7 Steps to Successful Living

The 7 Steps to Success

A strong foundation of CONFIDENCE allows you to self-assuredly and effectively use your COMMUNICATION skills to build rapport and CONNECTION with your customers.

Once the framework of CONFIDENCE, COMMUNICATION and CONNECTION are in place, you continue to employ a strong WORK ETHIC combined with sound PRODUCT and COMPANY KNOWLEDGE to thoroughly address the needs of consumers and answer your customer’s questions. This furthers their journey in feeling good about their decision to buy from you.

When you partner with your fellow workers in sales, sales management and other departments you display good TEAMWORK that truly defines your commitment to providing your customers with the best possible buying experience.

When you combine all these attributes into a single unit (yourself and your company) then your customers are given a sure sense of your ability, your commitment, your integrity and the quality of your product or service. Therefore, when the need arises to engage PERSUASION, then your words carry more weight, your responses have greater credibility. If so, then a positive outcome (a sale) is more likely.

A good resource for good selling techniques is, “The Little Red Book of Selling” by Jeffrey Gitomer. Here are some good excerpts to whet your appetite:

1. Confidence –Pg. 20, bullet point #1. Believe you can! Have the right mental posture for success.

2. Communication – Pg. 26, Fear of public speaking, fear of rejection. BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR TO FAILURE IS lack of preparation! Second biggest factor in my opinion, failure to listen with the intent to understand. If you fear speaking in public, join a Toastmasters club in your area and put a quick stop to that fear.

3. There are other important needs to be successful in sales that I’ve written in earlier sales blogs:

4. Connection – Connection is all of the following and more…
   a. Make friends first

   b. Build rapport

   c. Find common ground

   d. MAKE THEM LAUGH

   e. Talk to them about them – more importantly,

   f. Get themtalking about them

   g. Be enthusiastic, but professional

5. Work Ethic – When does your work-day begin? How do you prepare for your day?

6. Product & Company Knowledge – When was the last time you went on your company’s Intranet to learn all about your product or service—again? Learn and refresh your learning on your workplace and/or their policies. When was the last time you had a POSITIVE conversation about your workplace with a group of co-workers? Do you make it a habit to learn and memorize all you can about your product or service, about your industry in general? You should!

7. Teamwork – How can you best utilize the various departments within your organization to better insure a positive experience for you and your customers? Have you made it a point to learn the names of those who work in other departments? If not, why not? Begin to think globally within your organization and beyond about the small, personal touches that can make you successful. That includes knowing your co-workers, their names and using their names when you greet or encounter them at work.

8. Persuasion – If you have properly and thoroughly leveraged all of the first 6 steps, then this final behavior is made simple. Why? Because you know the whys, the wheres, the whos, the whats, the whens and the how muches.

It’s not enough just to know the TRUTH about how to be successful in your daily business, you have to engage your learning and build your knowledge and your craft EVERY DAY, as well as treat everyone as exceptional people.

If they like you, and they believe you, and they trust you,
and they have confidence in you…then they MAY buy from you.
 - Jeffrey Gitomer

BUT…..If we properly employ the right principles of success, if we have properly prepared ourselves, and we place strong confidence in our person and our abilities and skill sets; If we study about our products and our company, while employing every asset available to us; If we professionally and enthusiastically greet and serve our customers with the highest regard for their business experience with us, then we WILL be successful. We WILL increase our personal worth, our personal wealth and our personal well-being!