“Just Do It”
For years, this was an iconic marketing slogan from Nike applicable to a wide range of activities, including sales. And, while Nike doesn’t use this anymore, it should be the mantra of all salespeople today. If salespeople focused on just doing the best job possible, client loyalty would never be in question. Yet every day, salespeople don’t deliver. Why? The three most prevalent barriers to just doing your job are a lack of understanding, fear and attitude.
What is Your Job?
Your job is not to sell; your job is to help your customer buy. This is a core truth of our profession. Your job is to help customers find the exact product or service that meets their needs, wants and desires, and, in doing so, make sure their experience is positive.
To do this, three things must happen every day, all day. You must be 100 percent present and ready to work with a single-minded focus for each customer. You must ask the right questions, actively listen, learn and understand problems from the customers’ point-of-view. You must help customers “fall in love” with the product or service.
Why Are You Afraid?
Fear of failure will keep anyone from success. Usually, fear comes from a lack of empowerment. Yet, empowerment comes from the individual. It’s the process of enabling yourself to take action, control work and make decisions independently. Most, however, believe that empowerment comes from someone else, usually their manager. Consequently, salespeople wait to be empowered while managers wonder why they don’t just do what is best for clients. When this happens, you are giving your power away. Even within the company processes or rules, everyone has the ability and opportunity to act empowered to help clients.
What’s Your Attitude?
Every day, in every situation, you have a choice about the kind of attitude you will embrace. And in every instance, the attitude a person chooses becomes reality. In sales, a positive attitude drives the ability to do the best job possible. It drives willingness to make empowered choices. It drives the ability to help clients find the right product or service that specifically meets or exceeds their unique situation.
When you are positive, people will find you irresistible. People will remember you, not for how you handled life, but for how you made them feel. Your attitude and your ability to have a positive influence on the attitudes of others will affect not only your sales, but every area of your life. Nothing in your life will pay more rewards than your ability to have and maintain a great attitude.
Small successes and large achievements start the same way. Focusing on what you want helps you make it happen, both for yourself and for your customers. You may not win every sale, but if you can honestly say you did everything possible to satisfy the customer then you’ll win in the long term.
Every day, say to yourself, “My job is to help my customers buy.” Every day, embrace an empowered work style. Every day and in every situation — from lousy traffic and slow service, to unexpected problems and disappointing news — everyone can choose whether or not it’s a good or bad day. By making the right choices every day, doing your job becomes easy and more rewarding.
Richard Libin – President For Automotive Profit Builders
