I mention in my book “The Five Simple but Essential Steps to Getting the Sale” that you will never get a second chance to make a good first impression.
This fact is even more evident when placing your client in a cold direct sales situation.
When you consider that the average person when placed in new or unfamiliar surroundings will take in up to 70% of his initial information visually, the remaining 30% being divided between the auditory and kinetic senses, and a first impression will be made in a matter of seconds, you’d better make sure that they like the look of you or your presentations going to be all uphill!
Let’s look at a simple example to demonstrate this fact.
Think back to the last time you were on holiday in a strange country. Remember the first night when you went down to the sea front looking for a nice bar to have a drink in. As you walk along the promenade you’re visually scanning all the bars until one catches your eye correct? When one does catch your eye you’ll cross the road and go in, once inside you visually scan the décor and decide in a split second whether or not you like the look of the other customers sitting at the bar and more importantly, the bar staff.
Now all that information you’ve just taken in visually. Assuming you like everything you see, your next sense the auditory sense kicks in and you start to analyze the sounds, i.e. do you like the music that’s playing?, does the conversation at the bar sound friendly?, have you been greeted with a big smile and a welcoming opening line from the bar staff?. This is when your kinetic sense kicks in and tells you if you feel comfortable or not. If you feel comfortable you order a drink and stay. If you don’t feel comfortable you turn around, walk out and start the process all over again at the next bar.
That is exactly the same process we use to gather our information when we meet someone for the first time and that is exactly the process your clients will use when they meet you for the first time.
If you don’t make a good visual impression and greet your clients in an open and friendly way their kinetic sense will tell them they don’t feel comfortable with you and if they don’t feel comfortable with you they certainly won’t trust you enough to buy your product at the end of your presentation no matter how good it is!
So how do you make a good first impression every time?
Here are five tips that might help you:
1. Make sure your sales material is clean, complete, and presentable and you have at least two pens on your person in case one runs out. That way you can concentrate on making a good impression without worrying about your sales material.
2. Go to the toilet. Nothing saps your concentration like a full bladder! Besides once you are with your clients you don’t want to leave them again till the deal is done.
3. While you’re in the toilet check yourself in the mirror and make sure you are clean and presentable. If you smoke, clean your teeth and wash your hands. Nothing is more off putting to a non-smoker or even worse an ex-smoker than shaking hands with someone who stinks of stale tobacco.
4. Now spend at least five minutes on your own away from any other reps filling your mind with positive thoughts. If you’re giving off loads of positive vibrations when you meet your clients they will also feel positive about you and are far more likely to feel comfortable during your sales presentation.
5. Lastly put yourself in their shoes. Try to imagine how you would feel meeting yourself for the first time? What impression would you make on yourself? Is there anything you would change? And remember; always treat your clients exactly the way you would like to be treated whether they buy from you or not. The person they talk to after their presentation with you today, might be your clients tomorrow!
Wishing you all a very prosperous 2009
See you all in the New Year
Five Tips For Making A Good First Impression!
How A Change In Your Thinking Can Double Your Income!
I cannot stress enough, the power of your mind and how it affects your sales presentations. You will have heard over and over again about the power of a positive mental attitude. P.M.A. But a negative mental attitude is just as powerful if not more powerful than a positive mental attitude.
Your mental attitude and how well you prepare yourself before your sales presentation is the foundation to getting the sale or not.
How many times have you been told that the top reps are regularly closing over 20% because of their attitude and enthusiasm? If you are already closing over 20% ask yourself are you satisfied with that. And if you are satisfied with that then why are you reading this?
Why aren’t you closing at 100%?
Because someone told you it can’t be done and you believed them? Someone told you that two out of ten is good enough and you accepted it!
I remember when I first started in direct sales, I was told we give you ten clients every week, as long as one buys you’ll make a decent living. If two or three buy you’ll be a super star! Can you imagine a Doctor straight out of university and the hospital tells him in his interview, “We give you ten patients to operate on every week, as long as you can keep two of them alive you’ll be one of our top surgeons!”
Maybe a bit extreme but you see where I’m coming from. I have never believed in the numbers game and I never accepted that eight out of ten people won’t buy.
I have worked with one lady for a long time now who wins all the sales competitions year after year. She’s in the lead again for this year and her year to date closing percentage fluctuates between 65-70% what makes her so good?
Her attitude!
An average sales rep believes their job is to present the product every day and hope that one or two clients will buy it by the end of the week. That’s called playing the numbers game. This lady believes her job is to get a sale every day, and every day she goes to work to do just that. You see nobody told her it was a numbers game!
So how do you stay positive all week?
A simple change in the way you think.
Here’s how to turn the numbers game into a money game. Stop concentrating on the two deals that earn you your commissions. If those two deals happen to be on the last two presentations you do this week, you’re going to get pretty low in your positive mental attitude by presentation number seven and eight and you’ve probably started analyzing your pitch, looking for where your going wrong and deciding what you can change tomorrow to get a deal. Sounds familiar doesn’t it.
Now let’s look at it from a different angle: let’s say each sale is worth $500 so two sales a week earns you $1,000. If you have to see ten clients to get two sales then each client is worth $100 whether they buy or not, right? So every day you go to work and do two presentations you earn $200 a day. Now that sounds much more fun doesn’t it?
Instead of going home at the end of the day feeling like you worked for nothing because you didn’t get a sale. You go to work thinking no matter what happens today, by the end of the day I’ll be $200 better off! Of course you still have to put 100% effort into every presentation you do, but it’s a lot easier to do when you know that you’re building up your commission statement even when they say no, Isn’t It.
Before you know it your new positive mental attitude means you're getting twice as many deals a week so now each presentation is worth $200 two presentations a day equals............................
