3 Important Sales Lessons I Have Learned in 3 Months
I’m new to sales.
In fact, I’m only 3 months in at the time I am writing this blog article. But, there have been countless things that I have learned so far, and I would like to share the 3 that I have found to be the most important.
Don’t think, just do: While having this attitude can sometimes get you in trouble with the ladies, I do like to apply it during my daily phone calls. If I start thinking about the possible things that the other person might say, I tend to psych myself out.
Side note: This is really embarrassing, but I used to judge how nice or mean I thought someone would be based on their LinkedIn profile picture.
Most of my best first calls have been when I just didn’t think about the call too much before I made it. I’m not saying you I don’t research on the person first, but I’ve stopped imagining how the conversation will go because it never goes that way. When I don’t over think my call, the flow of the conversation is typically much better. However, I do like to have a goal of what I want to learn during the call, and where I want it to end. I keep that in the back of my mind now which allows me to subconsciously steer the conversation in the right direction.
Be funny: I know a lot of other guys have talked about the value of humor if you can bring it into the 
conversation, and there’s a reason for that. I developed a joke that I can use on every new person I talk to (I know what you are thinking and yes, the joke does make reference to the fact that I look like I barely made it out of puberty alive). It gets a laugh probably 90% of the time, and then the conversation is much easier.
Getting the other guy to laugh is important because it shows that you are not like every other sales guy out there. It also lowers his defenses; he now knows that he can joke around with you and he will be much more open with you (in my experience at least).
If you don’t think you’re funny, set aside some time every weekend to read comic books, humor books or watch comedians (Some of my personal favorites are Brian Regan, Kevin James, Jim Gaffigan, Kevin Hart and Jerry Seinfeld). After a while, you’ll learn comedic timing and what kind of voice fluctuations make people laugh.
Ask Questions: I know it’s probably pretty obvious how important this by now; many people have written about this as well. I’m lucky because I was never trained to do it any other way; I never try to pitch our services right off the bat during a call.
People want to know that you understand their problems before they are going to buy from you. And the only way to understand their problems is to ask questions. Lots of questions. Hundreds of questions.
It’s funny though, because even though I was trained to ask lots of questions, I still find myself occasionally doing a kind of “old school” method of sales where I am just talking endlessly about what we do. But when I do that, it feels weird; I feel strange talking that much.
Typically, people don’t really care about what it is you do. What they really want to know is if you can help them with their problem. And once again, that leads us back to asking questions.
So those are the three big ones for me right now. Does anyone have one they think tops those?