Selling: How YOU affect your sales

Welcome to the wonderful world of sales. Sales can be an extremely rewarding career if you make it so. There are lots of techniques to selling that focus on the sale. One can be great at overcoming objections, asking for the sale, presenting and understanding the product; but still not be great at selling. Before one is even confident in those skills (or if you are but you still aren't selling), there is something else that can significantly increase sales: you.
I have been in sales in some form since I was seventeen and took a job as a cashier at Target. Cashiering sounds like a job that doesn't really matter, but it does. I was the last impression the people that were leaving Target got. At that job the only thing I had to sell somebody on was a Target credit card. We had contests to see who could get the most applications in a day. Most cashiers did not care about this. I did. I excelled at it. It was fun for me to talk to somebody about the benefits the card offered. While I am oppoosed to trying to get people in debt, I am totally for saving money. That card was a great way to do just that. They have adjusted the rules since then, but at the time signing up for the card would take 10% off the first purchase (plus rewards thereafter).
Later on in life I started selling insurance. It was the same thing but in reverse. I presented an opportunity to help people have protection against losing money (instead of saving money by using the credit card mentioned above).
When you are selling, it means that you are interacting with other people. This means that you need to create a great impression on your client. I even hate to use the word client becaue that makes me feel like the person I am selling to is depersonalized. I like to use the word "person." This is so important to remember while selling. You are not only selling your product, you are selling yourself.
The very first thing to do is to create a great first impression. I work on a phone. Can anyone see me? No! So how do I do this? I smile while I am introducing myself. I ask the person (not client!) how they are doing and make sure they are interested in getting insurance. It is a good practice to make sure that your product matches what the customer is serching for early on in the interaction. Do I want to ask someone 3-4 minutes into a call what kind fo car they have to find out that they were looking for home insurance, health insurance, or soemthing completely differet? Absolutely not. That is a waste of everyone's time. One I know that the PERSON on the other end of the phone is searching for car insurance, I explain the process (breifly) that we are going to go through. I also like to remind him/her that before we are off the phone, I can make sure they have proof of insurance.
Next, I am... nice to them! Even if the caller isn't being particularly nice to me, I try to be nice to him/her. I empathize or sympathize with their situation (read: I practice active listening). If someone has recently bought a new (or usually new-to-them used car), I empathize with how that came about. Was the caller recently involved in an accident? "I'm so sorry to hear that you had to go through that. I've been there too. It's scary, and frustrating to have to find new transportation." Was his/her car not working for a while and has recently been fixed? Yep! I have been there too. Never a fun surprise to find out your mode of transportation is no longer working (and the timing of this is never optimal). Have they gotten tickets? Has their current rate gone sky high? By being sympathetic when I can (when I've been in those shoes before) or empathetic if I can (never had DUI), I can make my caller feel more at ease. I don't want the person on the other end to think that I'm essentially a robot taking information and spitting out a rate (that's what online car shopping is for).
Finally, when presenting the rate I will tell the person that I have done my very best to find them the best price to fit the needs he/she has. I pitch the rate with confidence because I know I HAVE tried my best to find the best rate possible.
I hope this helps!