10 days Left - Mastering the Art of Selling

There's no other way but to sell!

I was asked by a good friend of mine to help her out on training her sales people, being part of jewelry merchandising, on one big topic: selling. Fortunately, at the time she approached me I was reading Zig Ziglar's book, "The Secrets of Closing the Sale." And so without hesitation I jumped in and said yes, I will make the module, and yes, I will give the seminar.

But then, I asked myself, will they believe in me? I am about to teach people who have been in the selling profession for decades and I have just jumped in 8 months ago. And mostly, my job is managing and working out strategies to make the departments more effective, its not my main job to talk to people, persuade, and close a sale. I do assist some though, but I'm more of a problem solver! And so, I have no choice....

There's no other way but to sell!

And so I took the challenge, and will sell the most difficult to sell items on my floor: the very expensive Chinese Figurine Porcelains! I've done my research already, googled all about feng shui, but still will go dumb when customers ask me the translations! So far, I have sold none, and the chances of selling are quite blurry noticing that only about 1 customer a day dares to take a look at those items. And so I devised a different strategy.

This time, I will do something I'm very good at: training people. And so I decided to train one of my furniture personnel, the one with the longest tenure among the rest, Renan.

One our first day, after an hour of questioning, lecture, and observation, by the end of our shift he had sold around Php 60,495. The following day, at Php 44,505. Far from his last week sales of Php 3k, 7k, and the highest of Php17k. How?

Figure out his passion.

I was really delighted that it was selling.

"Sell not because its your work, but sell because you love to sell."

Which he optimistically absorbed.

"Sell not because its your quota, but sell because you want to help people."

I always believe that starting with the right mindset and perspective, the best foundation on selling, sales quota will follow.

You see? These things are only found on the first chapters of the book, what more if I reach the later chapters?