By Jeffrey Gitomer
Sales Moves

Got sales sense? The sense of selling, or sales sense, comes from mastering a series of internal senses. These senses are both subtle and blatant. They are both simple to understand and complex to master, but they hold the key to your sales success.

This is not “how to make a sale.” Rather this is “how sales are made.” Big difference. How to make a sale is technique-driven. How sales are made is your understanding of your selling senses and helps you go from “a sale” to “sales forever.”

Here are your sales senses, and how to become more aware of them:

1. Sense of self. You have to know who you are in order to be able to project an image and a message that others will accept and buy. The sense of self stands at the top of the list, because the customer has to buy the salesperson way before he buys the product, the service or the company. Having a sense of self means that you understand who you are in terms of how you help others and that you believe in what you do. It’s also the way you carry yourself, the way you present yourself and the way you subliminally convey those qualities to others.

2. Sense of others. Making a sale becomes a much simpler process when you understand the person that you hope will purchase. This goes way beyond your product knowledge and your product presentation. This is all about how well you understand the mental readiness and the mental acceptance of your prospective customer. What will create the buying atmosphere and what will make them want to, or desire to, buy from you. When you have a sense of the other person, it means that you understand their feelings and their emotions, and that you’re able to craft your questions, value statements and insights in terms of what they need. In short, you are able to take your message and state it in terms of their motives.

3. Sense of surroundings. Most salespeople make the fatal error of not getting comfortable in their sales surroundings and, as a result, become nervous or anxious as they are presenting their message. This is especially true when you’re at your customer’s place of business and could be continually interrupted as you’re making your presentation. It’s up to the salesperson to not just set the surroundings, but also to set the ground rules. The key to success here is being relaxed, being adaptable to whatever happens and not losing your cool if the room gets hot.

4. Sense of situation. The biggest fatal flaw in sales is concentrating on your presentation and going past the opportunity to make a sale or solidify an agreement because you failed to pay attention to the signals being offered by the buyer as you are progressing. The easiest way to establish a sense of situation is to continually ask questions of your customer. Those questions will draw out your customer’s interests and desires, and will allow you to take advantage of the previous experiences and opinions of the buyer. The more you ask, the more you’ll understand and control the situation. Here’s the rule: The more you talk, the less chance you have of winning the sale.

Well, those are the big four. But that’s not all of them. You’ll see the rest next issue. But I challenge you to study these four before you make your next sales call. Apply them to your thoughts and actions and watch your results start to change.

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of “The Sales Bible” and “The Little Red Book of Selling,” is president of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. E-mail him at salesman@gitomer.com.

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