If you are a shy individual, sales can seem like one of the more daunting career choices to make. But it doesn’t happen to be. 
There are some tips on building your confidence in order to make you feel like a bit of a rockstar every time you make a call. Here, we’ll provide five.

Watch and learn. Ask one of the more seasoned and confident salespeople on your team for a half day. Watch how she talks to the customers, learn her script with her, see how she deals with issues she might encounter, notice what her tone of voice is, etc. Take notes! Go back and make some calls of your own and then lather, rinse, repeat. 
Watch her again after making your first calls to reaffirm certain things and remind you of other things you should or should not be doing (perhaps videotape her if she doesn’t mind — your boss might prefer that strategy so you don’t waste his/her time and money in observation mode).

Study the voice tone, script, and overall approach of a strong salesperson — watch and learn!

Great presentations work on you like great stories: They carry you away for a little while in a well-crafted net of structure, contrast, emotion, suspense. Then you’re returned to your old self, utterly convinced what the speaker said is true. ~ Bruce Upbin, Forbes

That’s the goal: to transport your audience out of their own head space, away from their own thoughts and daily tasks. A successful presentation grabs the audience’s attention – and it does not let them go.
What do Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Oprah, and the other successful orators have in common? They connected with the audience. Yes, most certainly the content, details, delivery, eye contact, appropriate tone and volume, and all the rest of the bulleted ideas in any public speaking text book matter, but by far, what matters the most is – connection.
So how do The Greats connect with their audience?

Ask any Human Resources Manger how many work hours are in a year and you will likely hear stats like 8 hours per workday, five workdays per week, and 52 weeks in a year, or 2080 hours per year of available work time. This should be plenty of time for a sales person to make their annual quota, right? The reality is that actual available selling time is much less than 2080 hours because of a variety of factors. Here are a few of the factors that significantly reduce available selling time.

I  love everything about sales and the psychology of selling and I read as much as I can on the subject. I always have a sales, business or personal development book with me to learn from, to inspire me and to keep me on the sales edge. I am constantly refining the processes and strategies that I teach in my books, audios, DVDs and sales training seminars.

As you might expect I am not particularly squeamish when it comes to closing people down however over the last few nights I have been reading a book on how to close a client written in the mid-1980’s. It’s one of the funniest books I have ever read and if it was supposed to be humorous, I would pronounce it one of the funniest books that I have ever read. But as a sales training book, it is appalling and what’s more some of the tactics on how to close that are in it are based on the cheesiest of theories. Here’s one tip from the how to close book…

One of the closes describes how when the customer objects saying to the sale, saying that they need to think about it that you should hold up the book for the prospect to see and tell them that the book describes customers like them and tells you exactly how to answer their objections! It then says to continue and tell them that it outlines their personality and attitude and that you know that they don’t really have to think about it. Infact all they’re really worried about is the finances! It then says to talk to them about money!

Why do you sacrifice what you do to be a sales professional? Why do you work long hours and endure weekends and holidays away from your family and friends? The easy answer may be that you want to make more money (albeit with a bit of risk) than you could in an 8-5 job. But take it a little deeper. Why do you want to make more money? Maybe you want to travel or provide opportunities for your family. And why do you want to travel or provide for your family? To improve your life.
    The X Factor sales pro believes buyers are motivated by similar desires and that tapping into. Just like you, they are looking for something to improve their lives. They don’t just want a house. They want a home for their kids to make memories, a place to entertain guests, and a gathering place for family events. They don’t just want a car — they want a fuel-efficient vehicle that keeps them comfortable and communicates their style as they travel from point A to point B. An X-Factor mindset will drive sales pros to ask questions to find out the whys behind client desires. From there, they sell to their deeper desires, not the surface ones.

Even when more and more companies are embracing CRM solutions for streamlining their businesses quite a large number of such project implementations also fail leaving organizations to flounder with huge overhead costs. There is no denying of the fact that a customer management software is essential for a modern business to stay afloat in the competitive environment. But only through successful implementation one can derive the optimum benefits of it.  This article has discussed about some of the most obvious reasons for a customer management software project implementation failure.

This article is published in SOLD Issue #20.
What is one of the best ways (maybe the best) to promote and market your business? Public speaking! What is one of the best ways (maybe the best) to showcase your expertise, talent, confidence, passion, energy, and communication skills? Public speaking! What is one of the best ways (maybe the best) to meet, connect, and network with more people in less time? Public speaking! What is one of the best ways (maybe the best) to brand your name, message, and purpose to a group of strangers in a credible (and sometimes not so credible) way? Yup!

Yes, public speaking is a great skill to master but can be tough stuff! There were days (long ago of course) where before a presentation, you might find me hiding under a desk wrapped in a blanket – sobbing like a little girl, while curled up in the fetal position. Did I mention the sobbing part? OK, I’m exaggerating. A little. Maybe. But some of you have been there or pretty close to there. Yes, tough stuff.

Being close from a distance
To compete in the 21st century economy, many members of a sales team must work exclusively from remote locations, rendering them invisible to each other and their sales manager. This issue of SOLD Sales Executives, “Managing the Invisible,” presents the strategies and tools needed today to bring you and your team closer, although great distances separate everyone.
Building a strong virtual team
3 Tips for Virtual Management of Effective Virtual Teams; Teaming Inside & Outside Sales; Are your Sales People Really Prepared to Follow up on Inbound Leads?; and Use EEE™ Representational System to Manage the Virtual Team are the four feature articles in this issue. Each approaches the challenge of managing invisible sales team members from a slightly different angle. All of them, however, emphasize the importance of strengthening the bonds between everyone, and provide specific tips to help make your team a perennial winner.
What's Inside Issue #3:

Moving forward with your customers
Whenever a customer becomes irritated, you’ve taken a step backwards in your relationship. Your achievement, as well as your company’s, depends on always moving forward with your customers. That’s why you need the skills and insight to turn a customer’s “frown upside down” as quickly as possible, so you regain momentum and move forward to the next sale.
Always make them smile
The best strategy is never to give your customers a reason to be irritated with your products or service in the first place…not always easy. This issue of SOLD is filled with very specific methods and techniques to help you minimize, and hopefully, eliminate customer irritation. You’ll learn the best social media choices for B2B relationships, how to “open” customers instead of closing them, why saying “No” is often good for your customer relationships, and much more.
What's inside February 2013: