Signature March/April 2015 - 12

shortruns

AD SALES PROFESSIONALS
GOING OLD SCHOOL
Five tried-and-true
sales strategies for the
21st century.
BY TIM BROWN AND DAN STREETER

Make no mistake: The world of advertising sales is changing. While technology
seems to be driving everything, it's the
old school, tried-and-true, consultative
techniques that separate the good from
the great advertising sales professional.
When we discuss old-school techniques, we reminisce on old-school heroes
such as Zig Ziglar, Harvey McKay, and
Dale Carnegie who taught the world a
few fundamental rules of sales, which
can be encapsulated primarily by this one
statement: People buy from people they
like and trust.
As painstakingly obvious as that cardinal rule of sales is, there's a diamondhard kernel of truth inside it that many
advertising salespeople overlook: The
ability to cultivate and sustain trust with
people is the X-factor that the best sales
professionals rely upon to consistently
excel at what they do. Trust is a sales
professional's most valuable currency.
Here are five old-school techniques to
master, which will help you to build trust
with your association's clients:
Remember, you are always
selling. Whether you are in front
of a huge client, at the grocery store,
or posting your favorite beach photo
on Facebook, you are always selling. Be
aware of the image you are portraying and
have alignment with your professional
and personal image.
Maintaining a personal brand of trust
is a 24/7/365 proposition. People will
keep a mental file on you. Every action,
word, and interaction with people goes
into the lasting impression you make on
them, whether or not it happened during
the workday. Directly or indirectly, you

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are always building or losing trust. Make
trust-building a part of your persona,
make it genuine, and keep your brand
switch on.
Develop your personal brand.
Speaking of keeping your brand
switch on, take the time to build a personal branding statement. Write down a
description of your unique talents, skills,
and practices, and why people with whom
you do business value them. Then revisit
this statement and ask:
a) Am I living up to my personal brand?
b) Do I need to revise it and why?
c) How could I strengthen my brand?
As you focus on developing and living
up to this personal brand statement, you
will find that your actions automatically
become aligned to the statement. You will
actively seek out opportunities to become
an expert in your field and demonstrate
that expertise on a regular basis, you will
be sought out for your counsel, and ultimately, your customers will see you as
their ally in their purchasing decisions.

Always be serving. An alwaysserving mindset means you are
serving the people you work with, whether
they are your peers, you report to them,
or vice versa. These are the people you
need by your side to succeed; they are the
ones in the foxhole with you. By serving
them and by treating them with respect
and humility, you'll engender a culture of
serving in the workplace. While you are

out serving your customers, it certainly
helps to have people back in the association's home office serving you.
Be a challenger. In a study published in the Harvard Business
Review, five distinct seller profile styles
of salespeople were rated by performance.
Coming out on top was the king of the
sales jungle: The Challenger Sales Type.
Challengers take control of the conversation through the use of questioning to develop a deep understanding of
their customers' businesses. Then, they
positively assert their viewpoints, which
help to push the customer's and their
own personal thinking to develop creative solutions. Ultimately, customers do
not simply want yes-people. They want
to know that you truly understand the
problem and that you are promoting the
best solution possible.

Eliminate the "F" word. Show me
a person focused on problems, and
I'll show you a person with a lot of problems. The same goes with the "F" word:
failure. Pessimists tend to let failure get
wrapped around the axle of their success.
Instead, your mindset should be that
there is no failure; there are only opportunities to learn and move forward. Zig
Ziglar never promised us it would be easy.
Just listen to his journey as a door-to-door
salesman, and you will see that sales are
hard. It's filled with rejection. Judging
yourself based on that rejection serves no
one, so silence the critic inside yourself.
So, replace the "F" word with the word
"E" word: Experience. Treat those experiences as gifts. Through focusing on experiences rather than looking at failures,
we build a sense of self-control, and we
develop an indomitable spirit.

By using these five strategies, you will
be able to move the sales needle. It's time
to make the old-school heroes proud. n
Tim Brown and Dan Streeter are co-authors of
Old School with New Tools: The Extra 5%
That Takes You to the Top of Your Sales
Game and Keeps You There.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Signature March/April 2015