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The Ups And Downs Of Selling

Written by: Jim Meisenheimer

Article Overview: The ups and downs of selling make these challenging times for professional salespeople. Selling is never easy and now it's downright difficult.

The Ups And Downs Of Selling

The ups and downs of selling are a little like the ups and downs on Wall Street.

The headline in last Friday's Wall Street Journal said "Market's 7-Day Rout Leaves U.S. Reeling."

What a difference a weekend can make. Today's Wall Street Journal front-page article said "Dow Takes Giant Leap As Bailouts Snap Gloom." As a matter of fact the Dow did take a giant leap going up a record-breaking 936 points in one day.

Here's the way I see it. What goes up usually goes down. What goes down usually goes up. And that's because history does tend to repeat itself. The same holds true for the ups and downs of selling.

These are not the easiest days for people in the selling profession. Doom and gloom! It's one huge pity party. Everyone's drinking from the same cup. Well, it doesn't have to be that way. You have a choice - you really do. You don't have to buy into the ups and downs of selling - you can choose to stay focused exclusively on the upside of selling.

I live in Lakewood Ranch Florida. And just a few short years ago the Sarasota/Bradenton area boasted one of the hottest real estate markets in the United States. Everybody's aunt Harriet became a real estate sales agent. My own home, in three short years appreciated by a factor of 2.5. Everybody was buying houses hoping to flip them for a quick and easy profit.

It was like going fishing and watching the fish jump onto your boat - it was that easy. There was a buying and selling frenzy and needless to say it didn't require much in the way of selling skills if you were a real estate salesperson.

A realtor friend of mine told me 75% of the real estate salespeople hung up their spurs and left the business. Why I wondered - could that be? Well what was easy became more difficult - maybe even impossible.

What once required zero selling skills now required a Masters in the art of selling. In this case, the ups and downs of selling clearly separated the winners from the whiners.

Yesterday I was reading a chapter from one of my favorite books, "Light From Many Lamps" by Lillian Eichler Watson. In one chapter she talked about A.J. Cronin's attempt at writing his first novel.

He came to the point of almost giving up. In fact, he threw his work in progress into a trashcan.

The book he finally completed was Hatter's Castle. "The novel he'd almost given up on was chosen by the Book Society, dramatized and serialized, translated into 19 languages, bought by Hollywood and has sold over 3 million copies."

Here's an excerpt. "What is the use . . . to work . . . to save . . . to go on living . . . with Armageddon around the corner? I am glad to recollect. In this present chaos, with no shining vision to sustain us, the door wide open to darkness and despair is.

The way to close that door is to stick to the job that we are doing, not how insignificant that job may be, to go on doing it and finish it."

These are challenging times for professional salespeople. These times are equally challenging for your sales prospects and customers and probably just as challenging for your competitors. You see, everyone is susceptible to the ups and downs of selling.

Don't give up - get going and start doing more! The ups and downs of selling don't have to be obstacles - treat them like golden opportunities.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Miles Bruce - president of Panic Plastics. He sent me a quote from Mark Cuban, a billionaire entrepreneur, who also happens to be president of the Dallas Mavericks. Here's what the quote said:

"The 2nd rule for getting rich is getting smart. Investing your time in yourself and becoming knowledgeable about the business of something you really love to do.

It doesn't matter what it is. Whatever your hobbies, interests, passions are. Find the one you love the best and GET A JOB in the business that supports it.

It could be as a clerk, a salesperson, whatever you can find. You have to start learning the business somewhere. Instead of paying to go to school somewhere, you are getting paid to learn. It may not be the perfect job, but there is no perfect path to getting rich.

Before or after work and on weekends, every single day, read everything there is to read about the business. Go to trade shows, read the trade magazines, spend a lot of time talking to the people you do business with about their business and the people they buy from."

If you're serious about selling get serious about learning more. Get serious about learning as much as you can about your customers and their customers. Become the burning torch that spreads light and enthusiasm everywhere you go.

In any crowd of doomers and gloomers you'll surely stand-out.

Turn the ups and downs of selling into a personal challenge.

You can get up 15 minutes earlier . . .

You can do two extra follow-ups . . .

You can make one extra sales call . . .

You can ask more thought-provoking questions . . .

You can do more, learn more, and become more valuable to your sales prospects and customers.

And remember Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's words, "The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide."

Never let the ups and downs of selling get you down.

Let's go sell something!

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Article Tags: aunt harriet, bradenton area, buying houses, doom and gloom, few short years, fish jump, giant leap, lakewood ranch, last friday, matter of fact, page article, pity party, real estate sales, real estate salesperson, rout, salespeople, sarasota bradenton, ups, ups and downs, wall street journal



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Re: Kevin's Case Study #10 - When to become an entrepreneur? - When the bug bite you. A lot of successful entrepreneurs started in their teens or at school. Selling sweets to fellow students or lemonade to firends in the neighbourhood.
Re: This is Marketing Warfare! - Hey GT, I guess this was from a while back, and it'll test your memory a bit but could you possibly elaborate on Unique Selling Proposition? Can you give us some examples of good USPs?
Blog pinging - Thanks Martin - yes, I do ping and it has been very effective. I'm currently on the first page of Google for Mastermind Group and on the second page for Selling to Small Business.
Business magazines - Fast Company is pretty good if you're into technology although it can be very on the edge. Entrepreneur has become one giant advertisement and I cancelled my subscription. Selling Power also has some useful content if you're looking at improving your sales skills / presentations.
New Guy Here - Automobile Industry - Hi Everyone, My name is Ray and I work as a sales trainer in the automobile industry. I have just completed a new training curriculum for automobile salespeople in the industry. It is called The Baby Steps of Selling Automobiles. I am beginning my marketing efforts through press releases and seminar formats. I joined the community due to my continued desire to work independently creating my own happiness and growth. Thank you for having me and I look forward to more correspondence in the future.


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