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High Performance Selling

Written by: Jim Meisenheimer

Article Overview: There are four things you can do to achieve a measure of high-performance in your sales career.

High Performance Selling

High performance selling is available to anyone who desires it. Knowledge is power. Knowledge creates a competitive edge and powers salespeople to success.

There are four things you can do to achieve a measure of high-performance in your sales career.

1. Define your talent. What are you especially good at? What do you enjoy doing most in your work? What gives you the most satisfaction in doing what you're doing?

Everybody has talent. Nobody has zero talent. Identify your talents and use them on a daily basis. Do you like people, are you good with numbers, do you enjoy building relationships, do you thrive on closing big deals, are you good on the telephone?

What are you doing, if anything, to strengthen your talents?

2. Discover your hidden talents. Have you tried doing something for the first time and found you liked doing it and you were also good at it?

Do you take risks often? Do you experiment and try new things on for size? Push and stretch yourself to new limits. Keep raising the bar.

Another sales resource for you to consider is the talent that surrounds you in your daily work - most notably the people you work with. Having a do-it-yourself attitude that embodies Lone Ranger selling tactics is a no-win situation for anyone in a sales career today.

What works best is the art of delegation. Here is a big sales tip for you. Don't do anything you can get somebody else to do for you. Just because you can do a task better and faster than someone else is no reason for you to do it.

Delegation accomplishes two things. First and foremost it take something off your plate. Second and equally important it tells another person you trust them to do this task for you. This is how people grow.

This is how you grow too!

3. Develop your talents. Someone has to pay attention to your self development. It may not be a priority for the company you work for, but that's no reason for you to take a pass. The Japanese have a wonderful word, Kaizen, which means the process of continuous improvement. There are so many ways to develop your talents including advanced degrees, college courses, books, e-books, CDs, and articles.

Google and Amazon are excellent resources too. Simply type a keyword phrase into their search engines and you'll identify thousands of resources you can use to develop your talents.

4. Deploying your talents. It's not enough to have talent. You must use it. For example if you have good people skills use them to expand your network and to turn every sale into a steady stream of referrals.

If creativity is one of your talents be sure to tap into it as you're preparing a sales proposal for a big sales prospect. Use your imagination and creativity to impress your prospects and customers with your originality. Keep asking the question how can I make it better for my prospects and customers.

Your talents are a gift and should be used wisely.

Focus on your strengths and make them stronger.

You possess all the talent required to achieve a level of selling success that you never experienced before.

What are you waiting for?

William Johnson said it best, "If it is to be, it is up to me!"

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Article Tags: attitude, big deals, building relationships, competitive edge, daily basis, delegation, hidden talents, high performance selling, kaizen, knowledge is power, lone ranger, power knowledge, priority, proce, raising the bar, sales career, sales tip, salespeople, self development, wonderful word



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