Keys to Direct Sales Success

SHHHH.... DON'T TELL YOUR COMPETITION!

Everyone who has ever had direct sales success knows that you must be willing to develop new sales leads on an ongoing basis. Generating new leads is the only way to achieve direct sales success. The problem for most people in direct sales is that they struggle with the fear of being rejected by the people they approach.

This fear of rejection is most often masked in other excuses like, "I have not had time," or "I don't know anyone that would be interested." Truth be told, a majority of even highly successful direct sales professionals have wrestled with the fear of being rejected by a potential prospect. Here are four keys to direct sales success that are sure to help you in your marketing and financial goals with the product or service that you offer:

1. Recognize every individual you come into contact with as a potential client or customer, or someone who would know a potential client or customer, and determine that you will build a long term relationship with that individual. Relationships are the best defense against competition that you will ever have. People who are in relationship with you are always willing to do business with you over your competitor if they have a need for what you have to offer.
2. See prospecting as secondary to that of determining the needs of people in and around your life, and seeking to help them fulfill those needs, even if what they need is not what you have to offer. This builds enormous goodwill and solidifies your reputation as someone that is trustworthy and interested in more than just making a sale.
3. Develop a list of non-confrontational prospecting questions that do not have any outward motivation to get the person to make a buying decision.
4. Remember that sales of any kind is a numbers game. The more people you talk with the more people will take advantage of what you have to offer them. Determine the average profit to you per sale, then divide that number into the total amount of money that you wish to make in a year's time. This number will be the total number of sales that you will need to make. If you are able to close 1 in every 5 people, then you will need five times the number of total sales required to earn the income that you want to earn. How you apply the first three keys above to your day to day activities will determine how successful you will be in achieving your sales goals.

The Take-away?

Even if you own a brick and mortar business where customers are the core source of your company's revenues, you MUST be willing to speak to people about what you offer in a way that is non-threatening, and that makes them want to have what you have to offer. This is non-confrontational lead generation, and it will allow you to be highly successful in your marketing and sales strategy if you use it.