What Is The Best Sales Advice You Ever Received?

I recently asked some of my weekly email sales tips subscribers and linkedin practical sales tips forum a simple question:

“What’s the best piece of sales advice you’ve ever received?”

Well, I’ve received over 200 replies and the list is growing!

So I thought that I’d start a mini-series and put some of them together for you over the next week or two.

Just one or two of them may make the difference in your selling!

Here’s the list of Sales Techniques and sales tips…

ADVICE
When cold calling or prospecting, ALWAYS make that one extra call before you leave…even if you’ve put in the time… that one extra call will pay off. With existing customers, if you call them when things are working, they’ll be your customer as long as things work. If you call them when things are down (or not working), they’ll be your customer for life, no matter where you go or what you do.
Director of Sales at Advansys Technologies

ADVICE
A wise man (my father) once said: “God gave you 2 ears and 1 mouth. This means you should listen twice as much as you speak!” We ALL know salespeople that have talked themselves OUT of the deal.
Strategic Technology & Telecom Executive; Strength in Sales & Marketing

ADVICE
Some points come to mind:
– Never hesitate to ask for the business
– Know what it is that you’re selling and your value; know your customer and know your customer’s customer
– God gave you two ears and one mouth, listen more than talk
– “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” Sir Winston Churchill
– Hope is not a strategy
Senior Director at General Dynamics

ADVICE
“Strive to understand, then be understood”
Anon

ADVICE
– Don’t call screen – pick up the phone!
– Add value as an individual beyond your product/price
– Know how to overcome common objections
– Believe in yourself, your company and your product – you can’t effectively sell what you don’t believe in
– Be accountable for your own successes or failures
– Show up more often
– Outwork, Outlast, Outsmart the competition
– Give effective and memorable presentations and practice it!
– Have a written plan every day – don’t wing it
– Sell during selling hours
– Make the tough calls – don’t disappear when something goes wrong
Wholesale Regional Sales Manager – ICON Residential Capital

ADVICE
Understand (through listening) and be able to translate to the customer the difference between the “lowest price” and the “best value”
Training Manager at Levin Furniture

Some wise words above there and some really useful advice.

Take a couple of them and then make them a way of life in your selling!

They’ll be some more “Best pieces of advice” on your way very soon in PART 2.

And please, if you’ve got a golden nugget to add please feel free to add a comment below.

Happy selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director

MTD Sales Training