Don't Stand There Like A Tree, Sell Something

By Erkan Demir

This book will teach you how to be a chameleon in retail sales. In order to be a succesful salesperson, you must be like a chameleon: blend and fit in with all types of people, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, young,old, rich, poor and you must adjust to being in almost any social situation.You must change your sales pitches, your attitutes, your sales tricks to fit in any customer to close your sales succesfully.

Some of other important things you will learn:

- Why it is important to use the sense of touch in your sales and you will learn how a Gypsy flower saleslady who uses this sense to sell her flowers.

- Why it is important to use humour in your sales.

- How to sell yourself first before selling your products.

- Why it is very important to build a personalized rapport with your customers and what we can learn from a schizophrenic person like Ali to build a personalized relationship with your customers as he does.
- Why having role play in sales training is very important and why most of the sales trainings are a waste of money and time and what you can do if you are not trained well.

- Why it is wrong to job shadowing only one salesperson during sales trainings and why it is important to job shadowing different salespeople during the training.

- Why personal development is very important to be a successful seller
- Why there is no tomorrow in sales and you will learn why it is important to close your sale now, not tomorrow.
- How to persuade your customers with solid examples adapted into specifically appliance, furniture and electronics sales according to Robert Cialdini's the 6 Principle of Persuasion.
- Why sales is not complex process like rocket science, and you will learn that it is easy and simple process.

Your job to take their money today not tomorrow. There are NO tomorrows in sales! ALWAYS CLOSE TODAY!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erkan Demir
• Release date: Mar 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463019580

Erkan Demir

I live in Canada and in Turkey part time.

Book preview

Intro

When I used to sell furniture, appliances and electronics, I used to have difficultİes finding a sales book in these areas. I decided to write this book on retail sales after seeing that their trainings lacked some important subjects.

In this book, you will learn how it is important to use the sense of touch in your sales and you will learn how a Gypsy flower salesperson uses this sense to sell her flowers.

In this book, you will learn what we can learn from chameleons in our sales and how it is important to be like chameleon to change your sales pitch and sales approach to each customer differently.

In this book, you will learn why it is important to use humour in your sales.

In this book, you will learn how to sell yourself first before selling your products.

In this book, you will learn why it is very important to build a personalized rapport with your customers and what we can learn from a schizophrenic person like Ali to build a personalized relationship with your customers as he does.

In this book, you will learn why having role play in sales training is very important and why most of the sales trainings are a waste of money and time and what you can do if you are not trained well.

In this book, you will also learn why it is wrong to job shadowing only one salesperson during sales trainings and why it is important to job shadowing different salespeople during the training.

In this book, you will learn why personal development is very important to be a successful seller.

In this book, you will learn that there is no tomorrow in sales and you will learn why it is important to close your sale now, not tomorrow.

In this book, you will learn how to persuade your customers with solid examples adapted into specifically  appliance, furniture and electronics sales according to Robert Cialdini's the 6 Principle of Persuasion.

In this you will learn that sales is not complex process like rocket science, and you will learn that it is easy and simple process.

About the book

While writing this book, I avoided using those fancy tables, graphics and pictures as they do in sales training manuals. I tried to be simple as much as I can. Since I come from sales background, I know what it takes to be a successful salesperson. Sales are learned from salespeople not from people who has never even sold a candy in their lives.

I named this book as ''Don't stand there like a tree, sell something!''. Because I used to meet many salespeople who were not enough resilient who did not have tenacity and who were finding excuses for their incompetence and who was hanging on their phones while customers were waiting to be served. Any customer comes into your start should be treated like a queen and a king.

I can tell you one thing for sure: Selling in retail is the easiest sales job because they come to you give their money. You don’t have to knock the doors or you don’t have to do cold calls to make them buy from you. When you make a pizza, you choose what toppings you want to have on your pizza. You can use my book as you choose toppings for your pizza:you get what you want from this book and apply them into your sales.

Always close your sales today. There is no tomorrow in sales. Take their money now, not tomorrow.Don’t let them go to competition.

Note: I may have some small grammatical errors in the book. As you guess, English is not my native language, I apologize for mistakes upfront but don’t judge the book with cover. You will learn lot of things at this book.

About me

I studied English Language and Literature in Cyprus and Economics at University of Prince Edward Island in Canada.

As I mentioned you in the intro, my life has passed with selling. I have travelled much and been to over 25 countries. Travelling to different countries has broadened my horizon and has helped me improved my human relations.

I sold water on the streets in Istanbul; I sold carpets; I sold detergents; I sold teas to cafes; I sold travel packages; I sold cars; I sold clothing; I sold door to door insurance; I sold furniture; I sold appliances; I sold TVs; computers; website design; I upsold banking products in call centres; I sold and I sold. I have always sold.I am currently  training salespeople in variety companies by focusing on customized job shadowing and role plays.

Since I worked at variety sales job, I have thought that writing a sales book about retail sales  would be a good idea to put my sales experiences on paper.

If you have any questions, training requests, suggestions and opinions, feel free to contact me at: [e-mail]

Copyright © 2019 by Erkan Demir

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at [e-mail]

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales:  Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact me the  at the email above.

Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact me at the email address above.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.THE SALES

2.HOW TO SELL YOURSELF

3.THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMOUR IN SALES

4.THE IMPORTANCE OF SENSE OF TOUCH  IN SALES

5.THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT( SELF-IMPROVEMENT)

6.HOW TO MAKE EFFECTIVE SALES PRESENTATIONS

7.THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING

8.BAD SALES TRAININGS

9.THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING FROM OTHERS

10.THE IMPORTANCE OF ROLE PLAYING IN SALES TRAININGS

11.THE TOPICS YOU SHOULD NEVER SHARE OR DISCUSS WITH YOUR CO-WORKERS

12.HOW DEAL WITH NEGATIVE AND TOXIC CO-WORKERS

13.HOW TO BE RESILIENT AND HOW TO FORGET REJECTIONS

14.SOME OF IMPORTANT PERSONAL TRAITS TO BE SUCCESSFUL

15. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OPTIMIST AND POSITIVE SALESPEOPLE

16.TOO MUCH CHOICE IS BAD FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS

17.HANDLING  PROMOTIONS

18.CUSTOMER RELATIONS

19.FINANCING

20.AVOIDING RETURNS

21.HOW TO UPSELL AND CROSS-SELL

22.EXTENDED WARRANTY SALES

23.THE PRINCIPLES OF PERSUASION

24.THE SIX-STEP SELLING CYCLE

25. YOU ARE A LUCKIER SALESPERSON

1.THE SALES

Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman – not the attitude of the prospect. – W. Clement Stone

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In another example, when you date someone for the first time, you try to show your attractiveness  impressed your prospective partner. Both of those scenarios are good examples how we become buyer or sellers in our lives without even thinking of it.

Sales have similarities with a chess game. For example, you try to read your  customers’ minds and emotions. You talk according to their responds as you do your moves according to your opponent’s moves in a chess game.

In a typical sale process, you need to identify the needs and reveal the desires of the customers for your products. It is your goal for every customer to leave from your store with a successful purchasing experience. It is your responsibility to close a sale today not tomorrow. You should always try to close the sale today, not tomorrow! I don’t want to discourage you at the beginning of the book  about commission-based  sales jobs but I need to be upfront with you. Commission-based jobs are not for everybody.  

According to Art Sobczak, President of BusinessByPhone.com, commission-based jobs are good for people who:

Hungry for knowledge

Want to control their own salary

Have an insatiable desire to succeed

According to him, in order to be a successful salesperson:

Must be motivated

Self-disciplined

Confident

Positive

A  great interviewer and performer

Have an immense desire to learn

They should be someone who is never satisfied

Have I can do more attitude, and I can do better attitude

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. -Mark Twain

2.HOW TO SELL YOURSELF

I am starting the book with how to sell yourself because if you know how to sell yourself first, you can sell anything you want. There are different ways to sell yourself to your customers. Let’s check what they are:

Building a personal relationship with your customers:

To be able to persuade any customer to buy your products, the first thing, you must know how to sell yourself to them.Therefore, you must know how to build a personal relationship with them. You should be be like chameleons for each customer.As a professional salesperson , I know firsthand how important it is to connect with customers. Building personalized relationships is a key to sell almost anything to your customers.

Forget about the product knowledge, forget about how to do an effective presentation, forget about how to overcome objections etc. The first thing you must learn how to sell yourself to your customers. Selling yourself starts with building personalized relationship with your customers.In order for you to understand better, I compiled some of vital subjects so that you can understand what you can do to build a personal relationship with your customers.

1.Be like chameleons:

I like being like a chameleon who transforms himself with each role.-Oscar Isaac

Chameleons are amazing creatures, they change their colours according to their mood and according to their environment to escape from predators.The best salespeople resemble chameleons.They blend into any customer with ease and they change their behaviours, their sales pitch , their sales presentations and they apply different sales techniques and use different tricks for each customer differently. They know each customer is unique and different.

As salesperson, you should always try to adapt and understand your customers' emotions, and their lives. In other words, you should speak their language. To survive in this competitive sales environment, you need to be phenomenal adapters like chameleons.

You should be an enthusiastic about each customer, be curious and approach them differently. For example, some customers may like that you use humour in your sales and some may not like it. You cannot joke with all customers. It may work on a previous sale but it does not give guarantee that it is going to work in your next sale. You need to change your pitch and behaviours for each customer by knowing the golden rule: each customer is unique and different. Each customer is truly one of a kind.Don't be like salespeople who pitch their products the same way over and over again.Be like a basketball coach. Change your sales tactics and strategies for each customer differently. 

Be like chameleons: be changeable and be adaptable! 

2: Use the Principle of Likability:

This principle is also named as familiarity and sympathy at different sources. You probably have heard many times that people do business with people they know, they like and they trust. According to Dr. Cialdini, people like doing business with people who have physical attractiveness, similarities, and people who give them good compliments.

In other words, people love doing business with salespeople who share  common traits with them. 

In addition that customers generally make judgements based on salespeople's  external characteristics like their dress, and physical appearances. As salesperson, you can induce a sense of similarity with almost any customer by finding things you have in common with them to talk about.

Customers are more likely to comply with requests made by salespeople they like.If you can make them like you, then you have already sold yourself. Let's see what you can do to make them to like you. 

1: Similarities(Familiarities)

People have greater tendency to accept the proposals of people with whom they share common features and traits. 

We like people who are similar to ourselves and who have the same opinions, lifestyle, personality traits , age, race, origin, associations etc. 

As professional salesperson, you should detect skillfully your common traits with your customers. Your customers will like to talk about things that you have in common with them. Finding something in common with your customers always leads a positive response by your customers and arise their automatic sympathy about you. 

Some of similarity examples to find and to talk about:

1.Talking about hobbies:

People love talking about their hobbies. If you have a customer who likes fishing, why not make him to talk about fishing. Even if you went to fishing once in your life, you can talk about your store. By asking him questions about fishing, you can make him talk about fishing. Let them talk more than you. They love talking about their hobbies. 

2.Talking about sports:

Most of people like sports. They may be interested in going to gym, in body building, team sports like basketball, hockey, baseball, soccer or they may be interested in hiking, walking, skiing, skating etc.. 

Maybe there was an important hockey game last night and your customer's team won the game. You can talk about the game and show your interest about the game even if you did not watch it. 

If your customer goes to gym to build a body, make him talk about his experiences about body building or if your customer is on diet to lose weight, make her to talk about her experiences. Both of these type of people love talking about those. Give them a bate by asking a quick and short question and let them talk: I want to lose weight too. I have tried once but I have failed. What can you recommend me to lose weight? She will see that you are very curious about her weight lost diet and she will open up more.

3.Language:

Who would not like to be heard hello or how are you in their language in a foreign country? Since I have had a lot of immigrant friends and I have travelled a lot, I learned some words in different languages so I used to say a few words to immigrants in their native language. They loved that. 

For example, if they were Chinese, I was saying hello with a smiley face Nǐ hǎo, I was saying privet to Russians and Hallo, Wie geht es dir? to Germans etc. 

Since I could speak some Spanish, with the customers from the South America, I used to speak to Spanish. These type of customers love to hear a few words in their language.

4.Geographical area of ​​origin:

As salesperson, you can also look for a link such as being born in the same city with the customer, or having visited, having friends or relatives there where your customer moved from or was born. 

It is a multicultural word.People move from countries to countries to pursuit a better life for themselves. They also move around their country. 

Who would not like talking about their country especially when they live in another country? Or would not you like that someone knows your old city?

With the customers from the countries I been to, I was talking about my experiences in their country and making them to talk about their country.I also used to talk about their food, drinks, culture and customs. 

For example, I used to talk about Ouzo with Greek customers which is a national drink of Greece which is also a national drink in Turkey. It is not only country of origin but also you can also talk about their previous city. Sometimes, you will have customers who just moved from another city and you either lived in that city before or maybe you have a relative living over there. These type of customers like to compare two cities and they usually miss their previous city. Make them talk what they like and they don't like in this new city. If your customer moved from Toronto, tell him: I liked Toronto. I was at CN Tower and it was gorgeous. What were you doing in Toronto? What did take you here? Subjects will open subjects and they will spill out.

5.Profession:

Talking about their