapt and make changes. One thing is for sure, if you struggle with any of the above 7 signs, you better get a fix on that shit now, before it’s too late.
One of the best ways to get better at sales is to practice. In order to practice, you need more leads. In order to get more leads, you need to sign up for a FREE trial at phonesites.com/closer you’ll get FREE coaching from me on how to get leads and close sales from them. sign up today.
