Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector

 
Welcome to this week’s post on sales and selling success.

My Australian readers will know that “The Voice” television series is back again for another year and I started thinking about how the program can teach us some sales and selling lessons.
Yep, that’s right I’m suggesting we can learn sales and selling skills from “The Voice”!!

The similarities:

• “The Voice” has coaches to help the talent grow. Smart sales people find a coach or mentor – some are lucky, their sales manager has a coaching mentality.
• There’s the blind auditions. In sales, we call that making an appointment over the phone or cold calling. Do you have the skill to get the prospect to turn their chair, push the button and vote for you?
• The panel of judges are celebrities who have huge egos – smart contestants play to those ego’s. And isn’t that like the selling situation with most clients or customers? If they don’t like you and what you stand for there’s no chance of success.
• The program has a series of heats where some contestants survive and others go. In sales that’s the face to face diagnostic or “uncovery” meeting where you try to learn more about the opportunities and then gain agreement to move forward and find a solution or put together a proposal. Sometimes you are invited back.
• During each episode, there’s the behind the scenes interviews. In selling that’s when you get back to the office and brief your sales manager on what happened at the meeting. Why it went well (or not) and what happened during the “heats”.
• Then “The Voice” has finals. Now the pressure is really on! The sales analogy is when you get to present your solution, plan or offer to the client. There’s still risk because other competitors are still in the frame and the solution mightn’t be accepted. One slip and you go home a loser.
• Finally, it’s the big night. One contestant wins all – they are the champ. So, will it be you? Did you tick all the boxes throughout the selling contest? Enough budget, the real decision maker, understand the needs, create a strong solution, ask for the business?

Ponder this

As a professional salesperson, this week is your chance to be a grand finalist, but remember, winners do everything right from the beginning and all the way through the process.

• Right time
• Right prospect
• Right person
• Right budget
• Right solution

 The competitive spirit

I’ll leave you with a great thought on being competitive and winning: “Anytime you find someone more successful than you are, especially when you’re both engaged in the same business – you know they’re doing something that you aren’t”.
 
Until next week good selling!
 

About the author 

Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.

He can be contacted at [email protected]