The Psychology of Selling Summary Author Says simple idea that changed my life was the discovery of the “Law of Cause and Effect.” What this law says is that there is a cause for every effect, that everything happens for a reason. Success is not an accident. Failure is not an accident either. In fact, success is predictable. It leaves tracks.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SELLING BY BRIAN TRACY
Book : The Psychology of Selling By Brian Tracy
The Psychology of Selling Summary
If you do what other successful people do, over and over again, nothing in the world can stop you from eventually getting the same results that they do. And if you don’t, nothing can help you.
Remember that everyone in the top 10 percent in sales today started in the bottom 10 percent. All who are now doing well were once doing poorly. Everyone at the front of the line of life started at the back of the line. And in every case, what these top people did was learn from the experts. They discovered what other top people were doing to be successful, and they did the same things themselves, again and again, until they got the same results. And so can you.
Nothing happens until a sale takes place. Salespeople are some of the most important people in our society. Without sales, our entire society would come to a grinding halt.
Salespeople are the most vital people in any business. Without sales, the biggest and most sophisticated companies shut down. Sales are the spark plug in the engine of free enterprise. There is a direct relationship between the success of the sales community and the success of the entire country. The more vibrant the level of sales, the more successful and profitable is that industry or area.
Success is Mental
It is what goes on inside the mind of the salesperson that makes all the difference. Some years ago, Harvard University did a study of sixteen thousand salespeople and found that the basic qualities that determine success or failure in selling were all mental. If a person had certain qualities, he or she would succeed, holding constant for everything else.
If you want to know how tall a building is going to be, you look at how deep they dig the foundation for that building. The deeper the foundation, the taller the building. In the same way, the deeper your foundation of knowledge and skill, the greater the life that you will be able to build.
If your goal is to be in the top 10 percent of salespeople in your field, the first thing you do is find out who is already in the top 10 percent. Instead of following the followers, the average performers in your business, follow the leaders. Compare yourself to the top people. Remember, no one is better than you, and no one is smarter than you.
Your Master Program
The most noteworthy breakthrough in psychology and human performance in the twentieth century was the discovery of the self-concept. Your self-concept is the bundle of beliefs that you have about yourself. It is the way you see yourself and think about yourself in every area of your life. Your self-concept is the “master program” of your subconscious computer. It is like an operating system that determines everything you say, think, feel, and do.
In selling you have a self-concept with regard to yourself and prospecting. If you have a high, positive self concept, then prospecting is no problem for you. You get up in the morning eager to call on new people. You are competent and confident in the area of prospecting, so your sales pipeline is always full.
To increase your income, you must achieve your financial goals in your mind before you can ever achieve them in your reality. Your aim should be to increase your self-concept level of income bit by bit until you think, see, and feel yourself as a higher-income earner.
Set & Achieve Sales Goals
Top salespeople are intensely goal oriented. In every study, the quality of goal orientation seems to be associated with high levels of success and achievement. The highest-paid salespeople know in advance how much they are going to earn each week, each month, each quarter, and each year.
Top salespeople in every field know exactly what they are going to earn each year and each part of each year. If you ask them, they can tell you within a dollar what they are aiming at every single day.
Top salespeople are different. They think through their sales calls in advance. They go over what they are going to say mentally before they get face-to-face with the prospect. They practice “mental rehearsal,” a peak-performance technique used by all top athletes, including sales athletes. They prepare mentally for the upcoming meeting
Low-performing salespeople have no idea how much they are going to earn. They have to wait until the end of the year and get their tax forms to find out what happened. For them, every day, month, and year is a new financial adventure. They have no idea where they are going to end up.
Why People Buy
One of the most significant parts of selling, the indispensable step upon which the whole sales process depends, is your ability to identify the needs of your prospect accurately. You must take whatever time is necessary and ask as many questions as possible to find out exactly why this particular prospect needs to buy your product or service at this time. If you fail to identify the prospect’s needs accurately, the entire sales process will grind to a halt.
As a fundamental principle, every human action is aimed at an improvement of some kind. People buy products and services because they feel they will be better off as a result. They not only feel that they will be better off as a result of buying your product or service, but they also feel they will be better off than if they bought some other product or service, or if they bought nothing at all.
Every customer has three choices with every selling offer. He can buy from you, buy from someone else, or buy nothing at all at this time. Your job is to get the customer to understand that he needs your product enough to overcome any buying resistance that might derail the sale.
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