Be Persistent in Selling, Not Stupid

Being persistent in selling, as you may know, is vital to success.

You have to keep going until things work out.

For example; if you try to close your prospect and you get a “no” you don’t just walk away, you keep going and overcome their objections. Then you try to close again. Rinse and repeat.

Persistence, also known as determination, is equally important when you encounter road blocks to your success.

The last 100 people didn’t buy from you? Well keep on going until someone does. Keep on tweaking your approach until you discover what works.

I’ve noticed that the mindset of persistence is common to all successful people.

But I’ve also noticed another common trait; they know when to cash in their chips.

They know when to be persistent and they know when it’s time to find another way.

Most people will only tell you to be persistent but what they often don’t mention is that you have to be persistent with things that are likely to pay off.

For example; if I’m trying to sell my new widget and have been turned down thousands of times with no one showing the least bit of interest…I might want to find something else to sell. All I have to do is cut my losses and move on before I waste even more time and money trying to sell something nobody wants. This leads me to my next point.

I believe you can be successful in just about any selling environment; however some are much easier than others. And I know this all too well. For instance in a cold calling environment you CAN be “successful” if you’re persistent enough…but you have to work your butt off and the rewards aren’t so great.

The nice thing is you can CHANGE your environment. I have been in cold calling environments and have struggled to put food on the table, then I make one small change, stop cold calling, and then I have more sales than I know what to do with.

So when people come to me and say cold calling works I just have to laugh. It may indeed “work” (as in you see some results) but you’ll never get the great results you want. It’s like trying to ride a scooter across the United States. You may complete your journey on the scooter but wouldn’t it be a lot better to take your private jet?

You have to think about selling like you think of technology. And some technology is so outdated that you need to upgrade. An analogy to technology would be to stop being persistently stupid using your typewriter and move on to a computer already. The typewriter may work but the computer has so many advantages that it’s not even up for discussion, and you should upgrade immediately!

So take a look at your selling. Are you using a typewriter and a scooter, or a jet and a computer?

Remember to always be persistent, but not persistently stupid.

Until next time…
Tyler
http://www.coldcallcrusher.com/thesystem.html