Sales Training Motivational Speaker | Gavin Ingham» sales success

If I Sold Cars I Wouldn’t…

Gavin Ingham — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:27:29 +0000

Yesterday I visited several car showrooms as I am thinking about changing one of the cars. I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of it and it doesn’t matter what makes they were or what companies but they were executive brands / companies and there were 4 of them. It inspired me to have a little rant about a few of things that I wouldn’t do if I sold cars!

If I sold cars I wouldn’t…

Sit comfortably in the showroom whilst potential customers looked at my cars on the forecourt – no matter how cold it was!
Chat with my 3 mates in the “sales” office whilst a customer read brochures and opened car doors in the showroom.
Greet my customer with the words, “So, do you want to buy a car today?”
Fail to offer a nice coffee from the flash coffee machine because it was 25 minutes until home time.
Wander off mid “sale” because I cannot think of anything to ask / say.
Bore my customer to death showing them how to log onto the company website… seriously!
Send my customer into a trance banging on about engine versions (one showroom), the history of the 4-wheel drive car (another showroom) or just waffle.
Fail to build rapport in any meaningful manner (all 4 showrooms).
Fail to ask any pertinent questions (3 showrooms).
Fail to hear the one critical piece of information (“…bad road so we were thinking 4-wheel drive…”).
Push something else (how good the 2-wheel drive version is) because I didn’t hear the critical information.
Not ask / be uninterested in the customers’ circumstances (in one garage the guy looked bored every time I said more than 4 words).
Fail to take interested customer details (all 4 showrooms).
Fail to give ANY literature out or anything to take away (all 4 showrooms).
Not make a sale, build a relationship or have any way of following up (all 4 showrooms).
Sit around moaning about the state of the market (probably all 4 showrooms).

These are just some of the things that I wouldn’t do if I sold cars…

Leaping From The Shoulders Of Sales Giants…

Gavin Ingham — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 13:40:53 +0000

What is it that separates great salespeople from merely average ones? What is that helps one business person grow their new business whilst another languishes, struggling to make a living? Why can two sales presentations of the same product with the same client have radically different outcomes? Why can great new business executives consistently reach key prospects that mere wanabees cannot?

Why can sales superstars sell value over price time and time again whilst mediocre journeymen fight battle after battle and end up selling on price?

Questions like these and just the simple, “What differentiates top performers from mere average ones?” have over the years been the focus of my attention, my passion and my career. Helping others to realise them in their careers and in their lives is something that gives me great fulfilment.

As many of you know, I am tapping away on my laptop in Spain, where I am spending a couple of weeks in the sun, and I have been reading about the reactions to the recent UK riots from afar. The usual suspects have said the usual things but what has interested me is the reaction of the UK police chiefs and many of the MPs to the mention of taking any kind of advice in any capacity from Bill Bratton, the ex-police chief of Los Angeles who oversaw a fall in crime for six consecutive years. Several said that the US was different to the UK and, more significantly, that they had NOTHING TO LEARN from him. Where does this stupendous arrogance come from? And what purpose does it serve other than to prop up their own fragile egos?

For sure, Los Angeles is different to the UK but there’s always something to learn even if it’s what not to do. There’s always something to learn even if it has to be adapted to your situation. There’s always something to learn if you want to be the best.

I see people every day who seem intent on reinventing the wheel out of sheer bloody mindedness. The concept of utilising OPE or Other Peoples’ Experiences seems to have passed them by. Why spend years clambering, climbing and crawling to the top if you can hop up onto someone’s shoulders and start from there with a huge advantage?

This week’s task is to have a think about who you know and how you can utilise their skills, experiences and insights to give yourself a shortcut to sales, business and personal success. Take some time to think about someone who you know who is excellent at something, someone who excels in a particular area and then go and pick their brains to find out how you can give yourself a sales boost.

Cold Calling Success

Gavin Ingham — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:30:37 +0000

I say every week when talking at conferences as a sales motivational speaker that you have to Share Sales Success Stories (my powerful 4S Principle) with yourself, with your sales team and within your organization and yet, I don’t share very many with you.

So I thought it was about time that I rectified that so here’s one that I got a couple of days ago. It says all there is to say about cold calling when it’s done right (which is of course what I teach) and from the right sales mindset so I suggest you read it several times, imagine what these kind of results could do for you and then take massive action!

Hi Gavin,

Thanks for your message and for connecting. Who said that cold calling was dead? Recent apppointments set with senior finance contacts;

- a major international fast food chain
- a sizeable UK NHS trust
- one of the UK’s largest housing associations
- one of the UK’s biggest network rail operators
- a large Welsh City Council

Qualify well, be polite, project confidence, know your pitch, engage the client and persist. Managing to set appointments often with people that previously said NO!

Regards

If you want to be getting results like this and be one of the many, many people writing similar letters to me, then you need to be checking out my books, audios, webinars and seminars with particular regard to No Fear Cold Calling .

Be Proud Of Being A Professional Salesperson

Gavin Ingham — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:14:04 +0000

On my travels as a sales motivational speaker, I meet a lot of people who “fell into” sales. Infact, when I ask people at sales conferences to ask the people sitting near to them, “How did you get into sales?” the vast majority reply, “Well, I kind of fell into it.”

So many people don’t choose sales as a career. They don’t sit in first school talking about how they want to be a salesperson. They don’t argue that they want to be Lord Alan Sugar instead of Rooney when they’re kicking a ball about in the playground and they don’t want to be a cold caller rather than an astronaut or a doctor.

And on top of all of this, many people are rude about salespeople saying that they are uneducated, illiterate, self-centred, selfish, pushy, arrogant, egotistical individuals. And they are rude about the job too saying that it is for people who couldn’t get a better job. Indeed, I once read an article in a national newspaper where the writer said that we should “feel sorry” for salespeople because they had fallen so low in life…

Is it surprising then that many salespeople do not want to be called a “salesperson”? They do not want the title of salesperson, preferring instead to change it to “consultant” or “account manager” or even “account director”.

And how many salespeople do you know who want to be sales managers? Virtually all of them.

Why? Because they perceive that this is promotion. Because they perceive that this elevates them above these criticisms. And because they perceive that it means more money, more prestige, more kudos, more respect…

And they might be right. Or are they?

Great salespeople can make great sales managers. And great sales managers can make great salespeople. But great salespeople do not necessarily make great sales managers. And great sales managers do not necessarily make great salespeople.

And these are important facts to swallow because if you don’t swallow them and you don’t apply them to yourself then it will cost you big! Big in money. Big in prospects! Big in personal satisfaction. And BIG in career opportunities.

Great salespeople need to be proud of what they do. Great salespeople need to recognize that their greatest asset is their ability to sell and to create new business. Great salespeople need to know that top quality salespeople are like world-class athletes and a selling career provides all of the rewards that anyone could ever dream of…

If you read the Sunday Times Appointments section this week you would have seen a huddle of None-Exec roles, Directors of public sector companies, MDs and FDs… but, the most interesting, best sounding and highest (stated) paid opportunity was…?

A sales opportunity…

London, New York, Singapore. £100k, OTE £250k (uncapped). Sounds interesting already right?

Success in life is about playing to your strengths and if you have worked hard to be a top salesperson then you ought to be proud of your achievements and continue to become a well-paid, well respected, sought after, world-class, sales superstar.

3 Simple Sales Tips For Sales Success

Gavin Ingham — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:27:27 +0000

I’ve had one of those weeks…. and it’s only Wednesday. I’m sure you have them sometimes too. Mine actually started 3-4 days ago with a nagging headache that built up and built culminating in projectile vomiting at 3am in the morning on Tuesday morning. In fact, I was still feeling nauseous, shaky and hadn’t slept at 615am and was due to get up in an hour to head down to London to give a sales motivational talk…

Over the years, I have spent tens of thousands of pounds and invested a good proportion of my time into self-development. Some of it has been personal development, some of it sales development and some of it more advanced stuff! I could bore you to death with talk of complex sales linguistics, hypnotic language patterns and the impact of using one word over another but unless you’re in my inner circle of The Ingham Academy it’s unlikely you will hear about these because for most sales and business people that I meet, it’s doing the simple stuff consistently and well that makes the difference and gets results.

Unfortunately, this is where so many people fall down. They fail to do the simple stuff well. They fail to do what they know. And they fail to keep doing the very things that made them successful in the first place.

Maybe this is because they forget. Maybe it’s because they get lazy. Maybe it’s because they get wrapped up in seemingly more important things…

No matter. Fail to do the basics and the basics will fail you. Often spectacularly.

When I speak at sales conferences and people email me or ring me weeks and months later to say that my talk helped them to double or treble their sales, I’d love to say that it’s the advanced sales techniques that I taught them, but, often times, it’s motivating, educating and inspiring them to raise the bar and do the basics with passion and commitment that gives them the sales edge.

People often ask me, what is the difference that makes the difference for successful salespeople? And whilst there are many more complicated answers that I could give, here are three basic sales principles that all salespeople should live by…

Have a PSA (Positive Sales Attitude).
Do what you say you’re going to do.
Give 100% commitment.

So you know, after an hour’s sleep, I’d stopped being physically sick so I got up and I made my way on the three hour plus journey to speak in London… Does this make me a hero? No, of course not. Like you and like every sales and business professional, it’s the simple principles that we live by that determine our destiny.