Our focus this month, for the newsletter and blogs, is on our just-released book Closing is NOT Your Problem! With this book, for the first time in history, the problem of 20 percent of salespeople making 80 percent of the sales—commonly known as the “80/20 rule”—is fully solved.
As covered in the book, our research uncovered that there are 8 core abilities that all successful salespeople—yes, that top 20 percent—have in common. We have isolated these abilities and call them The 8 Cs of Selling— the “C” in “8 Cs” stands for “Core” abilities. These are the abilities used to guide someone through the sales process, and every salesperson must master them.
The 8 core abilities work together and must be mastered to be successful in sales.
Below are summaries of each ability—buy and read Closing is NOT Your Problem! for the full text.
1. Communication
Communication is the effortless ability to establish agreement with anyone and build trust. It is the ability to get the prospect to talk and to then, through a better understanding of human relationships, help change the prospect’s mind. It is the most basic and important of salesperson skills.
2. Control
Selling successfully isn’t about “winging it” and hoping for the best. It requires control—the ability to positively guide your client in the right direction. It includes caring enough to maintain the discipline necessary to successfully present your product or service using a pre-determined sales process. Unless the prospect was interested, they wouldn’t have reached out to you—if they communicate to you, they’re interested. Your key is to use positive control and guide them through the process, caring enough about them to get them through it to a close.
3. Contact
What is the skill of contacting for a salesperson? It’s the salesperson’s ability to have a fearless approach to getting in front of the right prospect. Contact ability includes being willing to talk to people, clearing up contact worries, getting people to talk, being certain about product knowledge, and other essential factors.
4. Certainty
Believe it or not, certainty is what buyers buy. They have come for the appointment or called your company because they want to be guided through the sales process. As most prospects do these days, they've done their homework—they’re talked to their friends, they’ve searched on the internet—but they still have questions. Those questions are answered by the salesperson who knows their product or service flawlessly and knows how to handle prospect resistance.
5. Confidence
Confidence comes from being a master at all 8 core abilities, and genuinely being a master of the sales process. If you were indeed a master of the 8 core abilities and a master of the sales process, you’d undoubtedly have a lot of confidence.
6. Competence
Competence means making the case for your product or service, showing that it exceeds prospect expectations, and inspiring prospects to take action to obtain your product or service.
7. Closing
We all know that the ability to close the deal is paramount to achieving your goals. But how many know that the close is not a magic formula or a technique designed to beat a prospect into submission, or twist an unwilling arm, but rather the culmination of all the successful actions taken prior to this final step?
8. Customer Relationship
Something to always remember is that selling is an exchange where both parties win. Therefore, it’s not enough to make the sale and move on. Establishing a customer relationship involves the crucial step of quality delivery of your product or service. It’s also where the buying cycle begins all over again—after all, the better the “exchange,” the more your new client will decide to not only retain your services and become a lifelong customer but feel you are trustworthy enough to refer you to others.
Get the full story! Buy and read Closing is NOT Your Problem! by Nick and Lisa Terrenzi now!
