Here at Anthony Cole Training Group, we are always striving towards helping our clients achieve sales success. We interviewed our Sales Development Experts for a curated list of how to be successful in sales for 2021. Their advice includes successful sales traits, habits, and characteristics. Use this detailed resource to your advantage, and boost your sales success in 2021!

How to Be Successful in Sales

Salespeople are measured against one thing and one thing only; closing deals.  However, salespeople know that there's so much more to getting results than picking up the phone and calling.  It takes a combination of attitude, work ethic, and personality to be a good sales person.  It's not easy being a salesperson, but if you can possess some of these traits and habits, you're on your way to becoming a more successful salesperson.

Successful Sales Traits

trait: a distinguishing quality or characteristic, typically one belonging to a person.

1. Commitment
   Oftentimes, one of the reasons salespeople struggle to see great sales success is because they aren’t as committed as they need to be. Be willing to try and do whatever it takes, even when you are uncomfortable.
   
2. Have an attitude of success
   Selling can feel like a solitary pursuit and you need to believe you will get there. Half the battle of success in sales is owning your own style and having faith in your skills, knowledge, and abilities. If you believe you will win, your likelihood of winning increases substantially.
   
3. Do the work
   Selling is hard work and cannot all be done sitting at a computer. Get out and meet with current clients to leverage the relationship and ask for introductions. Also, attend networking events to meet different experts in your or target industries.
   
4. Have a sense of urgency
   Send the follow-up email the first time you think of it. Make the return phone call when you first get the message. Work when your competition isn’t.
   
5. Stick to the schedule
   Different things can get in your way daily- emails, internal meetings, proposals, etc. Highly successful salespeople build and stick to a time-blocking schedule religiously. Identify what your key activities are when the best time is to do these activities and build a schedule you can live by.
   
6. Never Answer the Unasked Question
   One of the key sales characteristics that elite producers have is the ability to only answer the question in front of them. Salespeople will often get ahead of themselves, fall into pitch mode, and divulge too much information too quickly.
   For example, when a prospect asks “how big is your company?” they usually aren’t concerned with how many employees there are or how many locations you have. They are trying to identify if you have the bandwidth, expertise, and/or time to work with them. The key is to slow down, take a breath, and ask for clarification before answering.
   
   

 

Successful Sales Habits

habit: a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior

1. Stop worrying about selling and focus on helping
   Stop offering to come by and visit the prospect and instead ask “would you find it helpful if….”  Ask prospects what you can do to help them without regard for whether or not there is a sale involved. It is why the 3-step inoffensive close ends with:  Do you think I understand your problem? Do you think my firm can help you solve your problem? Do you want my help?
   
2. Every exit is an entry somewhere else
   Don’t give up or be let down just because someone said no – maybe they can help you with a referral or you’ll land a client with that next phone call or meeting after the discouragement.
   
3. Have a sales goal that you are committed to reaching
   Most salespeople focus on just hitting their year-end goal, not exceeding it. When you strive towards an extraordinary goal (roughly 20% above your year-end goal), and that’s your only focus, even if you don’t hit it, you will likely meet or exceed your company goal.
   
4. Be OK with “no”
   It frees up the conversation and lowers the walls of resistance when the prospect knows that it is OK for them to say “no.”  There are three different parts in the sales process where the salesperson should be letting the prospect know it is OK to say “no”: (1) on the phone setting up the first appointment, (2) at the last meeting before the proposal is delivered and then finally (3) at the meeting where the proposal will be shared.
   
5. Be a giver
   Support your internal partners as they prepare for conversations and presentations. Make sure that your ‘selling’ is all about asking great questions and listening to understand so that you can help your clients grow (vs sell them something).
   
6. Build a rapport
   To many, bonding and rapport means liking the same sports team, enjoying the same weekend activity, or frequenting the same restaurant as a prospect. To us, bonding and rapport means proving you deserve a seat at the table. Your proven benefit and value are more critical to developing trust and relationships than similar taste in food. Ask your prospect what the key challenges for their business and industry are for the year or what is in the way of their growth.
   
7. Utilize social networks
   LinkedIn can be your best fishing net and your best safety net. Use social networking sites like LinkedIn to make connections and develop relationships, as well as explore new opportunities.
   
8. Develop yourself as an industry expert
   Continue to educate yourself on new trends, the changes in your market, and developing different techniques. This will help you stay relevant in your space and position yourself as a leading professional.
   
9. Celebrate the successes
   It’s difficult to win these days so don’t forget to enjoy those moments- no matter how big or small. Every sale gets you one step close to hitting your personal and professional goals.
   
   
   

Successful Sales Characteristics

characteristic: a feature or quality belonging typically to a person

1. Persistence
   Stay with it whether it is making calls, following up, or following through. What we know is 80% of sales are made between the 5-12 outreach to a prospect so persistence to win business is crucial.
   
2. Be coachable
   In other words, be willing to admit there is a lot that you don’t know and always ask for help.
   
3. Be resilient  
   Don’t let prospects squash you with think it overs, stalls, objections, and “no’s”. There is always another door to try- it’s just about asking the right questions of the right person at the right time.
   
4. Don’t get in your own way
   Eliminate roadblocks and excuses from your headspace. Don’t let the anxiety of being turned away keep you from picking up the phone. Don’t allow internal “noise” interrupt what you get paid to do- which is hunt, qualify and close business.
   
5. Don’t get happy ears
   Don’t let soft buying signals like “This looks great. It makes a lot of sense. I’m interested” rush your process. Keep a level head and really drill down with your qualifying questions to identify if a prospect is really interested or just blowing smoke.
   
6. Be unique
   Those that don’t look, sound, or act like the other salespeople in the marketplace have greater overall sales success. Follow the sales process, remain professional, but don’t be afraid to be yourself. The “human element” is what makes a difference in closing more business.
   

We hope this helps you achieve greater sales success in this coming year! Successful selling in 2021 from your friends and partners at Anthony Cole Training Group.  Call us if you need help!

Knowing how and where to reach our target persona will positively impact our ability to hunt, qualify, and discover potential new business.

Today, our customers are bombarded with sales, marketing, and advertising pitches from companies all hoping to win their business. They’re overwhelmed, or, in most cases, they simply tune us out. So, we try to reach as many potential customers as we can, but we spin our wheels and end up stuck in the same place, week after week, month after month, or year after year.

The problem? We’re not sure whom we’re trying to reach. Many of our potential customers view their time as their greatest, most valuable asset, and so should we. We can protect that asset by having a clear understanding of who our target customer is.

Identify What a Zebra is

In order to hone that understanding, we have to begin with first identifying our “Zebra,” or our ideal prospect persona.

We can do that in three easy steps:

1. Begin by segmenting our business’s book into thirds. For most companies, that top third brings in 90% of the company’s revenue. They are generally the best clients.
2. Look for common traits and demographics in that top third. Ask questions like:

·      What do these customers have in common?

·      What industry are they in?

·      Who is our main point of contact?

·      How do we contact them?

·      What is the size of their organization?

Having the answers to questions like these helps identify other potential customers in the market.

3. Once we know what traits we’re looking for in that top third, we should commit 2/3 of our time to look for or attract customers from this group.

Identify What a Zebra Isn't

Of equal importance is to know what isn’t a Zebra for us. If we know who doesn’t fit our ideal customer persona, we’ll bring clarity to our network and prospecting efforts, and again, continue to value time as our greatest asset. Here’s why it’s important to know what a Zebra isn’t:

1. We eliminate ambiguity. Introductions have been proven to be the No. 1 way that top producers grow their business. But if we aren’t specific about who we serve best, it’s hard to get those introductions. We need to be specific and clear about what type of zebra we serve best.

2. We reduce frustration with our Centers of Influence (COI). We want to capitalize on our COI’s relationships, but if we’re not crystal clear with who we’re looking for, our COI may make an introduction to someone we can’t help. When working with our COI, it’s helpful to articulate the type of business or individual we’re looking for, along with what we’re not looking for and why.

3. We reduce our opportunity cost. Our opportunity cost is what we’re not working on that might have been more viable for our organization. If we’re calling on Company ABC, we’re not working on Company XYZ. Are we losing out on better business, because we’re not calling on the right prospects?

If we know what we don’t want and the reasons why, it might reduce the number of opportunities in our pipeline, but the quality will increase dramatically. 

Cultivating Zebras

Once we’ve determined which customers are and aren’t Zebras, we need to understand the best ways to get in front of them and build relationships. You start by doing some research. Should we call or email them? What is their preferred social media platform – LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter?

Knowing how and where to reach our target persona will positively impact our ability to hunt, qualify, and discover potential new business. Undoubtedly, our most effective approach is to utilize the relationships we have with our top third by asking them to introduce us to others they know, who will most likely fall into that ideal customer profile.

It takes work to find these prospects and then contact them, but it’s well worth the effort. Our chances of success are now much higher because we know we’re reaching the right audience, the Zebras, who become our best clients. 

Keeping your good habits “habitual” is dependent upon your level of commitment to your goals. If you are truly committed and willing to sacrifice immediate gratification for the long-term good, then good habits stick.

But how do you correct your behavior and become more habitual? Here are our 5 steps to creating better sales habits.

I’m an educator by degree. During my undergraduate work at UConn, my fellow future teachers and I were taught that behaviors and habits are a result of combinations of rewards and consequences. If you wanted your student to develop certain habits or skills, part of the development, in addition to the teaching and coaching, was rewarding success and disciplining failure. Sometimes the disciplined approach was punitive; other times it was a matter of repeating the behavior, skill, or activity until they (the person being taught) got it right. Once they got it right, they were rewarded.

Given all of this background, here are my thoughts for today about habits.

• Good habits are called good habits because they contribute to the successful completion of the goals and objectives you say you are committed to.
• Bad habits are “bad” because, instead of taking you towards your objectives, they take you away. They keep you from accomplishing what you said was important to you.
• Keeping your good habits “habitual” is dependent upon your level of commitment to your goals. If you are truly committed and willing to sacrifice immediate gratification for the long-term good, then good habits stick.
• If you find that you cannot consistently execute your good habits, it is probably due to your lack of commitment to the things you say are important to you.
• “Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” - Vince Lombardi
• Often the things/habits you need to be doing aren’t urgent: exercising, eating well, taking baby aspirin, getting enough sleep, prospecting, blogging, etc.
• Habits become urgent when something else urgent happens: heart attack, bodily injury, stroke, diabetes, organ failure, put on performance improvement program because of lack of production, lack of website activity.
• Your habits are expressive of your commitments.

How do you correct your behavior and become more habitual? Here are my 5 Steps to Better Habits:

1. Identify goals and objectives that are non-negotiable
2. Have a plan to achieve those goals. Make sure the plan is detailed.
3. Have a system to track your progress, execution of the necessary habits, activities required to achieve your goals.
4. Inspect what you expect.
5. Have an accountability partner that loves you and cares enough about you to hold your feet to the fire.

We recorded a video on Laying the Foundations for the 8 Steps to More Effective Closing to close more business more quickly with higher margins. And we talked about the foundation. 

Today we are going to get into the actual 8 Steps of Becoming an Extraordinary Closer.

I can tell you that the best deals I have ever put together and closed were deals where someone almost literally asked me, “Tony, how much do we write the check for?” There was never a formal presentation. There might have been a bit of pitch or a discussion around our capabilities, but they just closed and never asked for anything formal. Understand, though, that those are the outliers. 

But once you lay the foundation, the other types of sales require these 8 Steps:

1) Be prepared – And I don’t mean go through the technical aspects of the sale to make sure you have the right coverage, the correct provisions, and those sort of things. But I want you to be prepared to be DAZZLING. That’s an entirely different level of preparation.

2) Review - When you are at the meeting, the first thing you do is review. Review everything as to what brought you to this point. In other words, you go back to the as-we-agreed-to email. Make sure nothing has changed.

3) 3-Page Presentation - This might startle you and knock you off your chair, but your presentation should be a 3-page presentation, and that’s only IF you have a cover page/slide. The second page should list the problems or benefits they want to take care of, and the third page is all about the solutions. That’s it! Now you might have a box on the side with all the back-end stuff you’ll go through, but they don’t get that. All they get are those three pages.

4) Ask Where To Start - Within your presentation, they’ll see a list of problems they said they want to get solved. You ask them where THEY want to start. That’s a HUGE difference because you don’t know. Maybe they might be thinking about item #5, and you want to start at the top. You’ve lost them already.

5) Discuss Your Solution - Go through the solution to that problem.

6) Get a Score - When you’re finished with the solution to the problem, you have to get a score as to where they are. So you ask them, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how do you feel about that solution? If you get a 7, or better, you’re in pretty good shape. Anything less than 7, you’ve got trouble. And when you get anything less than 10, you’ve got to ask the questions, “What did I miss? What questions haven’t you asked me yet that you need the answers to so that you feel comfortable with a 10?”

7) Address all Solutions - Go to the next solution until you are finished with all of them.

8) Find Out What’s Next - When you’re finished, this isn’t a big dramatic part to try and close the business. You can do one of two things. You can ask, “What would you like to do now?” OR... Ask these three questions: 1) Do you feel like I understand the problems of your business? 2) Do you feel I can help you with the problems of your business? And 3) Would you like my help? Not complicated but very effective.

Aside from the foundation and these 8 Steps, the most important key to becoming a more effective closer is to be willing to hear a “no.”

Business planning as a sales professional has several components.  But, there isn’t a component that is more important than using your calendar to plan for your “green” activity.

One of my favorite expressions is “You are tomorrow what you are planning for today.” My favorite thing to do is accomplish goals and I’ve learned over the years that the best way for me to accomplish goals is to plan for them first.

Business planning as a sales professional has several components.  But, there isn’t a component that is any more important than using your calendar system to plan for your “green” activity. Now, what I mean by “green activity” is this: “Green activity” is sales activity. “Green” means “go” and “go” means “go to the bank”.

And in my mind, there are 5 activities that have to be included when you are talking about “green” or “go to the bank” activities.

1. Activities that lead to getting to the names. Now the EASY thing to do is to do email and do all the social networking. The HARD thing to do is ask for introductions, go to networking events, and work hard to get speaking engagements. THAT’S the high pay-off activity; it’s not just doing the social networking.
2. You have to CALL those names. You can’t get in front of people unless you call somebody.
3. Sales conversations. You’ve called them, you’ve scheduled an appointment, and now you’re going to have a qualifying appointment.
4. Sometimes, depending on the type of business you’re in, you’re going to have an opportunity or you have a need to gather information. So, that’s a “go-to” activity. 
5. You have to have an opportunity to make OUTSTANDING presentations and pitches.

Those are the 5 “Go-To” Activities – those are what get you paid! Everything else is just stuff – stuff that you let get in the way.