Dress for Success, Secure more Sales

In sales, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. People buy trust, they buy honesty and credibility, so you have to dress appropriately (I always try to dress a smart, remember, you can always dress down by taking off a tie or jacket).

When I first started selling many years ago, I had been a musician before. I entered the profession thinking that I was quite a snappy dresser. I used to wear pale blue suits, colored shirts and expressive ties and I was successful, but I was successful only with young people, I never reached first base with professionals, why, because I didn’t look the part.

A fortunate thing happened to me, after about a year in the business, a new manager was appointed as my boss and he came over from England. He took one look at me and told me to ‘get rid of the clown outfits’ and made me change my dress to dark suits, white shirts, lace up black shoes and conservative ties and that’s what I have worn ever since. Those changes moved my market, tripled my average sale and made me successful in the professional and executive market.
It’s the big things that count and the small things that make the massive difference. Think about things that we take for granted, dirty nails, bad breath, scuffed shoes, chewed up ballpoint pen and many other small things can turn off a potential client before you even start to sell.
If you go out and you have a beer with a client at lunchtime, before you go into the next client, get some mints or breath freshener because the first thing that the new prospect smells is beer on your breath and remember in the first thirty seconds they are going to make a decision, do they think you’re credible and someone they want to do business with. So dress for success, make sure your briefcase is the best briefcase you can afford. If you can’t afford a gold pen, get a gold plated pen, fake it until you make it, but look professional.

Remember to smile. You know if you smile, they’re going to smile back at you. Look into their eyes and greet them with a good handshake. Ensure that your body language is always open. People like to do business with people similar to themselves, so with the handshake give as much pressure as you’re getting from the other person. If they speak softly, so do you, if the speak quickly, so do you. Can you imagine if you naturally speak loudly all the time and meet someone who is quietly spoken, he is going to think you are not his type of person if you are loud, overbearing and brash? People like to do business with people similar to themselves. This is called NeuroLinguisticProgramming and in my 6 CD audio series called ‘NLP for Sales’ I cover this comprehensively.

Next, you have to reduce tension levels and develop commonality. For me the easiest way of doing this is to get people to speak about themselves. For many years now, I’ve used a method called ‘past, present and future’. Starting with his past, I might say “this is amazing, you’ve got this great position with this huge company, how did you get started?” Now nobody’s asked him that question for years and he is really proud of his progress with the company, so he will spend some time telling me about this. The next question would be about the present situation. “So tell me about your position at the moment, how are things going, how many offices do you have?” This is the time to just keep quiet and listen. The next question is about the future and with this question you’ll learn a lot about you client and his aspirations, ambitions and goals for the future. “Where do you see yourself in five or ten years time or at retirement?” and you just keep quiet. Now he’s going to tell you about his dreams and his aspirations and if you are smart, you will pick up many buying signals. These are the emotions, these are the reasons that they’re going to buy from you, so remember to use past, present and future.

Right now I am an International motivational speaker specialising in sales and technology, but where I learned my selling was in financial services where I qualified amongst the top half percent of salespeople in the world at the Million Dollar Round Table ‘Top of the Table’ level.

I used all of the methods explained above and these are also detailed in my comprehensive 15 CD/DVD resource Sales Strategies for Financial Advisors (http://www.frankfurnessresources.com/financialadvisor)

For more articles, please take a look at my website http://www.frankfurness.com and please download complimentary eBooks and software at http://www.frankfurnessresources.com



Frank Furness CSP CFP is a professional speaker and trainer specialising in sales and technology. He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 42 countries. His publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. He is the author of ‘Walking with Tigers - Success Secrets of Exceptional Achievers’ which is available from http://www.amazon.co.uk
For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales Tips & Ideas’ newsletter, email frank@frankfurness.com or telephone+ 44 (0) 1923 248200. http://www.frankfurness.com

NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to frank@frankfurness.com Take a look at other articles, free software and e-Books at http://www.frankfurness.com/
Download 39 Power Sales Closing Scripts at http://www.frankfurness.com/closingscripts.cfm

The Professional Sales Introduction

Let me tell you a story. Many years ago, a large tobacco company's advertising account was up for grabs and every big advertising company was after this account. There was a small advertising company owned by a fellow called Ben Duffy and he was also trying to secure this account. He was up against big competition; some of the largest companies in the Industry and it would be a coup to land such a large client. Ben Duffy thought to himself 'how am I going to get this account, I'm just a small unknown player with a small company, there's no chance.' He thought, 'let me put myself in the position of this chap that I am going to see. Let me think about some of the questions, some of the things that might be on the prospective client's mind'. He wrote out a list of fifty questions, and then narrowed those down to about ten. When he met with the client, he said 'in preparing for today's meeting, I put myself in your position and thought there may be some things you'd want to know about me, my company, what's in it for you, what's in it for me and as such I've prepared a list of ten questions. Well the chap from the Tobacco Company replied, 'well, I've got ten questions myself'. They swapped lists, six of the questions were the same and he secured the account.

For years and years now, I've been using exactly the same method, using the ‘Ben Duffy’. I would go and meet with a client for the first time, we'd go through past, present, future to establish rapport and then use the 'Ben Duffy'. I'd say to the client, 'you know Joe, in preparing for today's meeting, I put myself in your position and thought there may be some questions on your mind, things like ‘Who is Frank Furness, who is XYZ Financial Services, how long have they been around, what's in it for me, what's in it for you? Are these some of the questions on your mind?' You then nod your head and he'll nod back again (I love the doggy nod) because these are some of the questions that are on their mind. An important thing is to learn this script verbatim. It's got to form a natural part of your conversation. This is the script: 'In preparing for today's meeting, I put myself in your position and I thought you might want to know, who is (your name), who is XYZ Financial Services, what's in it for me, what's in it for you? Are those some of the questions on your mind?' Write that down and learn it verbatim.

They normally reply ’yes sure, these are some of the things on my mind'. Now and now is the only time you will speak about yourself. And this is a brag session, this is where you're selling yourself, you're selling your credibility. So if you've got a degree, if you've been in the business for ten years, whatever you have done well, this is where you sell yourself.

I would say, 'I'm Frank Furness, I've been in the business for twenty years now, I'm a Certified Financial Planner'... or you may say, 'hi I'm Henry Smith, I've been in the business for some time now, I'm working for one of the best companies, I've been through incredible training courses. Prior to this I was a banker and I have my B.Comm degree... '

This and this is the only time that you sell yourself and the best time to sell yourself well is now.

Most companies give people a script that's pages and pages long. I don't know how they expect people to actually learn their scripts verbatim. So sell yourself first: then you would go into the company's script. This is where you sell your Company, how long they have been around, various offices etc. Now, depending on your company script, you would carry on with the Ben Duffy. Your prospect wants to know that he's dealing with a good company that has been well established, that has been around for a long time. I'd then say to him, 'if you're also wondering what's in it for you, what's in it for me; well what's in it for you is simply that I just want to take a snapshot of where you are now, and where you want to be in the future and really just help you get there. What's in it for me; if you like the way I conduct business, I'd like you to place the business with me and for that I get paid a fee. I also want to establish a long-term business relationship. Our income is derived from brokerage fees paid to us by the financial institutions. All that I would ask of you is, should you be satisfied with our recommendations, that you place the business with us. Secondly, whether or not we do business together, should you find us to be professional and ethical; we would like you to refer us to other professionals such as yourself.'

I used all of the methods explained above and these are also detailed in my comprehensive 15 CD/DVD resource Sales Strategies for Financial Advisors (http://www.frankfurnessresources.com/financialadvisor)

For more articles, please take a look at my website http://www.frankfurness.com and please download complimentary eBooks and software at http://www.frankfurnessresources.com





Frank Furness CSP CFP TOT is a professional speaker and trainer specialising in financial services sales and sales management. He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 48 countries. His publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales Tips & Ideas’ newsletter, email frank@frankfurness.com and for resources take a look at http://www.frankfurness.com and http://www.frankfurnessresources.com
NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to frank@frankfurness.com Take a look at other articles, free software and e-Books at http://www.frankfurness.com/
Download 39 Power Sales Closing Scripts at http://www.frankfurness.com/closingscripts.cfm