Project 3: The Sales
Training Speech
How do you feel about car dealerships? Anyone had a bad
experience? Do they make you feel comfortable, happy? How about
motivated, good about yourself?
Personally, a bubble of anxiety rises in my stomach when I think
of poor CRV one day kicking the bucket and having to go to one of those pushy
salesman to buy a new car. I would rather drive in the worst car, or have
people give me rides before I do that.
Once my husband thought it would make a great date to go car
shopping. Right. Honestly men, way to think out of
the box. He had received a “Golden ticket” in the mail. Everyone’s
a winner, it said on the letter. My husband’s so gullible. Anyway,
going to a dealership was not my idea of a picnic basket dinner and romantic
candlelight, but, I know there is give and take in all relationships, so the
next week I made sure I tortured him with lots of shopping for the date I had
prepared. See give and take.
Right away, a car salesman walked up to us in a bright purple
shirt, barbells coming out of his ears, and rings in all shapes and sizes
covering his face. Great, I thought. This is going to be
good. We walked in and immediately he started asking about us.
Where did we live? What did we do for work? Who are parents are and
how he knows them distantly, blah, blah, blah. The whole time I was
thinking, I know what you’re doing. You are trying to connect with me, to
make the sale. I know this and yet at the end of sitting in the office
talking with him, I felt comfortable and flattered. Completely.
Then he started asking about what we wanted in a car. A lot of factors play a role in the average person or
family purchasing a new car. Credit and affordability is the main concern for
many people with buying a new car. Some people wait until their old car is on
its last leg before buying a replacement due to the financial burden it can
cause. He was very agreeable, and I thought for sure after riding in
three different cars with him, my husband was going to buy one, which was not
the point of our date. We wanted to be the Golden Ticket winners,
remember. Well, story short, we did not buy a car, and we did win
something, a two dollar bill, but the techniques he used were fascinating and
if I would have let it, it would have worked on my husband.
However,
the typical consumer often buys a new car every 5 to 10 years depending on the
condition of their old car. Americans purchase around 9 cars in their
lifetime. That’s nine times of going to a dealership…plus all the other
times it takes to find the right car at the right dealership.
There can be alot of negative connotation when it comes to
buying and selling, especially when I’m buying a car. So, what separates the sellers that sell, and
the sellers that fail? Well there are a lot of tricks in the trade by
reading books like Selling for Dummies is going to overwhelm us. And we
all have our favorites. We also know we go through times of dryness where
we don’t sell much for periods of time and we’re feeling down about our selling
capabilities. Here are 3 tips to focus on for the next time you hit your
dry spell and need a little reminder of what you want to accomplish.
1.
Believe
in the product you’re selling
2.
Don’t
let the world of other products overwhelm you
3.
Keep
with the times
1. First of
all salesmen, the most important part of selling to your customers is to
believe in the product you are selling.
When I got home from my mission in Las Vegas, I
took a job selling bras at Victoria Secret. I went from helping to save
souls, to helping people’s cleavage and love life take a leap.
Literally. I stunk at it. I hid in the backroom organizing anything
I could so I did not have to be on the sales floor. I hated selling
credit to people, knowing that their whole purpose in giving these out to others
was to make their lives miserable with all of the interest they would rack up
by not paying their bill on time.
I eventually started to enjoy working with the
girls, but at first their worldliness, low cut blouses and short skirts, snappy
personalities whose motto was sell, sell, sell made it hard for me to like
them.
But liking the girls I worked with didn’t like
my measuring chest sizes, going into dressing rooms and being flashed with,
“Does this make me look fat?” So I was a processor instead. I put
censors on all of the clothing, stocked shelves, and pretty much was the honcho
of the backroom.
It made a world of difference to go from a
mission to a job. I dreaded going to work, I hated that they worked me on
Sundays, and I felt uninspired about what I was actually doing. I was
pushing others’ business along.
One of my favorite short clips movies is called
The Greatest Salesman in the World. It’s a boy who goes out to see his
product, and he fails multiple times throughout the clip, but I love one quote
that he says.
You might have heard the
expression: teachers do not go into teaching for the money. And it’s so
true. The career I have now is exactly what I want to do, and even though
I have my days, I have ultimate goals, days that inspire me, and progress to be
seen. No amount of wealth can make up for those factors.
If you are in this selling
business just for the money, you might as well pack it up, because your buyers
will see and feel that. Just like my students don’t want to feel like a
dollar sign, I must show my students I care, and teach them, and inspire them
with learning. You need your buyers to feel like you are concerned with
their well-being and that you honestly think the product you are selling them will
help their life.
If you have negative feelings towards
your product and hate what you are selling for obvious reasons, maybe it is
time to evaluate what you are doing, and switch products.
2. Don’t
let the world of other products overwhelm you.
I
want to be an author one day, and as I sit in my room and write, I struggle
with the thought that there are about 129 million books in the world published,
and many more million forming, in the writing process, and are in publishers
and editors fingertips.
Most
writers will not make it because admiration of an author is not enough, and
that is how most writers start. If we cannot produce the same product, we
are not writers. But let’s say a writer does make it to the publishing
process. Major publishers get about 5,000 manuscripts a year and choose
typically five. That’s a one in a thousand chance of being
accepted for publication.
Publishers who accept unsolicited submissions will reject 90%
of them before finishing the first page. 99% are rejected by the end of the
first chapter.
You may be an author yourself, and when you look at these
daunting statistics, it seems scary, and not worth the risk. But those
that really love what they do, and believe in what they do, many succeed, in
some shape or form.
Another quote from deathman of a
salesman that I love is- “I will become
a firefly and even in the day my glow will be seen in spite of the sun. Let
others be as butterflies who preen their wings yet depend on the charity of a
flower for life.”
Most will not succeed in what they
are trying to sell. Either their product will be made cheaper, their item will
become obsolete with the changing times, or the seller will not be motivated
enough to get their product out there. I
think this wuote is saying that those that will succeed are the ones that will
still shine through no matter the glare of problems and obstacles in front of
them. Luckily,
I love the art of writing, and so, watch out for my books in store.
3. Keep with the times.
I loved this movie quote from He’s not that into You,
where Drew Barrymore is lamenting the frustration of competing with the many
modes of technology just to get in contact with a boy she likes on MySpace.
"I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, and
so I called him at home, and he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to
his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different
portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting."
What
happened to good olf fashioned letters in the mail, call on the phone, or hey,
what do you know, a personal visit face to face. And that movie was made in 2009, which only
makes it five years old. Since then Myspace is obsolete, who knows what a
blackberry is anymore with all of the Apple products bouncing around, and
Facebook is the new portal into someone’s bedroom.
In
an ever changing world, the seller has had to adjust to the many different ways
of communication. No longer does an entire city or town go to one store
to buy their groceries. Likewise, a consumer does not go to one avenue to
find what they want and need. Sellers need to be open to the many
changing technological advances that are being changed even today. People
have ambitions, and they want their products seen by the masses. From
door to door selling, ads in the newspaper, ads on the radio, and posters
claiming to have the best product, sellers are now competing with companies
offering the same product in far across countries that are sold cheaper and
sometimes, in the same quality.
Well,
that’s depressing isn’t it? Why don’t we just give up now, and let those
big and mighty businesses take us down.
Because,
we have something to say. We have something to give, and falling down and
rising up is a natural body movement. We must adjust to the ever
changing ways of society and become a part of the next wave of action.
But we can only do that if we stick our head in the water, and see what’s
really going on. We have to advance our computer skills, keep up to date
with the newest phones, ways of promoting, and heaven forbid, create a new and
advancing way of promoting a product that cause tsunamis in business
everywhere.
Closing
Sellers of America, there is a fear associated with buying from
sellers. As a fellow seller, we have to remember we are consumers
also. As a consumer, we don’t want to be just another number, or check in
their pocket.
Remember these three tips to focus on for the next time you hit
your dry spell and need a little reminder of what you want to accomplish.
1.
Believe
in the product you’re selling
2.
Don’t
let the world of other products overwhelm you
3.
Keep
with the times
To
make an impact in this new selling world, you have to have more heart and soul
into what you want to communicate, more training, and more education.
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