Been selling for 10, 20, 30 years? That’s great. Or was it 1 years experience repeated 10 times? In Sales Ninja world: Experience ≠ Results. Experience gives you a higher confident level because you are familiar with the product or the process. The key question here is, are you producing more sales and making more money every single year? If yes, i congratulate you, keep practicing what you are doing because results matter. If your performance is not going UP, then here are 2 suggestions for you:
1 >>Keep pushing yourself. Remember when you got started? How blazing your fire was? How much time you spend hitting the floors and punching the numbers on the phone to get appointments? The more years you are in selling, the more it turns you into an order-taker, mostly doing visitings and servicings and taking orders from your customers. That’s not selling.
I have a public listed client who dominates the market with more than 50% market share. With over 20 years in the business the relationship with the clients are solidly strong. The CEO launched a new product and wants the team to sell it to the clients. The results were miserable. Experience field reps with strong relationships with their existing customers unable to cross sell other products. Why? Very experienced sales people, but they forgot how to sell, they were servicing. Which leads me to point number 2…
2 >> Go back to the basics. Selling is all about mastering all the basics and practicing all the basics. It does not matter how experienced you are, you must use the basic skills of selling at all times. The more i conduct sales trainings in Malaysia or for that matter any other countries across the world, the more i realize how important mastering the basics are. Most sales people know the basics, but they have not mastered all of them. They just do a few of this and a few of that. That’s not Sales Best Practices. It’s called Sales Best Practices because it must always be… Practiced!
No skilled athlete or fighter is going to say, i’ve swinged a few times, i’m the master, i don’t need to swing anymore, let’s do something else. Michael Jordan is famous for a story of him shooting 1000 baskets in his practices before he stops. That’s practicing the basics. A fighter before a battle practices straight punches, the most basic of all punches, but he/she keeps practicing that, why?? Because that’s Best Practices – it must always be practiced!
My view is this, it does not matter what you know or how much you know or how long you’ve been selling. It’s results – period!
Unconventionally,
HANZO NG
Sales Ninja Grandmaster
Hanzo Ng is Sales Ninja Grandmaster, lingo for Chief Trainer of Sales Ninja Training, Asia’s #1 Unconventional Sales Training. Sales Ninja Training specializes in helping small-medium, listed and global companies transform their sales people into the ultimate sales professional known as Sales Ninja. For more information on our sales, motivation and leadership trainings, visit http://www.SalesNinja.com
Email came in today with Gary Halbert, a legendary direct marketer’s saying “You will only succeed through Movement not Meditation”! Wow! So true! You can sit there and visualize all the prospects converting to customers. You can do all the law of attraction you want, but ultimately, it must be combined with movement, action, execution or in Sales Ninja terminology – PRACTICE! So pick up the phone and do your cold calls. Send that email out to follow-up on your prospects. Ask for referrals. Don’t just sit there, do something that brings you sales, that makes you money! Do it… NOW!
Unconventionally,
HANZO NG
Sales Ninja Grandmaster
Hanzo Ng is Sales Ninja Grandmaster, lingo for Chief Trainer of Sales Ninja Training, Asia’s #1 Unconventional Sales Training. Sales Ninja Training specializes in helping small-medium, listed and global companies transform their sales people into the ultimate sales professional known as Sales Ninja. For more information on our sales, motivation and leadership trainings, visit http://www.SalesNinja.com
Imagine a person joining a martial arts class and playing a fool during the practice. When the Master request we punch with full force, that person punches with 50% force. When the Master say be serious, that person laughs. When the Master says, act as if a real fight has occured and your life depended on it and act accordingly, that person waits and hesitates and looks around not focusing on the attacks coming. Question – what do you think will happen to this person if this person gets into a real fight?
You are only as good as your training. If you are not serious about the training, your skills will reflect that. I’ve trained thousands and thousands of sales people across Asia. There are some who practice everything the Master, in this case, me, the sales trainer tell them to do. There are some who hesitates, because they think they know it already, there are some who waits, because they don’t want to look foolish in the role-plays or activities. There is nothing to lose in the sales training. If you train hard in the training, you will do great in real life. Once again, you are only as good as your training. Go full force!
Take a look at these 2 scenes from Fighter In The Wind movie, see how hard this fighter trains. In the second scene you will see the end result of his tough training. You Are Only As Good As Your Training!
Unconventionally,
HANZO NG
Sales Ninja Grandmaster
Hanzo Ng is Sales Ninja Grandmaster, lingo for Chief Trainer of Sales Ninja Training, Asia’s #1 Unconventional Sales Training. Sales Ninja Training specializes in helping small-medium, listed and global companies transform their sales people into the ultimate sales professional known as Sales Ninja. For more information on our sales, motivation and leadership trainings, visit http://www.SalesNinja.com
Junk food is like habits. The more you eat it the more it eats you. Habits come from practice. Procrastination is a habit. When ever someone needs to do something and he doesn’t, that’s practicing procrastination and that becomes a habit. When ever a sales person needs to ask for the order and he doesn’t, that’s practicing hesitation and that becomes a habit. After a while, their closing skills suck. And the root cause is identified!
Every once a while we eat junk food and that’s ok, it’s enjoyable. But would you eat junk food everyday for the rest of your life? Actually, some people would, but hey, most will not. So if you will not load junk food into your body everyday then why practice junk practices everyday? In Sales Ninja Warrior (a sales motivation breakthrough program), i talk about “when ever you feel like giving up, that’s the best time to continue!”. You see, one of the codes of the Sales Ninja is Commitment, it means getting things done regardless how painful it is or how tough it is, you persist and get things done because you are committed. Imagine you and your entire sales force practicing Commitment in everything that you all do? What would that do to your sales performance?
So begin practicing Commitment with yourself and then instill that to your sales team. What would happen if you do not?
The sales director of a client of mine had a best practice of following up on the minutes of meeting within 24 hours. Meaning after you meet a client, you return to your office, you need to send a summary of that meeting within 24 hours. The very first time i’ve met them, i came back and send the buying committee the summary. The sales director was so impressed that he forwarded my email to all his sales leaders (cc-ed me) that they should all do the same thing. My guess is this, the sales leaders themselves are not practicing the 24 hour MOM practice, would the sales team practice it? Not in a thousand years. That’s one junk food for the team. And eating this junk food for years result in lots of problems.
Practice the right things today!
Unconventionally,
HANZO NG
Sales Ninja Grandmaster
Hanzo Ng is Sales Ninja Grandmaster, lingo for Chief Trainer of Sales Ninja Training, Asia’s #1 Unconventional Sales Training. Sales Ninja Training specializes in helping small-medium, listed and global companies transform their sales people into the ultimate sales professional known as Sales Ninja. For more information on our sales, motivation and leadership trainings, visit http://www.SalesNinja.com
