Learn to Sell

Rule # 9 from "The Entrepreneur"

March 2, 2005

A business that can not sell is a business that can not survive.  Every businessman, therefore, must learn to sell. 

According to "The Entrepreneur", a book authored by self-made millionaire William Heinecke, selling is more than just making people buy your pizzas, ice cream, or whatever products or services you offer. Selling is the ability to persuade people to see your point of view. It is also the art of persuading someone to give up one position in favor of yours. Heinecke's usual pitch to make people come around to his way of thinking goes, "Let's give it a try my way, and if it doesn't work I'll try it your way."

Success starts with selling an idea to other people - your associates, partners, financiers, or the public.  This is why Heinecke's book, which discusses 21 Golden Rules on Global Business Management, has this for its Rule # 9: Learn to Sell.  

The art of selling has been broken down by many analysts into the following steps: 1) develop prospects, or identify what the customer wants;

2) make the approach, or assess the situation from the customer's point of view;

3) present the message, while believing in what you are selling;

4) close the deal or get the sale, since anything else is just conversation; and

5) follow up, making sure that the customer is happy and will buy from you again. 

According to Heinecke, the art of selling shouldn't be made as complex as following the 5 steps prescribed above.  An expert seller himself, he finds the above prescription 'too complicated' for him.  Thus, he prefers to describe his 'selling formula' as having just two ingredients: 1) belief in the product and 2) enthusiasm. Combining these two ingredients results in optimism, says Heinecke.  And to sell, you have to be an optimist.  Indeed, recognizing big business opportunities and turning them into reality in places overlooked by others for one negative reason or another takes a great optimist and a great salesman rolled into one.

Of course, enthusiasm is not just the excitement you feel to do or achieve something - it also includes pure hard work and persistence to satisfy this excitement.  To support the importance of persistence in any endeavor, Heinecke even quoted US President Calvin Coolidge in his book, who [Coolidge] once said, "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not, unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

Everyone will have his or her own fair share of sales objections.  How one handles being turned down is what determines his or her final destiny. Successful salespeople are those who are persistent in their selling, regardless of early obstacles.  "The Entrepreneur" showed examples of how great businessmen experienced their initial failures:  

- Henry Ford's first business became bankrupt;

- Gillette only sold 51 razors and 168 blades in his first year;

- Macy's first three stores failed;

- Howard Hughes, Sr. abandoned his first oil well because he couldn't drill through hard rock, but started a fortune from a rock drill that he subsequently invented.

Of course, the only reason why they are now household names is because each of them persisted to become successful.

Belief in the product, the other ingredient in Heinecke's selling formula, is essential to genuinely demonstrate the level of your commitment to make the idea work.  It allows you to 'put your money' where your mouth is, so to speak. 

To illustrate this, Heinecke once succeeded in convincing some American investors to enter into a joint venture with him  to manufacture golf gloves in Thailand.  These investors were understandably apprehensive at first, since Thailand was an unknown quantity to them.

So Heinecke made them an offer they could never refuse:  Heinecke will buy the land, build the factory, arrange the permits, and just lease everything to the venture.  The Americans probably wouldn't have agreed to proceed with the project if Heinecke didn't show such commitment to make his idea work. The investors eventually bought everything from Heinecke at a much higher price than his initial investments.

We all will have to do a lot of selling to make our business grow.  We will not only sell our products and services to our customers. We will also sell our image to the public, our ideas to investors, and our companies to people we are trying to hire. In short,  without learning to sell, we have no business being in business.

See also:   Find a Vacuum and Fill It;   Do Your Homework;   Have Fun In Your Work;   

Work Hard, Play Hard;   Use Other People's Brains;   Set Goals;   Trust Your Intuition;   Reach for the Sky;

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