BLUEPRINT: PROFESSIONAL SELLING
by
Carl G. Stevens
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Carl G. Stevens on Smashwords
Blueprint: Professional Selling
Copyright © 2011 by Carl G. Stevens
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
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Advanced Studies in Professional Selling
State of the Art: Professional Selling
Blueprint for Professional Selling:
Introduction to Professional Selling…………..
Chapter 1: Developing Time Saving Skills/Time Management……
My Professional Planning Program…..
Plus Professional Sales Analysis…..
Chapter 2: Blueprint: Preparation….
Chapter 3: Blueprint: Attention….
Chapter 4: Blueprint: Examination….
Chapter 5: Blueprint: Prescription….
Chapter 6: Blueprint: Conviction/Showmanship……
Chapter 7: Blueprint: Motivation…..
Chapter 8: Blueprint: Completion…..
Chapter 9: Buying Signals…..
Chapter 10: Trial Close…..
Chapter 11: How to Handle Objections….
Chapter 12: “As a Man Listens”…..(How to Handle Irate Customers)
Your Most God-Like Attribute: Imagination….
My Personal Sales Presentation….
STATE OF THE ART: PROFESSIONAL SELLING
SUCCESS FORMULA:
“What single, personal proficiency will most determine your entire level of achievement throughout life?” Two thousand eight top business leaders replied,” your ability to sell yourself and your ideas.” - American Management Association
PEOPLE PROBLEM:
“American industry’s main problem is distribution. Effective salespeople are the key to distribution …. A very high proportion of those engaged in selling cannot sell.” - Harvard Business Review
CURRENT CHALLENGE:
Many companies are challenged with decreasing sales revenue and rapidly increasing sales costs. The total revenue spent on sales and marketing is now up 20% to 25%. The average sales call cost has soared to over $500 with one large chemical company reporting $3,000.
COST FACTORS:
“The average cost for an industrial salesperson to call on a consumer or prospect during the last 10 years has increased, 318%. Over the past 41 years, sales call costs have risen 23 times over, according to the survey.” * - McGraw-Hill Research
STATUS OF THE ART:
“80% of the business is done by 20% of the sales force.” - Sales & Marketing Executives International
ECONOMIC LOSS:
“90% of all the work salespeople put in is worthless—only 10% of what they do earns money for them. Nine-tenths of all their efforts is lost motion—utterly wasted.” - Prentice Hall, Inc.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION:
“The areas of greatest potential for opportunity and results are to be given the fullest resource support - in quantity and quality - before the next promising area gets anything.” - Dr. Peter F. Drucker
Salespeople need help and sales supervisors need help in helping them.
Selection and professional education of field sales managers has become one of the most acute problems facing top management. American Management Association Survey revealed:
Why?
Over half of the sales managers surveyed had never read a job description of what they were supposed to do.
78% of these sales managers were dissatisfied with their training or had never received any specific training to equip them for their roles as sales managers.
Only 1 out of every 44 companies surveyed had any kind of company sponsored sales managers training program.
Why haven’t our improved selling skills increased proportionally?
“BLUEPRINT FOR PROFESSIONAL SELLING”
The Blueprint process has been referred to by graduates as “a college education in selling.” Blueprint is a distinctively different, result-oriented curriculum designed to do the following:
Give the salesperson a thorough knowledge of the principles of psychological and motivational selling.
Teach the concerned salesperson how to structure his or her sales presentation for top-level persuasive impact.
Increase the salesperson’s self confidence by teaching them knowledge of what to do and the skill of how to do it — thus making them comfortable in doing it.
The Blueprint gives the serious sales practitioners what all the recognized professions have — an accumulated and documented body of knowledge, a generic language and a structured approach to achieve their objectives.
A Blueprint: “My Personal Professional Sales Presentation”, a highly structured four-page outline is prepared by each participant.
If a salesperson is not completely happy with their current sales and earnings, this may be a good time to invest in you. Does it really work? Ask a Blueprint graduate who has learned and used it!
What is “The Blueprint for Professional Selling”?
The Blueprint for Professional Selling is a digest of a full semester taught by the co-author of the college textbook Selling. This text has been adopted across the U.S. and Canada.
It is a response to scientifically determine why eighty percent of the business is done by twenty percent of the sales people. Why, is this true worldwide? What is the secret of the success of the one out of five? Is it documentable and transferrable?
Carl Stevens went after the answer… relentlessly, implacably, indefatigably...until the truth was revealed to him - a scientific approach to the art of selling. This breakthrough has helped hundreds of companies and thousands of sales people make more sales … earn more money … and have more FUN doing it!
The Blueprint for Professional Selling has been called “a college education in selling.” Why? Because it gives serious practitioners what all recognized professions have …
an accumulated, documented body of knowledge,
a generic language, and
a structured, persuasive approach to achieve goals and objectives.
The Blueprint for Professional Selling process has a completely different result oriented curriculum which structures sales presentations in the proper psychological sequence for maximum motivational appeal. These include ….
Programmed instruction with case studies,
illustrated workbook
audio-reinforcement to increase spaced repetition.
A Blueprint: “My Personal Sales Presentation” outline is prepared by each participant to assure that the quality of the personal sales professional presentation is equal to the quality of the product that is being presented.
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INTRODUCTION TO PROFESSIONAL SELLING
SalesWeek Magazine, the professional journal of Sales and Marketing Executives International, reported recently that in one year salespeople spent more than $300 million on sales development material. Clearly, salespeople are searching for help in achieving greater success.
This professional sales development text is designed to give you a “college-level education” in practical sales techniques.
By participating in this custom-designed and field-tested Blueprint for Professional Selling you have shown that you are willing to invest the same time, enthusiasm and effort that a student invests in a college course. The results will be more than worth that effort.
The National Sales Executives Digest surveyed several thousand of your fellow salespeople in an attempt to discover their “most secret thoughts, feelings and frustrations” about their careers in selling. Among the three most frequent needs stated were the following:
Specific methods for improving sales - not what to do but how to do it.
A complete understanding of the principles and techniques of salesmanship - and how to apply them in day-to-day selling.
Training in digest form. Readable, educational material - short, explanatory, illustrated, believable.
This chapter of your sales education course is devoted to a brief discussion of selling as a profession. The basic question to be considered here is this: if other recognized professionals purse their goals by a reasoned approach based on an organized body of information and knowledge, cannot the sales person do the same? Our firm belief is that they can. Indeed, to achieve their fullest potential, they must.
Therefore we must establish such bodies of knowledge and with it proceed to develop a sound and realistic approach to selling that really works. To do this we will make a careful study of the seven professional modules of selling. Just as the musician has seven different notes in the musical scale with which to work - you as a sales person have seven different modules in a professional sales presentation. We will consider them, one by one, in full detail, as the instruction progresses. Let us now consider them in outline form.
The first of the seven is the pre-approached or Preparation. Obviously, the more you know about your prospect’s need or want for your products, the more effective and convincing a sales presentation you will be able to make. When you know exactly what pre-approach information you require and how to find that information you will have greatly increased your chances for a sale. If your prospect doesn’t have a problem, concern, challenge or perceived need or if you are unable to convince him or her that they have a problem, then you no longer have a prospect! (You will learn how to use a Preparation Information Sheet that has been field-tested by other successful sales professionals.
The second module consists of getting your prospect’s immediate and favorable Attention in a way that makes him or her favorably disposed. You have only seconds to do this as you will learn experimentally when we study the attention phase of the selling process later in our study. (You will learn 16 ways to clear the attention hurdle.)
Third, you must determine what the prospect wants (immediate or primary concern) and why he or she wants it. In short, you must seek the prospect’s dominant buying urge. There are three distinct methods for discerning the psychological reasons behind the prospect’s desires. We call this third module Examination.
Next, is the Prescription Module. Here you make the prospect understand that you understand the problem and you demonstrate that you have a solution to it. You will learn how to master this most misunderstood and misused part of the selling process.
During the Conviction Module, you will learn how to convince your prospect that your products and service are as good as you say they are and that they are justified in buying now. Mastery of the four components of a complete unit of conviction will give you a significant advantage over your competition.
The Anatomy of A “Good Sale”
A noted sales professional said, “A good sale breaks down into 30-60-10 ratio.” 30% of a salesperson’s time should be spent discovering the problem and presenting the answer, 60% in motivating the prospect to want what you are selling, and 10% to close and complete the sale.
Remembering this 30-60-10 ration of a “Good Sale,” we have so far discussed the 30% (discovering the prospect’s problem and presenting an answer) through the five modules outlined above. Now we are ready for the 60% - “How to help the prospect motivate themselves to want what we are offering.”
The sixth module of the text is the Motivation Module. You will learn how to make a prospect want what you are offering. The five components of the motivation module have been structured so that your sales presentation will be made in the proper psychological sequence for maximum motivational appeal. You will learn exactly what you must do to help your prospect motivate themselves to want to buy from you now.
The final module is the Completion Module. You will learn a method of closing that may be entirely new to you. This phase will supply the “Sunday punch” to help you with those difficult closes.
These seven modules have been developed during 35 years of research and field-tested almost 25 years with control groups in over 50 countries. The modules are psychologically sound, academically acceptable, and they do get results. As this process progresses you will be given detailed instruction in each of these modules showing you what to do and how to do it.
Each module is a separate link in the selling chain. Improving any one can mean a great deal in your sales record. But our aim is much larger...we hope to strengthen every link...to make you more successful.
A Secret of Successful Salesmen
What makes one individual more successful than another? Is there a common denominator of success? Here is your ‘HOW’ to program yourself for Professional Selling….
PREPARATION
ATTENTION
EXAMINATION
PRESCRIPTION
CONVICTION
MOTIVATION
COMPLETION
One of the largest insurance companies in America conducted a survey and found the answer to be … “The successful person is willing to do the things the unsuccessful persons will not do.”
Are you willing to pay the price?
It is important to remember that this is in effect a “lab course.” You must field-test each idea and find your own answers experimentally and experientially thereby developing your own body of experiences and approaches.
The five elements that will most determine your degree of success are:
Aptitude
Attitude
Knowledge
Skill
Management
Professional Goal Setting
On the following page you will be asked to show your sales goals for next year. Many people have trouble setting goals and so are not working towards any specific objective. If you in fact write down your goals you will be in a group that is generally thought to be less than 5% of the total U.S. population. People think about goals but few write them down, fewer visualize their completed goals.
Once you have written down your goals for the year you should break that figure down into monthly installments. If your selling is seasonal you should show that on the chart. Don’t just break your yearly sales into 12 equal segments unless your selling is actually accomplished that way.
Having written down the monthly figures, you can go further and break the months into weeks, then the weeks into days. If you want to meet your overall goals you must break it down into smaller units that one year. By setting goals in small units you will have areas of time that you can in fact deal with easily. Now fill out your professional goals.
Our Goals In The Coming Months Are As Follows:
Make more sales
Earn more money
Have FUN doing it
To achieve best results, you should set goals for the months to come. Create a calendar of your goals on paper, in your cell phone or computer so that you will be able to add reminders and notes each month. But remember that a goal without a plan is really just a dream. But remember that a goal without a plan is really just a dream. And a realistic goal is set upon full consideration of the assets and liabilities we recognize. Set up your goals each month by asking yourself these questions: My present average monthly gross sales are $? My income from these sales is $? One year from today my monthly gross sales will be $? One year from today my monthly income from these sales will be $?
Your future sales success may well depend upon your willingness to make the effort to break old habits and to acquire new ones.
In one way, learning is a process of replacement and displacement. A salesperson I know said it differently He told me “I didn’t get this way overnight, and I don’t expect to get out of it overnight. I have had 13 years of experience, and I have about decided that I have had one year’s experience 13 times. I know how to do everything wrong perfectly. And I have had record to prove it.” To become a more successful professional revenue producer you will have to break some old habit patterns and acquire some new ones.
As we progress through this process different ideas and techniques will be presented. Field-test each one repeatedly. Find out if they really work for you. Don’t take our word for it. Go out and prove to yourself that they do achieve results.
The acid test of any sales education program is increased sales volume and the right continuing professional sales education can increase volume greatly. Obviously, the sales professional with the proper aptitudes, attitudes, knowledge and skill should sell more that their counterpart who is not equally gifted, educated and trained. The knowledge to be sought is not restricted to product knowledge. Your challenge is to learn how to professionally determine your prospect’s needs and want s so that you can help your prospects motivate themselves to buy from you.
Mr. Ray Busby, a super successful mentor to hundreds of salespeople has said: “More than anything else, it has been the failure to become skillful in their sales activities that has kept so many sales people from taking the money and finding the happiness they desire from their work. Why? Many sales people lack knowledge and skill...when selling becomes a procedure; it ceases to be a problem!”
By the end of this course you will have acquired a complete Blueprint for Professional Selling. You will receive a detailed multipage guide: “BLUEPRINT for my Personal Professional Sales Presentation.” Like the pilot with a checklist, you will have become the organized professional—a sales professional with a plan of action and the confidence to follow it through.
Please remember that when your feet hit the floor this morning you were in a real sense unemployed. If you were paid by salary you can deny this by pointing to your salary check, but how long would that salary be forthcoming if you were unable to produce sales?
Your time that earns you money is the time you spend selling in the presence of a qualified prospect. “It’s not seeing and telling ‘em but selling ’em that gets RESULT$... And there is a big difference!”
Is your office time costing you money? Don’t you make your money from selling? Think of the time in your office as only “Pre-flight” time … You can’t log “sales time” unless you are in the presence of a qualified prospects who can buy. What percentage of your time is spent where you make your money—in the presence of a qualified prospect? Are you satisfied with this percentage ration? What do you plan to do about it? When?
You may think that your production is at a respectable level, but how much greater would it be if you were using the proper motivational and psychological selling techniques. What would happen to your sales in the following 90 days? That is what this Blueprint Process is all about. To give you the specific methods for improving sales. Not what you ought to be doing, but how to do it.
As we move into the process and techniques of professional selling in the following installments of this process, keep this picture in mind:
The next time you are driving behind a well-dressed man driving slowly down the middle of the road, don’t blow your horn. Don’t disturb him. He’s a salesman on his way to his next sale and it’s the happiest time of his life!
New Sales People Say Their Biggest Sales Needs Are:
How to overcome call reluctance, and
How to build more self-confidence
Is this what you want too?
A National Company’s Survey of Their Sales Representatives Revealed that They Think Their Biggest Sales Needs are:
How to overcome call reluctance
More self-confidence
How do today’s sales professional (commonly known as revenue producers) acquire knowledge and self-confidence? One of your fellow salesmen, after completing The Blueprint Process said, “Now that I know what to do and how to do it, I feel nine feet tall!”
Knowledge plus Skill help develop Confidence
Time is the raw material of life. Our success and happiness are contingent upon the effective use of the time given us. Today we have more individual time in which to improve and advance ourselves than our forefathers. In the past half-century, the life expectancy in western countries has been lengthened by twenty years, while the work week has been reduced from sixty hours to just forty. Over a working lifetime of 45 years, these add up to a gain of almost forty years of time in which to do what we wish. Our time.
We have a choice of whether to use this time wisely or foolishly. Habit and custom lure us into many wasteful practices that can be destructive to our happiness. Time, our most precious asset, can either be invested or wasted. It’s your choice.
It is interesting to note that all well paid, successful individuals have one thing in common—a great appreciation of the importance of time. They have learned to manage time. This learning is an individual thing, but there are some basic tools and ideas that can help us to use our time to our best advantage. We must realize these three facts: (1) time can be measured, therefore apportioned; (2) time is passing, and it never returns; and (3) time can be wasted, just as we waste materials, money and energy.
Do you agree?
Yesterday is a cancelled check;
Tomorrow is a promissory note;
ONLY Today is Negotiable!
A common source of unhappiness is caused by the habit of putting off living until some fictional future date. By deferring our lives to the future—or dwelling in the past—we lose sight of the present and it’s opportunities for rich living. Time organization can profoundly affect this problem. As long as we realize our problems concerning time and are willing to change our habits to correct them, we can enjoy more and more of the precious hours we live. One of your greatest assets in achieving your lifetime objective is: learning how to organize your time and how to make it work for you.
“Time is our working capital.” Managing it is everybody’s number one problem,” says Peter Drucker, in his book, The Effective Executive.
Chapter 1
Developing Time Savings Skills/Time Management
TIME MANAGEMENT “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff that life is made of.” - Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin described it in three simple words: “Time is money.” Every individual has a certain amount of time available; no person has more time at their disposal than you do. Yet each soul has the choice of how to invest their time. How you organize your time is frequently the difference between success and failure. Time management requires perseverance and self-discipline, but no other investment pays higher dividends in terms of achievement, performance and satisfaction.
A common excuse for lack of achievement is “There isn’t enough time.” Many sales people and sales executives often complain, “I’m harassed and overworked, there is just not enough time to do it all.”
Underlying each complaint is a desire to be in control of one’s time. It is far more productive to organize your time than to agonize over the tasks left undone. And control begins with planning.
Planning Time
The basis of all organization is a plan. Unfortunately many people plan haphazardly or plan only when they are forced to. Planning is a conscious effort of bringing the future into the present. Sales managers as well as sales people are motivated by anticipation. That is, our basic drive or motivation is to satisfy ourselves. If there is no motivation there is no action. Your anticipated future event must begin with a plan.
I. Picture
It is imperative that we define our goal in specific terms. Don’t use vague terms. You must be able to visualize your goal. Create a picture in your mind of exactly what you want to happen. Anticipate your goal with your five senses. What physical events must take place for your goal to become a reality?
Exactly what dollar amounts of money to you want to attain? Use your five senses to imagine yourself reaching this goal. Create a picture in your mind of you attaining to goal. Then, write your goal down as explicitly as you imagine it:
WHAT do you SEE in your mind’s eye (describe by verbalizing) EX: “I see…”
WHAT do you HEAR in your mind’s ear EX: “I hear…”
WHAT sensation do you taste - savor EX: “I taste…”
WHAT sensation do you touch - actual feel “I feel the touch of….”
WHAT sensation do you smell EX: “I smell a…”
REMEMBER:
Our most God-Like attribute is our . . .
I M A G I N A T I O N !
Its God’s unique gift to you, USE IT!
II. List
Second, list the activities that you must do to achieve your goal. Include each step of how you plan to attain it. Long term strategic planning must be complemented with short term activity planning. Specify all possible activities necessary for you to reach your goal. Next, set priorities to allow you to accomplish the most important activity first. Don’t waste time doing routine tasks. Keep your goal uppermost In your mind and put first things first.
HINT: If this activity is not going to help you reach your long term goal, your target and help you hit “the bull’s eye” of your target - you may want to prioritize!
III. Schedule
Third, schedule your activities within a specific time frame. Our activities and goals can quickly become unfulfilled dreams if we allow ourselves to dream our desires away. If you have a tendency to day dream, try focusing on your day dream.
Be realistic and practical about your goals.
Make goals a priority in your life.
Commit yourself to fulfilling a part of your goal everyday.
Set a deadline on your activities and do them as scheduled.
Set aside a few minutes each day to plan your time...the night before or first thing in the morning.
Each day provides you with the opportunity of moving one step closer to your goal. Evaluate each task on the basis of its worth in attaining your goal. Ask yourself, “How much is my time worth?” Is this task worth that much?” Then, learn to delegate or omit those tasks that do not yield the highest value. Your daily schedule should reflect the priorities you have set for attaining your goal… which is ultimate lifetime professional.