The Fool's Key to Unlocking Unlimited Sales

By Angel Bahabwa

If you are a sales rep, who is barely closing any sales or you are a sales manager or entrepreneur whose sales team is not closing great volumes of sales, this is the book for you. This book was written to help you unlock your unlimited sales potential that has been locked for a long time.

 

You are closing limited or no sales because you are simply ignorant about the craft of sales. Attempting to increase your sales without proper training is like cutting a huge log of a tree with a blunt ax. The result is pain and delayed execution of the work. 

 

You or your sales force don't know how to identify the right prospects, walk them through the sales process from the prospecting stage to the closing stage. You simply don't know how to prospect, qualify the prospects to differentiate poor prospects from good prospects, persuasively present to the right qualified prospect, powerfully negotiate a deal that makes both parties win, use various closing techniques to close the deals easily and faster, and finally get referrals from the happy clients. 

 

You are experiencing locked sales revenue because you lack the necessary sales skills and core attributes that guarantee sales success, such as commitment, desire, positive outlook, and willingness to take responsibility. You and your sales force need to be organized, coordinated, and focused on a specific target. i.e. desired sales results.  

 

You may have read several sales books or taken sales training that has not helped you increase your sales volume and now you think this is another book like those you have read! No. This is not like the ones you have read. 

 

"The Fool's key to Unlocking unlimited sales" was designed to lead you to the transformation of your conduct (transform your skill set, attitude, and perception of sales), sales team behavioral transformation (enable cohesion of the sales team with sales processes and structures of the company, teamwork competency, and facilitate collective ambition of the team). The book will enable you to align your company's sales strategies with sales systems and structures. 

 

In writing this book, I strongly knew that what hinders sales personnel from closing enough deals is not entirely their sales skills but largely their mindset. The skillset of a salesperson accounts for only 20 percent of a salesperson's success, whereas mindset is responsible for a huge 80 percent. 

 

I knew that the sales skills learned in this book are of limited value if your mindset prevents you from executing what you have learned. Take an example of a salesperson who has been taught how to make a cold call, or has been taught the tactics to close a sale, if her mindset comes with a high need for approval from others, her fear of rejection will prevent her from putting her training into practice. In other words, she will fail to execute despite all the skills-based training she has had. This brings into question the value of skill-based sales training you have been investing heavily in. 

 

The book addresses mindset-related weaknesses I have witnessed in various teams I have led that have ranged from self-limiting beliefs such as, "our prices are too high" or "there's no point in calling on this prospect–they've been with our proposals for years," and so many mindset problems.  

 

Therefore, the book was written to not only improve your sales skills but also transform your mindset to attain the attributes that can facilitate the sales success you badly want such as commitment, desire, positive outlook, and willingness to take responsibility. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angel Bahabwa
• Release date: Nov 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215529027

Angel Bahabwa

Angel Bahabwa is a motivational speaker, entrepreneur, education activist and social analyst. He loves reading and sharing knowledge with people. He has worked with various organizations in East Africa fronting the need for specialized education and has hosted several radio programs on social economic development.

Book preview

Dedication

Dedicated to Mr. Kalyebara Sam whose trust and faith laid the ground to the taste and practice of the ideas in this book as we built the sales force of Life FM ltd from the scratch to epic sales success in times when nobody was willing to buy from us and to the honorable sales professionals who sell goods, products, or services that benefit others.

Preface

You have been put in charge of the sales and marketing department of Life FM, this news came to me with a mixed sense of excitement and frustration. The excitement was due to the elevation to the new position of a strong historical media house in western Uganda which presented a very big opportunity. This opportunity came with the frustration of developing a strong sales team from the journalists who had no interest in the sales activities of the station.

The company was at its lowest in terms of sales and had endured several closures which lasted several months. The population had to a great extent lost faith in its service. This meant that several major advertisers never wanted to associate with it and my role was to re-establish trust and develop a serious sales and marketing team from the already disgruntled staff.

I was scared that it was nearly impossible to transform the sales and marketing of the station but the trust and faith Mr. Kalyebera Sam, the operations manager had in me kept me going in the early days of frustration caused by the unwillingness of the staff to adopt new strategies and skills I was imparting the staff.

I knew it had to begin with training the staff. The training had to start with changing the mindset of the team to create an environment that could facilitate the growth of the radio station. This had to start with developing the training material.

The puzzle I faced was the concept of keeping it simple yet effective. The material had to be easy to understand and effective in a way that it could produce results faster to facilitate the profitability of the company.

The competition and the staff that was against this initiative started calling it foolish. This was so because the wise could not see any way the sales of the station would raise instantly after very many months of very limited sales that were not able even to sustain the station.

Since it was called foolish, I considered emphasizing the most despised staff whose financial contribution to the station was next to nothing. And I stated it clearly that the training they were about to start taking was the fool’s key to unlocking unlimited sales.

My thinking was, if I train these least passionate staff in sales and start outperforming the existing staff that was making some sales, then I will have transformed the station. I reached this target within three months. The least performers began the top performers. Indeed, it was the fool’s key to unlocking unlimited sales.

This book, therefore, is a collection of the ideas and skills that any fool can learn and increase the sales of her company instantly and easily. It is a key that will unlock unlimited sales potential for any company. It starts with the fundamentals of human existence and it teaches sales as a lifestyle rather than a profession.

Selling is as old as the existence of humanity. Selling became part of humanity from the time humans learned how to communicate visually and verbally. We are by nature salesmen and women. We are constantly selling our way to what we want though we don’t do it professionally. Because it is in our nature, we take it for granted. We don’t invest our time and resources to develop this natural trait.

The fool’s key to unlocking unlimited sales was written to guide you through professional selling techniques and strategies necessary to increase your sales volume in the shortest period.

In this book, you will learn the seven basic sales skills i.e. prospecting and leads generation, qualifying prospects, persuasive sales presentation, proper handling of sales objections, negation, the closing of sales techniques, and better ways of getting referrals from happy clients.

Unlocking unlimited sales potential largely depends on the mindset of the sales rep and the buyer. The book also explores several philosophies and teachings that are capable of rewiring the mindset of the sales rep to enable him to rewire the mindset of the buyer to start and keep buying from him.

If you want to increase your sales or sell your way to the top, this is the book you will need. You will learn persuasive ways of helping people and organizations buy what is useful for them more easily and faster. The book will teach you three principles i.e. how to carry out prospects’ needs analysis, needs awareness, and solution selling.

If you learn how to analyze the needs and wants of your target prospects, you will need to make them aware of their needs/wants and finally help them to buy your solutions. This is what you will learn from this book. Sell what people want to buy.

SELLLING FROM THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

"Never say more than is necessary."

Who learns sales?

I what to warn that as we are going to start this learning process, am worried that most of you won’t learn anything and I won’t spend my time on you because it is the doer alone who learns. My experience shows that the person who is deeply involved in a craft is the one who will easily understand the concept needed for his success in the same craft.

A person dedicated to making more sales and who is selling will largely understand the concepts involved in selling such as prospecting, qualifying, presenting, negotiating, and closing. This person is willing to listen when a person suggests to provide information that can help him close more deals than he is doing. If he is not willing to learn, he is either despising the source of the information and in this case he considers himself superior to the source or he is not intelligent enough to know that sales success depends largely on learning and application of what is learnt. In any case, no sales team leader accepts such personality in the team, he can be isolated or be removed from the team.

The doer is the one that learns also means that someone who is involved in getting things done will enthusiastically seek for information or ideas that can enable him become better and his mind through the principle of association will connect or resonate with ideas and suggestions that can help him reach his desired goals or overcome the prevailing challenges. This person is easy to teach and he easily understands the concepts being taught coz he will be getting answers and insights even from the least sources.

A doer largely loses the concept of time when he is learning or discussing the concepts that will aid him in what he is doing because he is engrossed in the subject and he is focused in wanting to get things done. It is only the lazy dude or a doer who finds the discussion at hand not helpful in what he is doing that complains of time.

It only takes long when what is being discussed is not helpful in aiding you in what are doing. This is compared to the concept of love; seat with a person you love and an hour seems like a second and when you seat with a person you don’t love a second seems an hour. It again means that what you are going to do is more important than what you are learning. If the team leader finds such members in the team when what is being taught is paramount to the success of the team, he should either show them the importance of the trainings or excuse them from the team because such attitude is dangerous and contagious.

Summary

a)  A doer is the one that learns – a person who is deeply involved in a craft is the one who will easily understand the concept needed for his success in the same craft

b)  someone who is involved in getting things done will enthusiastically seek for information or ideas that can enable him become better and his mind through the principle of association will connect or resonate with ideas and suggestions that can help him reach his desired goals

c)  A doer largely loses the concept of time when he is learning or discussing the concepts that will aid him in what he is doing because he is engrossed in the subject and he is focused in wanting to get things done

d)  Learning is essential for sales success

Who is a sales person?

A salesperson is the person who has an idea, product, or service that can solve a problem or help the clients achieve their ambitions. The definition show that to be a salesperson, you should have a product, service or an idea that another person is willing to buy to either solve his problem or help achieve his ambition. The focus of the salesperson is to use his product, service or an idea to relieve the client’s pain or propel the client to his desired destination which can be a goal, dream, or a target at a cost.

Selling is therefore helping the targeted prospect make a good decision for himself through the power of persuasion. This makes us all salespeople. We find ourselves most times getting people do what we want them to do for their own personal benefits. That can be getting your girlfriend go for hiking rather than clubbing. Getting your child eat apples rather than ice cream. Etc.

Professional salespeople play a great role in our economy because they act as a vehicle to reach the final consumer. They not only present products, service, or ideas to the final consumers but they go ahead to help consumers invest only in those products, services or ideas that are useful to them. Without helping consumers make the right decisions for themselves, most products would expire from factories and most businesses would not survive their second year of existence!

Since we are in a constant act of seeking for support in one form or seeking for partnership for specific reasons, we need sales skills to enable us reach our desired results early and easier. This makes salespeople highly needed by nearly any company or organization. Success in seeking of strategic partnerships and support for organizations or companies depend on the selling skills of the leaders of those particular organizations or companies. The major objective of writing this book is to impart these sales skills to you. 

A salesperson’s job is like that of an entrepreneur; constantly finding pains or ambitions of the people or organizations and help relieve these pains or speed up the achievement of their ambitions. A sales person is therefore an entrepreneur rather than an employee. You need an entrepreneurship mindset to succeed in sales. All the characteristics of an entrepreneur should be possessed by an individual who intends to succeed in sales. An entrepreneur is self-driven, takes risks, creative, a leader and passionate at solving other people’s problems. He can create his own products, ideas, services or use other company’s products, services, or ideas differently to solve the existing problems.

With all salespeople’s faults, they keep the wheels of commerce turning, and the currents of human emotions running. They introduce more new goods, dispose of more old ones, load or move more freight cars, unload more ships, build more factories, start more new businesses, and write more debits and credits in our ledgers than all the other people in Uganda.

I can’t describe salespeople more than one who said, "Salespeople make more noise and more mistakes, create more