Let me break it down for you… Everything you’ve been taught about selling can be tracked back to 1953 and Dale Carnegie.  Taking nothing away from Carnegie’s achievements, but times and buyers have moved on.  Package it up however you like…  even the much hailed ”consultative selling” is still basically ploughing the same old ground.  Why?  Because what Carnegie planted in salespeople’s minds was the idea that there was a formula that will ensure we can bring prospects to our way of thinking.   And we’ve been preoccupied chasing that dream ever since.

In the 50s the advertising industry was still running slogans like “You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!”.  Obviously they’ve moved on miles from there (well the best have!), where as sales techniques have stagnated by keeping on honing what salemen were already pretty good at and missing the big issues that have never been properly addressed.  World class sales people and business owners often have the right mindset naturally but very few can articulate it to someone learning to sell because they developed naturally over time, not deliberately created from scratch. 

Although there are many sales trainers who i respect as people, I can only think of 2 that are working on truly new ideas.   What we want to roll out on this blog is a new mindset and sales process that will revolutionise the way you think about selling and think about your customers.  The key principals that we want to give you are:

  1. Have fun
  2. Rise above the noise
  3. Understand your buyers

And most important:

Don’t be a d***head.

Why?  When a salesperson calls you and starts off overfriendly and all “Alright Mate?  How was your weekend?”, what is your first thought?  “Who’s this d***head!”.  Don’t be that d***head.  Don’t confirm everyone’s stereotypes of sales people.