Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: New Sales Ideas

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For the written transcript, keep reading...Below I've provided a few brand new sales ideas/tips for your sales department. I can guarantee each will help you improve your sales. Yes--I guarantee it. First, use the phone. Remember that gadget, the phone? I’ve noticed in the past few years that, in many companies, the sales department is often the quietest area of the building. You don’t hear the sound of people talking; convincing people to buy their products, up-selling, negotiating, and making offers that can’t be refused. All that has been replaced by the clicking sound of computer keys. The inside sales department has turned into a quoting and e-mailing department. Nobody talks to anybody anymore…not a good thing for sales and, frankly, not a good thing for companies selling, as well as buying, something.Look, all business is personal, no matter what Don Corleone says. All business is personal and the more personal the better. If you are in the business of sales, your job is to get as close to your customers as you can. You want to understand their needs and how you can meet them. If your entire interaction is performed electronically, without face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversations, you will never cross that personal line.Begin calling your customers, even if you have to leave voicemails; they will at least hear your voice and, after a while, they will talk to you and you will develop a professional rapport, Do you know what happens then? A relationship will develop. When you have a true relationship with a customer it’s much harder for them to say “no” to you. Now they have to tell you “no” rather than e-mail it to you and after a while that “no” will become a "yes."This is especially important in this day and age, because inside salespeople are the ones who are dealing with the customer when that customer is in the act of buying, in the act of ordering boards from your company. The outside person does all of the set-up, but it is the inside salesperson who is there on the front lines with the customer when the order is about to be placed.Secondly--and this one isn’t going to be a secret much longer because it has been mentioned in the last three sales books I’ve read in the past month--instead of e-mailing something to your customer, instead of sending your customers some sort of offer via your e-newsletter or just plain e-mail, send them a real letter, or a real package, or a real copy of your brochure with an offer in that real mailer. Here's the really important part: Hand-address the outside of the envelope. Yes you heard me right. Don’t type it, don’t use a computer label that screams mass mailing; hand-write the address and your return address. There's not one person on earth right now who can resist opening anything that is addressed by hand. Give it a try. It will work. I guarantee it.Third, and no matter how simple the other two were this one is the simplest of them all, have a great attitude. Look at the bright side of things. Be an optimist and bring that optimism with you wherever you go. People are going to love you for it, especially in these times of doom and gloom, and it costs nothing to have a good attitude, Oh, I don’t mean be an idiotic Pollyanna with rose-colored glasses. Just be positive, look at things the way they really are and you will not only make your customers happy to see you, but you will make them want to buy from you as well. So many salespeople right now are burying themselves in misery that it has become the standard, the norm. So many salespeople are not doing a good enough job to win business; for whatever reason: Everything from poor performances by their company, lousy products, or just plain ineffective sales method and tactics. But instead of trying to figure out what they are doing wrong and then fixing it, they are looking for some doom and gloom in the world to use as an excuse. How do we hear things like, “I can’t get any business because people are waiting to see what happens in the election,” or "I talked to all of the other sales guys I meet and they say it’s just slow out there.” I love that one, don’t you? It’s slow out there so let’s all together and have a big pity party. No matter what the excuse, and these are only excuses, I can assure you that there are some good salespeople out there completely ignoring all of these “issues” and booking business like crazy. Booking business regardless of the election, or China, or school vacations, or holidays. They are booking business, taking advantage of conditions as they are, rather than how they would like them to be.Get with it and come to work every day with a positive attitude. Your customers will appreciate it, your boss will appreciate it, and, in the long run, you will come to appreciate it.It’s only common sense.