Jeffrey Gitomers 13 Principles of Sales Greatness

Sales is easy, right? All it takes is few phone calls, an email or two, a meeting and the job is yours. Or is it?

Unfortunately, the reality is often quite different. Even though you do your best, you don’t win very often. You have to spend a lot of time and effort to even get the prospect interested enough in your offer to warrant a meeting. And if you’re successful, you have to work really hard to have him listen, trust you and believe in what you say. Not to mention getting his signature.

In other words, sales is hell of a tough job to do, but if you want to grow your business, you have to be the best at it.

There are many things you need to master to win at sales, from your personal attitude to branding to sales techniques. If you want to get more work for your small business you don’t have a choice, you have to work on all of them.

Luckily you don’t have to break walls to become great at selling your services or products. Just practice those 13 sales greatness principles from a sales guru, Jeffrey Gitomer and you will be on a right track to bringing more and more work for your company.

Jeffrey Gitomers 13 principles of sales greatness:

1. Kick your own ass The biggest secret of winning in sales is simply doing it. Yet many small business owners do their best to avoid that. Jeffreys first principle is simple: stop whining, stop waiting until someone helps you and start selling.
2. Prepare to win Always prepare for every sales call. Try to find out everything you can about the prospect and his business and use this knowledge to engage him and win the sale.
3. Develop a personal branding In sales, prospects buy the person selling first. In order to win sales you have to develop a brand that precedes you. Create a brand so strong that when the prospect researches you, the information they find will make them want to work only with you.
4. Give value first Value is something done for the customer, in favor of the customer without expectation and done often. Show prospects that you care about them, want to help them and do not expect anything in return. Invest in your prospects and many of them will want to do business with you, just because you helped them. Some ideas of value you can offer include: weekly tip newsletter relating to your product or service, free advice session or organizing talks and events.
5. Network Networking should be mandatory for every business owner. Thanks to it you can get in front of a prospect without cold calling him first, you can meet him face to face straight away and start building business relationships immediately. People are more likely to do business with people they know and networking is your chance to get known.
6. Always get in front of a real decision maker Don’t waste your time talking to an employee in the prospects business, always try to present to the person who can say yes to you. Only this way you can be sure that the answer you got on a sales call is actually valid.
7. Engage the customer Start your presentation to the prospect by asking smart questions. They set the tone for the sales call and make the impression about you. Sales people become known by the questions they ask. Ask smart questions, your prospect will think you’re smart, ask dumb ones…
8. Use humor to win sales Making people smile or laugh puts them at ease and creates relaxed atmosphere for agreement. Just make sure that you do not laugh at their expense, poke fun at yourself and be careful to do not offend anyone.
9. Be creative Use creativity to differentiate yourself from competition. Apply it to anything from your greeting message to your opening question on a sales call to your branding and make yourself stand out from the crowd.
10. Reduce the risk of purchase Every prospect has some objections that may prevent him from buying. Try to predict them and include them as well as solutions to them in your presentation. Eliminate the risk and prospect will be more likely to buy.
11. Use testimonials to prove your worth When you testify your worth, it’s bragging. When someone else does it for you, it’s a proof that it’s true. Use testimonials from your existing clients to prove that everything you said or presented to the client was true. A testimonial from your happy customer is your greatest weapon in convincing the prospect to use your service or product.
12. Keep your antennas up Stay focused on selling. Prospects are everywhere and if you keep your antennas up, a small talk with a stranger in an elevator or queue in a supermarket may turn into a lucrative contract.
13. Focus on sales and stop carrying about silly things around you Last but not least, resign your position as a general manager of the universe, as Jeffrey puts it. Don’t get caught in other people’s drama, don’t live the life of others. Focus on yourself, studying, developing your skills and working hard instead.

All those principles come from and are explained in detail in Jeffreys fabulous “The Little Red Book of Selling” which also offers actions you should take to learn and master each and one of them. I learned how to sell from Jeffrey and if you are looking for a great resource to start bringing business to your company, his books are definitely the best place to learn sales from.