IT HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME

There is a fear that lies in the heads of many sales reps. This fear has such a grip on a rep that just the notion of it happening sends reps running for the door. This fear keeps reps from doing what they do best, sell. This fear gets between a rep and a customer and once it shows up no sales will be made to that customer on the sales call.

What is this devastating fear, THE FEAR OF SELLING TOO MUCH!  That’s right, reps are afraid that if they sell multiple products to the same customer during one sales call the customer will stop in the middle of the sale and say, “Forget it I don’t want anything”.

I need to know, has this really ever happened to anyone reading this? Don’t tell me about what you heard, or what someone told you once happened to a rep they knew, HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?

The reason I ask is because in all my years as a sales rep, and all my additional years as a sales trainer riding with reps making thousands of sales calls this has never happened to me.

Where does this fear come from? I have a theory. When a rep is selling and thinking about how much a customer is spending they try and relate it to how much they personally spend. What the reps sometimes think is the customer is spending more than I would spend so I better stop selling before they get scared and cancel everything.

The thing the rep that thinks this way is missing is, the customer isn’t spending their money, they are spending company money and the budgets are very different. What seems like a lot to us personally may only be a drop in the bucket to the customer based on their budget.

I have written orders for hundreds of thousands of dollars and my biggest sale ever was $1.1 million dollars. I will admit that this was more than I would ever spend (OK more than I make…in a year…GEZZZ OK a lot of years) but to the customer it was part of doing business.

When a customer is ready to say NO, believe me they will say NO! I haven’t met many customers that are shy about saying no have you? Sure, I will admit that I have seen customers that get wrapped up in the moment and order more than they need, but usually before the order is signed they will come back to reality and cut the order back to their normal amounts.

So, if you have had this happen, let me know. If not then sell and keep selling.

Lorin