THE ART OF SELLING

ANDREJ MLINŠEK

THE ART OF SELLING FOR

SALESMEN AND ENTERPRENEURS

Adriakus Založba d.o.o.

2023

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank all my mentors and teachers who guided me during my long sales career and helped me draw inspiraon from their knowledge. I learned a lot from my friends from America, both live and at seminars. In the USA, selling is a way of life in all sectors of the economy. Direct sales and a direct approach to people are highly valued and have been established in Europe for a long me as well. My enre life is organized on the basis of a direct approach to people, and I am trying to transfer this approach to all the people around me.

Andrej Mlinšek

INTRODUCTION

I have been involved in sales since I was 19 years old. I've probably read a few thousand books on the topic of sales and I've been to more than

hundred seminars led by the best leaders from around the world. I have always been fascinated by interacve contact with people, and I sll sell, speak and advise people every day. We are all involved in SALES, whether we realize it or not. A denst sells himself and his services and must be a good "salesman" if he wants the paents to return to. All parents know that it is necessary to "sell" something to the child in a nice way if we want him to do it. Planet Earth rotates in such a way that if you want someone to do something for you, you have to tell them in a nice way why they should do it. All the best experts in their fields know how to work with people and that's why they are the best.

I am wring this book so that even people who have never encountered sales may realize that we all need to learn to sell if we want to be successful in this world. I wish and hope that everyone who reads this book will find something for themselves and their life and develop some sales skills that will help and benefit them in life.

Andrej Mlinšek

1 BASICS OF SALES

The best salespeople master similar or idencal sales skills and abilies.

For anyone who is new to sales or who wants to learn new sales strategies, it is good to have mentors who can help them improve their sales success.

We'll look at successful sales taccs that every salesperson who wants to achieve real success must master.

6 STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL SALES:

1 CONCENTRATION ON THE CUSTOMER

When we meet or have a meeng with a new client, it is important to focus on their wants and their needs.

This means that we talk about their needs, wishes or comments, with the aim of gathering informaon that will help us at our final presentaon and sale to a specific customer.

2 CHECK OUT THE POTENTIAL BUYER

Whenever you meet with a potenal customer, always make sure you have enough informaon about the customer before starng the sales pitch.

If you work with companies, it is possible to obtain informaon online.

If you deal with direct sales to physical customers (as I have been doing for 30 years), the biggest guarantee of quality customers is on the basis of REFERRALS.

I talk a lot about referrals in this book because it is very important to get REFERRALS from your customers.

The best customers will always give you the best recommendaons.

This is how we can automacally reach new high-quality customers, without any prior verificaon.

THE SAME BIRDS ALWAYS FLY TOGETHER

What does it mean?

Successful people always socialize with each other. Always seek REFERRALS from successful people.

3 BUILD TRUST WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS

Successful salespeople always build trust with their customers, regardless of their sales performance.

Those of us who have been involved in sales for decades know that it is very easy to sell a certain product, but we also know that post-sales acvity is very important for business success and long-term presence on the market.

The customer's trust in the salesperson is crucial for the sale to last even aer the sales presentaon.

As we know, most customers in the European Union can return a product without reason within 12 months of the sale.

Therefore, it is all the more important that the act of sale is only the beginning of a long-term relaonship with the customer.

Customer trust is probably the basis of the post-sales acvity carried out by the best companies.

The right customer base, which is updated daily, enables a constant flow of income to the company in bad and good mes.

4 APPLY ACTIVE LISTENING

It is recommended that you speak LESS than your client during the meeng or presentaon.

Try to really understand your customers and their wants and needs.

Acve listening to the customer means listening to them with all our senses and really wanng to help them realize their needs.

The best salespeople use a technique called MIRRORING customer behavior.

This means that if we want the customer to feel comfortable with us, we have to act like they do.

If the potenal buyer is a calm person, the seller must also calm down and emit a calm energy, and vice versa, if the buyer is aggressive or emits strong energy, the seller must adjust his approach likewise.

People trust and respect people who look like them and talk and act like them.

Many mes I have seen the best reps literally turn into a “CHAMELEON” and completely blend in with the customers and their behavior.

Of course, things go much further and nowadays on the Internet we can see how the most successful "INFLUENCERS" record even their bad moments in order to get closer to their followers and show them that they too are vulnerable.

As a result, followers buy their products and their programs.

5 MAKE SELLING SIMPLE AND UNDERSTANDABLE

It is oen important to make the sale short and simple.

It is recommended to prepare and visualize the sale before the meeng itself.

All the best reps work in such a way that they can be calm and in control of the presentaon.

Visualizaon has always had a strong impact on successful sales throughout my sales career, and it sll does.

Whenever I have a meeng with new salespeople or when I'm at a presentaon with a potenal client, I always VISUALIZE the ulmate SUCCESS.

This technique especially helped me when I was at rock boom in my life and began to approach new customers.

In the morning and on the way to the customers, I VISUALIZED how I would successfully close the sale - and then forgot about it.

During the day, I didn't have the me to think about my daily goals, but in the end, I achieved exactly the result that I had visualized in the morning.

6 SELLING YOURSELF

We don't just sell our product or our service, we also sell "OURSELVES".

It is necessary to understand that in sales we represent ourselves and that our professional approach to the customer also decides the outcome of the potenal sale.

A professionally dressed and responsible salesperson will always have an advantage over others and an open door for advancement on the career ladder.

This doesn`t apply only to salespeople, but also to doctors, teachers, bankers, etc.

In English there is a wonderful saying "THE MESSAGE IS THE MESSENGER".

This means that the denst and his professional atude represent his clinic.

If the doctor is messy, inaenve and does not behave respecully, it will affect the result of his work.

Whenever I choose a new colleague or go to a denst, I pay aenon to all the signs before I start using his or her service.

Much of the literature is about how the best salespeople are "CONSULTANTS" and not just salespeople.

The customer always feels whether you are just trying to sell your product or really doing something that is good for them.

2 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SALES AND MARKETING

The main difference between sales and markeng is that sales refer to a transacon in which products or services are exchanged for money, while markeng refers to acvies and plans carried out by companies to promote a parcular purchase or sale.

Sales and markeng complement each other and nowadays it is almost impossible to sell products and services without markeng them first.

Direct sales, in which I have been working for more than 30 years, used to be ed exclusively to the implementaon of sales processes, without product markeng.

Due to the very good ability to reach customers without adversing, all direct sales representaves neglected MARKETING.

Even in our organizaon Adriakus Group, we only began paying aenon to markeng 8 years ago.

We have two external companies that professionally edit our websites and a few people who edit our social networks.

In the past, many companies in direct selling and other industries have done many good and posive things for their customers, but this was not visible anywhere and people outside the direct selling industry had no insight into what was actually happening in it.

In our case, we traveled all over the world, we were on almost every connent, but only people who actually went on these trips knew about that.

We organized dozens of meengs, seminars on personal growth and took care of our people so that they felt successful and were sasfied at their work.

Nowadays things are different because our acons are recorded, we are present on all social networks and on the Youtube channel.

All our clients and new candidates can see what we do, what our company culture is like and how we socialize; it is our most powerful weapon in markeng and later in sales.

Many people wonder what is more important, MARKETING or SALES. The answer used to be SALES, but nowadays MARKETING is much more important.

We are not talking so much about product markeng, especially in direct sales, but about PROMOTING our organizaon and presenng the way we work.

Every successful company presents its organizaon, its company CULTURE as well as its sasfied employees and customers.

Sasfied employees are the basic condion for obtaining sasfied customers.

Successful LEADERS and CEOs know that their first goal is to take care of their people and in turn they will take care of your customers.

The result of such a MARKETING approach is that we have a constant influx of new people into our organizaon in all areas of our work.

This is especially important in 2023, when all companies are facing a shortage of QUALITY personnel.

So, MARKETING has always been an important part of the SALES PROCESS; if we take care of successful PROMOTION, this will also be followed by successful SALES.

Nowadays, many people want to join organizaons that allow them PERSONAL GROWTH, ADVANCEMENT, TRAVEL, FLEXIBLE HOURS, DYNAMIC WORK, PAYMENT TO HELP OTHERS SUCCEED, ETC.

All these factors led me to join DIRECT SELLING at the age of 25, and they sll apply today.