Principle Based Training: Sales – Part II

By Tom Goetschius

Sales Principles:
Of course, there are sales principles that determine the behavior of salespeople. The Forum Corporation is a Boston based consulting company focused on sales performance. After collecting several hundred thousand pieces of data on sales, they determined that there are three principles that should determine the behavior of salespeople.

Focus On The Customer:
It is important to always put the customer at the center of the buying process. There is wisdom in the age-old expression, “The Customer Is Always Right”. This is not only figuratively correct, but actually correct. From the customer’s point of view, they are always right.

Salesperson Behavior:

• Concentrate on the customer’s buying cycle, their point of view, and their state of mind (noise)
• Ask yourself, “What’s in it for the customer?”
• Make sure that everything you say or do is valuable to the customer.
• Communicate the value to the customer.

Earn The Right To Advance:
A customer’s mild interest is not justification to make a product presentation.

Salesperson behavior:

• Deal with each customer’s concerns and questions at each step of the process before advancing.
• Ask if all issues and concerns have been resolved and all questions have been answered.
• Be a facilitator, a consultant, and a resource for the customer, not a peddler.
• Ask for permission to move on or to make another point.

Dr Stephen Covey, in his milestone book The Seven Habits Of Successful People, says, “Seek First To Understand…Then Make Yourself Understood”

Influence Through Involvement:
Successful sales have little to do with a dazzling sales pitch and everything to do with guiding your customer to an understanding of what it is they desire. People believe ten thousand times more in what they say than anything the salesperson tells them. Securing important information from customers and giving them choices are as important as giving information and making presentations.

Salesperson behavior:

• Talk less and listen more
• Realize that objections are a sign that the customer is involved.
• Encourage customers to participate in determining their needs, desires, and aspirations.
• They must tell you what they see, what they want, and how they will use it.

Finally, the principles determining effective salesperson behavior would be incomplete if it didn’t include Principles For Successful Living. These principles override all other principles because they should apply to everyone in all situations. They are sometimes called the Laws Of Nature. Whatever they are called, they are Universal Laws.

The Principle of Reciprocity:
In terms of behavior, you will get back what you give.

Salesperson behavior:

• If you want your customer to be open minded, then you must be open minded.
• If you want your customer to be understanding, then you be understanding.
• Whatever behavior you want from your customer, be willing to give it.
• Be aware of the negative aspect of this powerful principle. If you give hostility, you will get hostility in return. Whatever negative behavior you give will earn you the same in response.

The Investment/Return Principle:
You have to put something in in order to get something out. The larger the investment, the larger the return. Whatever you want in life is equal to the amount of work, effort, dedication and sacrifice you are willing to put into it.

Salesperson behavior:

• There are no shortcuts. Study your craft. Read books. Listen to tapes or CD’s
• Never be satisfied, saying, “There has to be a better way”.
• Practice, practice, practice.

Three sets of principles….Principles For Effective Communication, Principles For Effective Sales, and Principles For Living A Successful Life…Each provides “fundamental truths”. Each “forms a foundation for a system of behavior”. Each leads to “rules that explain or control how something happens or works”, in our case, in sales. Salespeople should strive to always be in alignment with these principles and heed the behaviors they demand. These principles should be taught before any sales technique or methodology. They will make evident the power and effectiveness of whatever sales technique is used, and moreover, enable salespeople to “develop their own techniques and be successful in any environment”.

After obtaining a Master’s Degree in Interpersonal Communication from the State University of New York, and teaching speech and directing theatre at SUNY Morrisville, Tom Goetschius
became involved in the resort industry. He spent 35 years in the industry serving as a salesperson, manager, director of sales, trainer, and project director. He started Tom Goetschius Associates, a training and consulting company, in 1994. Currently, Goetschius is Adjunct Professor of Speech, at Valencia College, Kissimmee, FL