Most salespeople don’t treat the profession of selling as a profession. Selling, like medicine or law or accounting requires intensive education and training. Can you imagine going to an accountant or an attorney whose only education was occasionally attending a seminar or reading a book? But yet that is how most sales people get their training.

I have been in sales for many years and I am proud to call myself a salesperson. Many years ago when I got in this business I “knew that I didn’t know”. So I went out and bought some books and began to study. My personal library is full of books, tapes, videos and anything else I can get my hands on to help me learn about this profession. I have attended countless seminars and training programs and have invested literally thousands of hours and dollars on my education.

I don’t regret this or bemoan the fact that I did this. I simply did what I had to do to become excellent at my chosen profession. If one desires to have income in the top five percent of all salespeople in their industry this is what it takes. On the other hand, if mediocrity is acceptable then these things are not necessary.

You really have two choices in sales. You can proactively choose excellence or you can accept mediocrity. You pick.

Here is a powerful quote on developing trust and respect. I think it gives us all food for thought.

“What few managers realize is that intuitions, emotional contact, influence, trust, believability are all processed in the preconscious areas of the brain — in particular, the limbic system, which servers not only as a gateway to the sites where cognition, or thinking, takes place but as the brain’s emotional center.

Whereas the cognitive brain centers devote their time sifting through words, concepts, and analysis, the emotional brain continuously scans for meaning and judgment from thousands of subtle nuances in voice tone, gestures, eye contact, and a wide range of other behaviors that the cognitive brain centers scarcely register or understand. The limbic system works approximately 80,000 times faster than the conscious cerebral cortex.

The conscious mind can process only 126 bits of information per second and only 40 bits of human speech, yet our senses can receive up to 100 million bits of input per second. The limbic gives us an instantaneous ‘reading’ on believability and trustworthiness during each of our interactions with others. In short: Without believability, we are neither heard or trusted.”

~ Executive EQ, by Robert Cooper, Ph.D.

So the economy has been in the tank and orders aren’t coming in fast enough. Contracts are being cancelled, and salespeople are quickly learning that selling is more than showing up and taking orders. So what do most managers do? Take out the knife and cut back. When that doesn’t work they cut back some more. While it may seem prudent and good business to cut costs where you can, this approach can have disastrous consequences when it is applied to the sales force. Why?

Consider this: If the average salesperson brings in 10 to 15 times their compensation in sales, why would we want FEWER of them? Other than marketing, sales is the only area that generates revenue for a company. Not accounting, administration, HR, not any other department. When a company cuts back on hiring, recruiting or training sales people they effectively limit their future.

Your financial people, who do not understand or appreciate the sales role, will argue that you should cut anywhere you can. Fine. If you must cut, cut everything else but not the sales force. In this economy, you must put MORE salespeople to work, not less. You must provide MORE training, not less. Initiate MORE accountability, not less. INCREASE recruiting efforts not reduce them.

Companies must perform their way to excellence. It takes work to grow and take market share by out-hustling, out-strategizing and out-recruiting your competitors. Most managers resist this because the left side of their brain is addicted to quick fixes, while the right side of their brain is on a starvation diet.

If sales are flat, or worse, down from your goals and projections, INCREASE the sales effort and do not tighten the belt in the sales department. Have your sales organization evaluated, find out who has the ability to become more effective and give them the training they’ll need to reach their fullest potential.

As a manager, give yourself a gut-check and decide if you want to follow the herd, or get up front and lead. Are you content to merrily co-exist in your market, or do you have the commitment to step up and dominate it with bold strategies and solid execution?

How do you react when someone tries to persuade you to do something you don’t want to do? If you are normal, you almost always resist. If he or she continues trying to convince you that what they want you to do is good for you, how do you react?

If you are normal, you resist even more. If another person gives you all kinds of positive reasons to do what you don’t what to do, and tells you that there are no reasons not to, what do you do?

If you are normal, you’ll find all kinds of reasons why you shouldn’t do it. You figure that other person is hiding the truth - the whole picture - from you. You begin to feel that that person is not someone you can trust and you don’t want to have anything to do with someone like that. That’s the way most people react to that kind of treatment.

How does this apply to selling?. Research shows that over eighty (80) percent of all people want to do business with a salesperson they can really trust and respect. Yet, almost all salespeople sell by attempting to persuade and convince prospects to buy something they don’t want. And they do it in a way that causes them be perceived as someone who bends the truth (lies).

If you want dramatic improvements in your closing rates, you need to make radical changes in the way you sell. Stop trying to convince people to do business with you. Learn to be totally upfront with people by telling them what problems you solve and then ask them if they have any of those problems and if so do they want to fix them. If they don’t have any of those problems or don’t have the commitment to fix those problems politely end the conversation and move on.

A teacher in New York decided to honor each of her seniors in high school by telling them the difference they each made. She called each student to the front of the class, one at a time.

First she told each one of them how they had made a difference to her and to the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters, which read, “Who I Am Makes a Difference.”

Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgment ceremony. They were to follow up on the results, see who honored whom and report back to the class in about a week.

One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt. Then he gave him two extra ribbons and said, “We’re doing a class project on recognition, and we’d like you to go out, find somebody to honor, give them a blue ribbon, then give them the extra blue ribbon so they can acknowledge a third person to keep this acknowledgment ceremony going. Then please report back to me and tell me what happened.

Later that day the junior executive went in to see his boss, who had been noted, by the way, as being kind of a grouchy fellow. He sat down with his boss and he told him that he deeply admired him for being a creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the blue ribbon and would he give him permission to put it on him. His surprised boss said, “Well, sure.”

The junior executive took the blue ribbon and placed it right on his boss’s jacket above his heart. As he gave him the extra ribbon, he said, “Would you do me a favor? Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honoring somebody else.” The young boy who first gave me the ribbons is doing a project in school and we want to keep this recognition ceremony going and find out how it affects people.

That night the boss came home to his 14-year-old son and sat him down. He said, “The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of the junior executives came in and told me he admired me and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine, He thinks I’m a creative genius. Then he put this blue ribbon that says, “Who I Am Makes a Difference” on my jacket above my heart. He gave me the extra ribbon and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was driving home tonight, I started thinking about whom I would honor with this ribbon and I thought about you. I want to honor you.

My days are really hectic and when I come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess, but somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You’re a great kid and I love you.

The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn’t stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, “Dad, earlier tonight I sat in my room and wrote a letter to you and Mom explaining why I had killed myself and asking you to forgive me. I was going to commit suicide tonight after you were asleep. I just didn’t think you cared at all. The letter is upstairs. I don’t think I need it after all.

His father walked upstairs and found a heartfelt letter full of anguish and pain. The envelope was addressed, “Mom and Dad”.

The boss went back to work a changed man. He was no longer a grouch but made sure to let all his employees know that they made a difference. The junior executive helped several other young people with career planning and never forgot to let them know that they made a difference in his life…one being the boss’s son. The young boy and his classmates learned a valuable lesson.

Who you are DOES make a difference!. Start letting the people who matter to you know that they make a difference to you.