Do You Agree
With
Christine's Business Philosophy?
Below is information on Christine Corelli's business
philosophy. To learn more, be sure to review her articles
on topics related to business growth, profitability, communication
skills, leadership and personal success.
On Sales Excellence
Forget tough! Today, competition is fierce! Whether
you sell to consumers or business-to-business, your customer has
more choices, is better informed, more cost-conscious, and more
demanding than ever. Much more is required to win them over. You
need exceptional "people skills," communication skills, effective
time and territory management, discipline, high-energy, creativity
and more if you want to earn their business.
Below are ten keys to help you achieve sales success.
- Take every aspect of SALES 101 seriously.
You remember them--Reject rejection. ASK for the order. Know your
"batting average." Be a problem solver. Be prepared. Be DISCIPLINED.
Overcome "call reluctance." Be persistent-- professional, determined,
diligent and all those critical success factors you learned in
your first sales seminar.
- Technology changes, psychology does not.
Your ability to build relationships is crucial to your success.
People skills, professionalism, ethics, and integrity all come
into play. Remember: "It's your people skills that make all your
product and technical knowledge pay off." Strive to build strong
and lasting relationships to help you win new customers, retain
existing customers, establish customer loyalty and get referrals.
Quality relationships breed long-term profitability.
- Internalize the customers' goals as your own.
Your customer needs to feel you truly CARE. You can demonstrate
this by learning as much about their business as you can, putting
yourself in their position, and then communicating from their
perspective. Ask yourself "How would I feel if I were in my customer's
position? What would be my concerns? What would I
want? What would be the most important thing to me if I
were making this purchasing decision?"
- Become a master of your industry and your products/services.
Apply a consultative approach to selling and become a trusted
ally and advisor. Then, you will position yourself as an ongoing
valuable resource to your customer, which is a good place to be
if you want to meet and exceed your sales goals in today's tough
business climate!
- LISTEN - and ASK the right questions. Ask
questions first. Memorize a matrix of the best questions to ask.
Make sure they are open-ended questions--Who? How? What? When?
- Memorize words and phrases that help overcome
objections. Push the right buttons and influence the customer
to BUY. Learn to internalize and articulate the benefits of your
products and why they can rely on you and your company when they
do business with you.
- Apply a more professional and creative approach
to sales. Think about it--If you say and do the same things
as every other sales person, how will you ever stand out in the
customer's mind? What new approach can you take to sales?
What reason can you find to call them, other than trying to sell
your product.
- Recognize "buying signals" ("What's the
price?" "How fast can you deliver?" "What's the minimum
order?") and ASK for their business. Failure to ask can
cause you to lose business.
- Hone your sales and negotiation skills on a
consistent basis. (Don't stunt your growth. Learn to
love to learn! ) and last,
- Recognize that. . . "There is No Mystical Magical
Secret to Sales Success." It Comes From Your Enthusiasm and
Belief in Your Company, Its Products; Its People and Yourself.
Then, Making the Customer Feel That Same Enthusiasm and Belief"
Related Published Articles. . .
"The Like
Factor"
"How to Overcome a Selling Slump"
"Selling Through Tough Times
- Be a Chameleon"
"Building Quality Relationships"
On Business Growth
Regardless of the size of your company, or whether
you sell through dealers, distributors, or are in direct sales,
your competition is vying for the business of your customers every
minute. They are strategizing to create a new advertising and marketing
campaign, find that new twist to an existing product, or bring a
new product or design to market to gain market-share.
To survive in this climate, you need to make smart
decisions and take action to gain a competitive edge.
- Your company must have has a reputation for
quality, service excellence, and ethical business practices.
If you don't, your odds of winning and keeping customers will
not be in your favor. You must be positioned
to compete.
- Outdistance your current and future competitors
with innovation in every aspect of business. Be willing to
take calculated risks to bring new products to market and promote
your products and services in creative new ways. Consider diversifying
what you already offer.
- Use "change" to drive the creative tension
to keep your company moving forward. Make sure your company
culture is one that stimulates, encourages, and rewards creative
ideas. Seek and find ways to simplify systems and procedures.
- Differentiate you company from your competitors.
Outshine them in every imaginable way. Be focused on the voice
of the customer. Listen to their wants and needs and do your best
to deliver. If you don't, your competitors will! Make sure it's
easy to do business with you.
- Leverage vendor expertise. Form strategic
alliances to achieve mutually beneficial business goals.
- Learn faster than your competitors. Your
company must be constantly learning new skills and continuously
strive for continuous improvement.
- Create a Sales/Service Excellence Accountability
culture--where you have an involved workforce, systems
and procedures that allow for flawless customer service.
Regardless of the size of your business, make sure you have
an effective tool for CRM. Seek cutting-edge solutions to any
customer service problems that may exist. Create a written
service policy and guiding principals on how you will treat customers
and each other, and make sure your people adhere to it.
- Create a Sales/Service Excellence/Accountability
Culture. (See below)
- Hire people who will fit into your culture.
- Gather intelligence, study changing trends
and be FAST to respond to changing markets.
- Develop an obsession for producing the
best product with the best performance on every order, on every
project, with every customer every day. Remember, you and
your sales force need the full cooperation and support
of everyone in your company.
Related Published Articles. . .
"Drive to
Win the Race for Business Growth"
"Survival Through a Tough Economy"
"Steps to Create Service Excellence"
On Customer Service
The Customer Rules!-an all-too familiar mantra these
days! But you can never hear too much about its importance. Whether
you have direct contact with the customer, are a manager, work the
warehouse, or sweep the floors, you are responsible for developing
the reputation of your company.
- Come to work each day ready, willing, and anxious
to service customers and sound like it. Without their business,
your company and your paycheck can't exist. You need to display
behaviors that help your company obtain new customers, retain
existing customers, and establish customer loyalty.
- Treat each person within your company as importantly
as an external customer. If it doesn't happen within, it won't
happen externally.
- You've heard this a thousand times, but you
can never hear it enough: Exceed customer expectations. Sit
down and work together to uncover ways you have exceeded expectations
in the past, and new ways you can exceed them in the future.
- Ask questions to uncover product or service
problems, obtain ideas, and learn what more you can do
for customers. Then, report that important information to your
company.
- Remember that. . ."The Customer
is the Judge, the Jury, and Can Be--The Executioner."
Related Articles. . .
"Make Like Harley-ASK Already"
"You Can Be an Ambassador or An Assassin"
"How to Treat Customers So
You Can Keep Them"
"The Customer of the Future - Will
Tomorrow's Customer Be Yours?"
On Leadership...
If you are in a leadership position, you need your
company or department to operate like a well-oiled machine.
Why? So you can focus on areas most critical to business growth-creating,
strategizing, improving operations, and making smart decisions.
These are the things that will carry you and your company into a
more successful future.
To get there, you need to display dynamic leadership
skills, and establish an environment for high-performance-one which
stimulates creativity, encourages, recognizes, and rewards people
for their contribution to your company. Then, you can rely on them
to perform.
- Display dynamic leadership throughout your
company - from the "Top Banana" on down. Communicate, and
demonstrate that you CARE about your employees as much as your
profits. Take ownership for developing your people and bringing
out the best in them. Recognize that leadership is a privilege,
and you must earn the respect of those you lead. Make sure
you set the tone, and be the example for others to follow. Remember:
When experiencing tough times, people look to their leaders and
observe how they perform.
- Surround yourself with excellence. Be a great
person to work "with", but demand excellence. Never
settle for mediocrity. performance-not in today's world. "Good
enough" cannot exist."
- Recognize that it's your people who will or
will not help you carry your company into a more successful future.
- Involve your people. (Call
and Ask About our Employee Involvement Program that saved one
Fortune 100 company $3,000,000 in just six months!)
- Be able to institute and lead your people through
change. The most challenging task of the leader is to communicate,
institute, and maintain high morale through change.
- Learn to see things through the eyes of your
people, not always your own.
- Realize that "Businesses don't Do Business-
People Do. Your people are a reflection of you.
- Recognize that it's always up to the leader
to keep their people motivated. Be accountable to your people
for YOUR performance as a leader. And, most important, be a great
person to work WITH.
- Do all you can to give employees what they
want, and remember that. . .
"The key to employee motivation
is to make people feel they are working with you,
and not for you. If they feel they are working for you, they'll
resemble robots who go
through the motions of their job and never put their hearts and
souls into their work."
(Christine Corelli)
Related Articles. . .
"Employee
Motivation-Whose Job IS it Anyway?"
"Zero Tolerance for Bad Bosses"
"What Employees Want"
"Creating
High Performance and Avoiding Burn-Out Through Change"
"Make Like Harley-Ask Already"
On Entrepeneurship
Entrepreneurs have the ultimate commitment. As entrepreneurs,
they put a great deal on the line. Often they operate on blind faith--moving
forward even though they don't know where their next buck is coming
from. They have accepted responsibility for the livelihood of their
employees, often worry about their employees' families. Indeed,
they are in a class by themselves.
On Teamwork
To be able to drive business growth through a tough
economy, your company needs teams of creative and skilled people
who can work together effectively to deliver results. Teamwork is
crucial in today's environment. Without it,
- People tend to go through motions of their
job, and not put their heart into their work.
- They focus on internal politics instead of
the most important person in the company : the customer!
- Walls exist and territorialism builds.
- People won't understand each other's pressure,
problems, and responsibilities.
- The company needs to tap into their greatest
asset-the combined brainpower of their people to survive
and stay in the competitive game. Teams can generate more
ideas than individuals.
On Personal Success
The keys to success are quite simplistic.
- Be willing to work harder than others.
- Learn to love to learn. Be hungry for information.
- Learn to love what you do. You may not
be in a job position that you love, but if you can learn to love
what you do, you'll be more creative, and simply make life better
for yourself and everyone in your life.
- Remember the "Like Factor." It's not luck
that makes you successful; It's likeability!
- Keep your life in balance so you can survive
on the competitive treadmill. Without balance, life can pass
you by before you know it.
- Put meaning and purpose into your life. Help
others become successful. Do more, give more, be more. Never
settle for mediocrity.
- Put energy and enthusiasm into your work and
your life.
- Keep things in proper perspective. Accept
what you can't change and don't sweat the small stuff.
- Learn how to tap into your creativity. Block
out time for it.
- Take it one day at a time. And...
"Success doesn't buy you happiness.
Happiness buys you success."
(Christine Corelli)
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Christine is best known as The
"Sales-Service Excellence" Expert, and the author of the
popular books,
Wake Up and Smell
the Competition and The
ART of Influencing Customers to BUY From YOU.
As a keynote speaker, conference speaker, and sales trainer
she is superlative in her field. Her
impressive client list includes Fortune 100 corporations,
prominent national associations and
literally hundreds of mid-sized and small businesses.
To learn more about Christine's books, keynotes, seminars
or consulting, please contact:
Gene Leigh, Director of Marketing: gene@christinespeaks.com
or call us toll-free:
(800) 417-9968 or (847) 581-9968
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