Are you now selling harder? There’s a better way | Boating Industry
By Mark Overbye
Challenging times call for introspection.
When Paul McCartney was in a tough spot, he wrote these prophetic words, resonating worldwide on the timeless Beatles album, Let It Be, “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.” I hope you can hear the soothing tune in your mind, there’s a reason it reached Billboard’s No. 1 spot, now played over 26M times.
We all seek solutions. And we’re all selling something. We chase the perfect scenario where selling efforts get embraced as the idyllic solution salve.
But Is your selling mission defined as sell harder?
For the majority it is. Its on-ramp is wide and easy. Leading right to a freeway of abundant crashes. It’s like the Mexican bazaar, buy my stuff. Where every seller has the same stuff and the same selling technique. Louder, faster, more.
Sales managers harping on numbers, micromanaging calls, visits logged, numbers on numbers, metrics about metrics. Lots of noise, little results. That process is fatal. It kills morale and weeds out the good from bad. Right, the good leave for better-run businesses and management that gets it.
Those business captains who do get it understand why a client should love them. And it’s not because they notched calls. It’s because their solution is superior, and so is their presentation. They’ve distilled their message so that it rings sweetly in a listener’s ear.
When my mom calls I can’t wait to answer. When the car warranty caller wastes my energy, I’m mad about the nanosecond of time loss clicking off. My mom loves me and her insights are invaluable, my time for her is abundant.
Contemplate your secret sauce, what makes a client want you?
Remember, your mother doesn’t have to call you 100 times. And when you do connect with Mom, isn’t her welfare top of mind? Keep that in mind when selling.
Professional sales managers should be asking how you are endearing yourself to clients. Not asking how many calls got made, but how many real connections were forged. Bewildered sales managers confuse activity with results.
Realize your customers really don’t care about your pitch. They care about finding solutions. Teddy Roosevelt was right, People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
What, then, is the mind shift to success?
A search for top sales techniques reveals less about logic and more about heart. Directly from Og Mandino’s, World’s Greatest Salesman, true sales success dwells within 10 personal development steps:
- Forge Positive Habits: Understand the transformative power of positive habits, realize the need to replace negative behaviors with constructive actions for sustained success.
- Start with Love: Acknowledge the influence of love in personal interactions and achieving success, begin each day with a heart filled with love.
- Embrace Persistence: Prioritize the importance of perseverance and determination, recognize that giving up is never an option on the path to success.
- Recognize Your Worth: Appreciate the uniqueness and inherent value of every individual, encourage self-appreciation, and recognition of one’s special talents.
- Live Gratefully: Time is cherished as life’s most precious resource, seize each day with gratitude and appreciation, making the most of every moment.
- Control Your Emotions: Master emotional responses to enable thoughtful reactions and better outcomes in various life situations.
- Embrace Laughter: Celebrate laughter as a powerful tool for navigating challenges and enhancing life’s enjoyment, invite its incorporation into daily life.
- Grow Continuously: Continuous self-improvement is crucial, appreciate the importance of ongoing skill and knowledge enhancement for personal and professional success.
- Act Now: Procrastination is discouraged, affirming the need for immediate action to overcome obstacles and achieve goals.
- Seek Guidance: Seek spiritual guidance through prayer or meditation, magnifying alignment with one’s purpose and values on life’s journey.
Yes, you do need to know about product specifics, like construction, horsepower, capacities, statistics, warranties, and the like. But leading with that is a surefire way to kill deals.
Lace calls with what makes you lovable. Sell that. Know thyself. Then build your pitch. Your launch pad determines your destination.
Infusing emotion, a human connection, into your solution, is the smarter way. Start today by analyzing how you’re doing it vs what you’re doing, to achieve the results you seek.
Mark Overbye is the CEO of Anthem Marine, as well as the chairman of USA Waterski and Wake Sports Foundation. He is also the founder of Montara Boats and Gekko Sports.
Source: https://boatingindustry.com/blogs/2024/05/14/are-you-now-selling-harder-theres-a-better-way/
