How Quality Sells Products and Services

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” ~Henry Ford

In the market place, quality is one guaranteed selling point. If your product or service is high in quality, most cases, it sells real good and competes well. Once quality is guaranteed, customer loyalty is easier to build. Quality helps to build trust which is about all you need to keep your customers coming back. Integrity too helps to sustain quality. When you have integrity, people tend to trust you more and hence more comfortable doing business with you over a prolonged period of time. Dispensing guaranteed quality over time helps to build integrity. Quality really sells, believe me!

Take my advice here. No matter what you do in the course of your business, never you compromise on quality. If you do, you may never get very far. For instance, anytime word gets around that the best peanut butter in town is made by you, people get curious and they want to find out. If they find out, they too get out the word further and more people want to find out. If you continue to dispense real quality, your business grows exponentially. Who wouldn’t want that?

Get busy right now because…. “No pains, no gains. To get the prize, you must pay the price.”

How Results Define Business Success

“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.” ~ Confucius
Success in business is not about pace. It is about results. Favorable results that is, no matter how long it takes to get them provided you get them. Every perfect job, every perfect business requires time to accomplish. If you are determined to achieve maximum success in what you are doing right now, you must respect the natural principle that progress is made one step at a time. Even if you are building a skyscraper, you need to add a brick at a time until the magnificent super structure is ready.  Every big accomplishment is a series of little accomplishments added one at a time until the job gets done. Even in some sports like football, games are won a play at a time over some time. Time is also of essence if you want to build a department store. You will discover that you can only grow it and make it bigger one customer at a time. This is the natural order. Recognizing this natural order and deploying the knowledge to your business helps your way to success.

If you run a business, first you have yourself to compete with before anybody else if ever. You are you and nobody else. You are not competing in a sprint event with anyone. Take your time and pace to get things done your own way provided you get good results at the end. So, it does not really matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop, you will get there. Slow and steady progress somehow manages to guarantee more and better success than rushing through things and crashing out soon enough.

Get busy right now because…. “No pains, no gains. To get the prize, you must pay the price.”

You Need Good Communication Skills to Sell

“Everybody lives by selling something.” --- Robert Louis Stevenson

Anyone who can’t express themselves can not by any stretch of imagination be good Salespersons. Salespersons are generally good talkers. I recently read an advert where the advertiser, was looking for someone “who can sell refrigerators to Eskimos.” This advertiser was obviously looking for good persuaders as Salespersons. You must be a good and effective communicator before you can succeed in persuading anyone. Both written and verbal communication is very important. I have heard it said that “it is not what you say that matters but what they hear.” Communication is not about talking to yourself but talking to someone else. You must be able to size-up your customer accurately to know how you can deliver your message. If you go around speaking “Queen’s English” to someone who has never been to school, you will sooner than later find out that you are wasting your time and the person’s time, particularly the person’s time. If you can’t get the message across effectively, you are not communicating. I once had a hobby that kept me amused no end. I used to collect pieces of communications I came across that appeared to convey meanings different from what the communicators meant. I will share just a few of them here with you.

“Don’t let overwork kill your wife. Let electricity do it.”___ Advert for a new electrical gadget.

“All flights have been cancelled for managerial reasons.”___ Sign at airline booking desk.

“The Doctor arrived too late to save my husband. He recovered by himself.”__Elated house-wife to a neighbor.

 “Pregnant women are allowed here without their babies.”___ Sign at the door of an Irish pub.

“We are the ones who dig the shit. They just sit there and eat it.”___ Complain from a frustrated laborer.

“Women are not allowed to entertain men in the rooms. They can do it in the restaurant.”___ Sign in a hotel lobby.

The person whose message conveys what he or she intends to say is the person who is communicating. These messages do not meet this test. It is your duty to learn and use effective communication if you want to be a good Salesperson.

 

How to Be a Fantastic Salesperson

“Everybody lives by selling something.” --- Robert Louis Stevenson

To be a fantastic salesperson, here is what you need in abundance:

Good-Health and Energy: You need good-health at all times to be able to sell. When you are unhealthy, your thinking is distorted, your spirit is low, your drive is reduced, your enthusiasm is deflated and your general effectiveness will be seriously impaired. Not many people will want to do business with a sick man.

A Friendly Disposition: According to ancient Chinese, “A man without a smile should not open a shop.” A friendly Salesperson is usually very effective. You must learn to smile and to put customers at ease. A keen sense of humor is an icing on the cake. Facial expression, the correct body language, voice-tone and voice-moderation all enhance your friendly disposition.

Persuasiveness: A good Salesperson must be familiar with the motives that move people to buy. That is, what motivates them to buy? Different people have different motivations for making purchases. Every buyer has a motive for buying. The product may appeal to the person’s reason, their instinct or their emotion. These are the main motivating factors for buying. Armed with this, a Salesperson should be able to persuade a prospective buyer while using these sentiments. People may refuse to buy initially because of lack of money, lack of time, lack of sufficient information, the need not pressing enough and any such other reason. A good Salesperson works to find a way around these obstacles to make a sale. You should never allow a “No” answer to dissuade you from making a sale. You should always find a way to turn the “No” to a “Yes” through skillful persuasion. It is imperative that you display enormous tolerance, accurate thinking, initiative and self-control. You should never pick offense if and when you are turned down. You should always try to act the impression that a turn-down is temporary and that the matter could be revisited when the obstacles have been cleared. Form the habit of making repeated calls on a Customer even if your calls are not yielding immediate fruits.

Are You a Good Salesperson?

“Everybody lives by selling something.” --- Robert Louis Stevenson

“No matter who you are or how much you know, you will not succeed unless you are a salesman. You must sell your services. You must sell your knowledge. You must sell yourself. You must sell your personality.”—Napoleon Hill

Preparing to meet and deal with a Customer is like preparing to meet and deal with a potential employer. Everyone agrees that this is the time you need to look and act your best. This is the stage to put your best foot forward. The Customer is the reason why you are in business. Without him, you are out in the cold broke and courting bankruptcy. You therefore can’t be too careful at courting the Customer. Before you can sell anything to a Customer, you must be able to sell yourself first. You must therefore acquire and nurture some marketing skills and qualities.