A big part of being a successful salesperson is making sure you are prepared in three different areas: Mentally, Emotionally & Physically.
Each of these areas is dependent on the other and interact with one another.
Mental preparedness is the knowledge side of the business. There are four areas where you need to prepare yourself from a knowledge perspective. Those are sales techniques, product knowledge, operational knowledge and customer service. The professional salesperson will constantly strive to increase their knowledge in these four areas in order to best serve their customers. Sales is always changing and the second we stop preparing, we start falling behind.
Emotional preparedness involves getting yourself geared up for and enthused about your next presentation. As salespeople we have all made the same presentation over and over again, but the next customer is about to hear it for the first time, and they deserve to get your absolute best. It’s extremely easy to fall into a rut and before you know it, you are giving a very bland presentation. We are trying to get the customer to say, “I’ll take it” and a bland presentation is not likely to do that. It’s up to each salesperson to find what motivates them for each and every presentation and remember what motivates you today may not motivate you tomorrow. We must continue to evolve to stay emotionally prepared.
Physical preparedness is exactly what it sounds like and there are two aspects to making sure you are physically prepared. The first is your physical self, make sure you are getting enough rest. In addition, exercise and eating right are also a terrific way to stay physically prepared. In general, make sure you treat your body right and you are ready to face every customer. The second part of this is making sure your physical plant is prepared. This involves the tools of the trade and making sure you know where everything is that you might need for any given presentation. The worst thing that can happen to a salesperson is that you have done all the heavy lifting and lose the sale because you can’t find a pen to sign the contract.
Everyone else sees the salesperson working on the floor but the successful salesperson has already spent hours making sure they are prepared for each and every customer. Be part of the solution by putting things back where they belong.
