Understanding how to lead our customers with our speech is key to great selling. You are asking your customers to follow your advice. You are asking customers to take risks based on your advice. Don’t shy away from being a leader. The only option is to lead.

The Leadership position is where professional salespeople want to be. This is where the customer trusts you to make the best decision for his business. You have past the tests. You have made him a friend or at least a trusted confidant. You have also proven to him over time that you will do what is right for his business. You have proven that you will be competitive on an ongoing basis, but more importantly, you will bring his company value now and in the future.

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Leadership Law #2

Leadership sellers know who they are and can communicate their message in a clear and inspirational way.

Inspiration Vs Information

Many sellers communicate only information to their customers. Our customers can get information from the internet, they are looking to us for inspiration. What do I mean? Many of us are just giving informational answers to our customers’ questions. This is not enough. Leaders inspire. Are we inspiring our customers?

Example:

Customer: “Can you find me a house in a good neighborhood, with good schools, that isn’t too expensive?”

Quotron Unit: “Yes.” (Informational)

Leader: “Mrs. Customer. I can see that good schools, a good location and a reasonable price are important to you. After our in depth discussion, I feel I have a very good idea what you are looking for. I have a couple of houses in mind for you already. Let me do a bit more research based on our discussion. I will then work up a plan that will allow us to see the largest number of homes that fit your criteria as possible and we will meet tomorrow to visit them. Is one o’clock early enough for you?” (Inspirational)

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You have qualified your customer. They buy what you sell, they buy it the way you sell it, and they buy enough volume to make it worth your while. They are taking your phone call. They are talking to you. Why? Because they want to be sold. They need partners to do their job.

If we position ourselves with our customers as a partner, they will treat us as a partner. If we position ourselves as an adversary, they will treat us as an adversary. Which way do you want to sell? Change the questions you ask your customers and you will change the relationships you have with them.

Not everyone you try to lead will follow you.  That is not the issue.  What is important is that you try to lead.  Even the greatest leaders of the world have non-followers. Non-followers are a non-factor.  Leave them behind and continue to lead those who will follow.

People and customers want and need leadership.  A leader has a vision of the future and how it will be better. The vision has to be clear.  Can you make your customer feel like part of a something?

A seller with vision will take a look at their customers’ business and sell them a purchasing program for the whole year.  If not for the whole year, then for a quarter.

Hard work is a family value. We learn it from our parents. That’s why managing to it and defining it are so difficult. It is an emotional topic.

When you tell someone they aren’t working hard enough, it is an insult to them and their parents! That’s why defining what hard work is, up front, is so important.

You will not sneak up on your competition. They know how much the customer is buying and are painfully aware when they don’t get the order(s). The sting of the lost order will still be present when you compete for the customer’s business again. You will have to out-work and out-hustle your competition.

With most orders the “getting closest” is not a single axis problem. Usually the buyer has many things to consider, i.e. shipment, quality, price, volume and tally specifics, etc. Each will weigh differently on the buyer’s decision. Each item will be covered to a greater or lesser degree by our competition.

Also, the importance of each item will change in relation to how other items related to the quote are met to greater or lesser degrees.

It is possible to get to the Leadership position without passing through the Friendship stage. Some customers won’t allow you to be their “friend” but they will allow you to lead them. You may not have the skills or temperament to get personally close to a certain person.

But getting to the Leadership position with our customers is still possible. It is possible based solely on the quality and consistency of our work demonstrated in the Serviceship phase.

The Leadership position is where professional salespeople want to be. This is where the customer trusts you to make the best decision for his business. You have past the tests. You have made him a friend or at least a trusted confidant. You have also proven to him over time that you will do what is right for his business. You have proven that you will be competitive on an ongoing basis, but more importantly, you will bring his company value now and in the future.

Every person who gets a lot of things done has to delegate. But delegation doesn’t work if the person they are delegating to is incompetent or untrustworthy.

Vision, The Number One Controlling Factor for Success
Your vision of yourself, your life and what it can be is the number one factor controlling how you will do in life. Just as our lack of vision and imagination can limit us, they can free and enable us. Big vision, big motivation, big imagination, equals big results. “Walk like a king, you’re a king” goes the saying. This is true for all of us. “If you think you can or think you can’t you’re probably right.” Working with your personal vision is not only telling yourself you can, but also telling yourself you can, Big. Don’t let others limit you. But more importantly, don’t limit yourself.

Work. Health. Wealth. Family.

What is your vision? Write it out to move to the next stage of your life. Give yourself a vision to aspire to, and you will be on the way towards that next stage. If you do not give yourself a new vision, you are on your way to being stuck where you are. Winners take control and responsibility for how they are doing. Losers do nothing and blame their lack of results on the world.