Iil lOr B le: rillr rilar rlrlrrmler

By Voss Graham

D) ECOMING a sales superstar is all Llabout the choices you make as a salesperson.

Sales superstars don't just suddenly show up or arrive out of nowhere. They design their paths to superdom using hard work and thinking about their choices all the timet They develop a winner's edge on the mental side and learn the skills to ensure winning.

To become a sales superstar, you must decide to improve your skills in l0 critical areas:

Learning - Sales superstars have one thing in common: they are always learning. Their learning can take several avenues. One, they learn about their customers, in depth, so they can understand the current and future situations they will face.

They are also readers. They read about selling, business trends, leadership issues, economic trends, and industry trends. They are the first to sign up for extending training and development sessions. They know that they need to sharpen their skills every day if they want to keep winning in the game of selling.

Business Acumen - In the modern world of selling, salespeople must be able to speak in terms that are important to customers and especially the "C" level customers. These terms are the world of business acumen-rev- enue growth, cost ofgoods sold, gross margin, related costs, turnover ratios, velocity and net income. If you are just talking about features and benefits, you are in the world of commodity selling and price alone rules.

Preparedness - Like the Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared," top salespeople know that customer research is done before meeting with customers. You validate what you have learned while in the presence of customers-which shows the customer that you are different and will not waste their valuable time. Using web search engines to find information about your customers, their customers, financial data, and trends allows you to be more knowledgeable than your competition.

Industry Knowledge - This should be a no-brainer; however, you will still find salespeople with little industry understanding. To be a sales superstar, knowing the industry is a requirement. It assists you in understanding trends, cycles, what is old or new, best practices, and who are their customers.

Industry knowledge allows for knowing the little secrets of success and most importantly the ability to anticipate trends within the industryallowing you to guide the customer to better decisions about their business.

Questioning Skilts - Here is the big one. Most salespeople talk too much. Yes, they talk too much and actually bore the customer. Why? Because the customer will have opinions about things and they will believe their own thoughts over yours.

This is a form of bias, yet, the best salespeople have learned this fact. They use questions to uncover these biases, use different questions to guide or educate the customer, and even different types of questions to learn what specific benefit or advantage certain solutions would provide for that specific customer.

The key is using questions to become customer centric rather than boasting about what you think you know. This is a required skill in modern selling. This is the land of the sales superstar, and they have learned the importance of this skill.

Listening - Closely related to the questioning skills is the ability to actively listen to the customer. Focusing on exactly what the customer is saying opens the door to understanding what is going on in the customer's world. The sales superstars have taken listening to a higher level. They listen for things that are not clearly defined by the customer, what should have been said-but was not. They hear general statements and fespon(l with l clarilyinl qucstion lbr specil'ics and cle uf r.urrlcr-stancling ot the sitLrltion.

Anothcl intclcsting clle ct corncs ll-orn lislcning to the custonrer thc) likc vou nrorel

'I'hink like an Ou,ner 'l'his lllcans connecting all thc rlots. Hou ilocs r oLll tcilnr linish thc sule u'itlr lhc e ustorncr"l Docs thc crrstorner li'cl satisl'iccl irl'tcl thc sulc or rlocs doubt artrl l'r'ustr-ution r-Lr lc.) Coor-dinating othcr l'unctiorral ur-clrs to sutisf'v thc cLrsl()rner is urtothcl clitical issuc thut nrost salespcople or e rlook ) e t it is thc orrc that irrl'luenccs llre ncrl sirlc to thut cr.lstonrcf the nr()st. Takc tilrc t() think ubout cust()nlcr sutisfaction ancl \\'hat it tilkcs to insulc succcss

*,ith clch cLlstonrcr.

Creative Problenr Sohing

Thc kc1 hclc is "crcutive."

This is not bv-thc-book or policr n'1.rc of proble nr solr inq. It is about Iooking at tlrc custorrer's siluatiorr irncl thinking lubout clif lcrent \\ ir\ s to solr c thc problcrn thcv havc. J-hcn choosirrg tlrc onc idca that rr ill cfcatc thc nrost c1'lcctive soiution lbr both the custorner lnd \ our- conrl)llnY.

Ilint: Youl biggcst oppoltr.l nitr custorrrcrs n ill tcst I'oLr

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P ra ctic e. Practice, Practice - Thc salcs sr-rper stars (lo not P|lrctice il nc\\' or i|tt1,t,ri r'(l teul)nirluC iltl il ! t'iti cul customer. 'l'hey w,or-k on the skills using folc l)la) s. application crcrciscs. and crcn Vicico a cuslonler sirDr,rlalion. LIsing viclco in thc prlctice scssions is thc fastcst nrctho(l to gain imnrccl iate irnprovcnrcr.tl in scllin-e skills. vct it is thc lcast rrscd clrrc to cgos attcl lear of 1'rrilurc.

Self Confidcnce Thc finul cliticll factor.is both u nrclrns ancl urr encl to sltcccccl irrr irr thc rrlltcl rtirtr'l'lltttrr'.. Corrlidcncc is the kcr to har ing tltc r', inncr's edgc. Most i nrltor'(antlv. cLlstonrcrs \\'lnI to ',r'ork r.r,ith conficlcnt peclplc to gct thc rcsults ancl outcomes they nced. Il' yor.r ckr thc first ninc. conl-itlcncc u ill conre. ()r use sclf conlirlcncc in clenronstrating the rlisciplinc ncctlcrl to nlrkc the choiccs that IclLtl t() sueecss antl slrlcs sr-rpcr'slrtf stlrtr-ls.

'l-hc torlcl ol'sulr-s is chansin! rupicllr. ,,\s a salcs;rerson. \,oLl rtcctl to tlccicle il you want to stav in salcs li)r' tlrc long [cnn or rlo sonrcthing clsc. Stlong uorrl s. rct trutlrluI r.r.'ortls blrscrl upon thc chungc tlrat lrus lullcurlv stultctl in scr cral inrlustlics. ('onrnrorlitr sclling rrill bc rtrlecl b1" tlrc Irrte lnct rrnrl pr-icc tlccisions lathcr' than bcs( r'lrluc solrrtions. Vl lrkc lr dccisiLrn torlrrr to bcconrc ir salcs superslur tncl ntrster thc l0 critical l lrctors ()l sLlcce ss.

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Beginners: 11

Intermediate: 800