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Sales Training Article:The "Take Action / Take Action" Law
by Skip Anderson Selling to Consumers www.SellingtoConsumers.com High performance salespeople understand that their job is to get their prospects to take action. Ultimately, this "taking action" take the form of the customer buying the salesperson's product or service.
Taking action can also take other forms, such as: a prospect’s agreement to accept a follow-up phone call one week from now; a prospect’s agreement to have an in-home consultation; or a prospect’s agreement to share your competitor’s pricing information with you.
The Law
Here’s a law to live by. It’s the “Take Action / Take Action Law”:
“Salespeople who take action are more likely to get their prospects to take action.”
Wildly successful salespeople understand that taking action is a key component to sales success. They know they have to take action to be able to effectively get their prospects to take action. As salespeople, we all want our prospects to take action, but we sometimes don’t take responsibility for making that action happen. If you expect more action from your prospects, you need to take more action yourself.
Taking action could mean calling that customer you saw last fall who insisted they wanted to wait until springtime to put that addition on their home. Taking action could mean making the extra effort to extend your hand and introduce yourself when you approach a browsing prospect in your high-end retail store. Taking action could mean finally ordering (and reading) the sales book that your sales manager recommended to you two years ago. At this very moment, there are thousands of salespeople who should be taking action of some type, but they’re choosing inaction instead.
An Enemy of Sales Success
Inaction is an enemy of sales success. This affliction is related to other maladies of low-performing salespeople, such as: waiting for the customer to buy; not practicing your presentation; and, not leaving early enough to arrive at a sales appointment on time.
I have a theory. I think salespeople who suffer from inaction know
it. These anti-take-action salespeople know they should audio record
one of their customer phone calls so they can hear how they sound to
their customers, yet they don’t do it. They know they need to create
a better closing strategy because they know their ability to close a
sale is one of their biggest weaknesses, yet they keep selling in the
same manner over and over again hoping that the results will be
different even though their strategy hasn’t improved a bit. They
know they need to call Mrs. Jones because they told Mrs. Jones they
would call, yet they don’t do it. Forward Movement
In business, you're either moving forward or you're moving backward. In sales, moving forward requires action. Even baby steps are acceptable, but the minute the steps stop, your inaction will influence your prospects, and they'll be less likely to take action themselves.
Think about your heart (yes, the one that's right there under your ribcage). Either your heart is beating (which is action), or your heart is not beating (which is inaction). Where your heart is concerned, there is no middle ground. A beating heart will keep you moving, but an inactive heart will kill you.
Get Busy
The same principle applies to sales success. There is no middle ground. Either you’re taking action or you aren’t.
As the character Andy Dufresne said in the movie The Shawshank Redemption: “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
What action do you need to take today?
This article ma may be distributed or reproduced as long as an attribution to Selling to Consumers and Skip Anderson are included, along with either a link to this web page (if in electronic form) or a statement including the web page URL (if in print).
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