How to be a Salesperson

How to be a Salesperson

There are two types of people in this world: followers and leaders. As a salesperson it is your job to be a leader. If you are a master at sales you should be able to read your customer and weave a story about your product to fit their amusement so enticing that they believe it is their personal idea that they cannot live without it. As Lau Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher of Taoism, stated “The best leaders are those their people hardly know exist.”.

            To bring the sale to a close and have a enjoyable experience for both you and your customer you must do five simple steps.

1.     Dress Appropriately. This is fairly common sense for most people, but others will struggle with this idea. Here is some motivation: according to Business Insider first impressions are formed within seven to seventeen seconds of meeting someone and fifty five percent of a person’s opinion is determined by physical appearance. The way you dress could well be the deal breaker between the two thousand dollar sale and the walk out the door.

2.     Have good body posture. If you are slouching over a display case or slinking around the floor you will not exude confidence. Customers will catch onto this and will be less likely to follow you or trust you. According to Business Insider During face to face meetings, 93% of people's judgments of others are based on non-verbal input like body language. How you stand, sit, and shake hands communicates a lot more than what you say. Eye contact is included in this.

What it means: To build rapport with another person, your gaze should meet theirs about 70-80% of the time. This lays the groundwork for trust by showing that a) you’re listening to what they have to say and b) you like them. Research also shows that:

3. Ideal eye-contact lasts roughly 7-10 seconds in a one-on-one conversation. Look away too soon and you risk implying that you’re untrustworthy.
4. Excessive blinking is suspicious. Adults normally blink anywhere from 15-20 times per minute. Our blink rate increases when we’re stressed or under pressure (ex. Bill Clinton’s blink rate clocked in at 92 per minute during his deposition).

a.      

5.     Greet/read the customer

a.     If you get stuck with the elderly gentleman that simply wants to know your life story as his wife shops find him a stool and like an ex-couple politely, but firmly, move on. You do not need to babysit him. In fact he will probably be happier no that he can simply sit and wait rather than have to maintain conversation.

b.     Expect stupid questions, do not laugh at the customers.

6.     Present the product

a.     Believe in your product

                                               i.     The customer is NOT always right. Often times customers will tell you that they know everything there is to know about your product and that you are selling something fake or too expensive. Although they may be an expert on that type of thing, you are an expert on your merchandise. One time I was taking care of a lady who was trying on a pair of Amber earrings. She clearly adored them, and also clearly wished for a discount. After several hours of requesting for a cut in the price I finally gave her the last NO. She went on to say that, as an avid Amber collector, she recognized these earrings as pseudo-Amber and again demanded a discount. I remained calm and professional, and held my ground that they were true Amber, and eventually she bought them at full price. 

                                              ii.     On another note, make sure that you believe 100% in your product. People either follow leaders or are leaders. Make sure that they are following you. If there is any hesitancy or dishonesty in your sales pitch customers will sniff it out like a dog to meat and will instantly jump off your bandwagon.

7.     Bring it to the cash register

Ideas for Process Analysis

How to survive three AP classes Simultaneously

1.     At the beginning of class, have everything ready, if you go to your locker you for a pencil you will miss an important piece of information that will for sure be on the Final

2.     Never look at the clock, it is your enemy. While in a boring lecture the clock will take forever for simply one minute, but when writing your essay for the AP exam the minute hand will seem like it is applying at NASCAR for a position.

3.     Do not hesitate to ask questions for clarification. If you don’t, the teacher will assume you know the answer and move on. If you do, the teacher will still sometimes move on, but at least you have notified him or her that you are confused and that they can put an extra four sets of questions about that topic on the test.

4.     At the end of class wait until the lecture is over, teachers like to throw in some important information right before you leave

5.     Turn in work on time

6.     Expect very little sleep and no social life

7.     Do not be involved in sports

8.      

Campus Racism 101 Precis

Nikki Giovanni, in her revealing essay titled "Campus Racism 101" informs black students on how to survive college and also remarks on the unnecessary racism that take place in colleges. Giovanni uses lists (got to class, meet your professors...), question and answers (What's it like to grow up in a ghetto?), and visual imagery (It shows a young man ... "Maybe I'll start a band") to lead her black readers into a predominantly white college because the benefits of education outweigh the negative side effects of racism. Nikki Giovanni, with her clear precise lists, makes it very clear that black people should get an education even if they have to endure the hardships of racism. Giovanni is directly addressing a younger population by informing them how to achieve success at college, but indirectly she is writing to a wider whiter audience by bringing forth the issue of racism.

Whoa! Personal Narrative

Narration

Whoa!

I won a goldfish in the fair when I was five and brought it to my castle triumphantly. Mom and dad were skeptical, but I persisted and thus a long line of goldfish pets proceeded in my future years. At some point, however, I grew disinterested in my swimming friends. Soon my parents were forcing me to clean the fish bowl instead of me willingly attacking it with a sponge. Eventually the fishes simply died off, and I never replaced them. This gave my parents little faith in my skills of animal care taking and when five year old me asked for a pony my request was quickly denied. I would not give in. It was my destiny to be a rider.

 The crusade to win a steed was short lived. I achieved my goal through tenacious subtle hints such as paying for my own horse back riding lessons to silently making “clip-clop” noises around the house. In seventh grade my mother consented to the beginnings of a search for a horse. The first horse that I could find for a reasonable price was a bay mare that hadn’t been ridden for a year. Her name was Winter, and I quickly signed the papers to bring her home.

Winter, the living being that I was now monetarily and physically responsible for, was no goldfish. The stable I boarded at allowed me to pay less if I scooped out the manure from her paddock instead of letting a hand do it, and considering the budget of a thirteen year old I went to work with a wheelbarrow everyday. This took much more time than simply emptying out the water from a fish tank once a week and I occasionally resented her for the heavy wheel-barrows I was forced to push.   There was also the matter of exercise. She bucked me off everyday within the first month of riding her. During the first winter that we had the horses in Alaska the wind blew to a chilly negative twenty degrees, and I donned an extra jacket or four to give Winter the exercise she needed through the foot deep snow. My fingers were so cold that I would often ride bareback so that I could burrow my hands in her warm fur as I rode.

One day I finished a considerably long school day and was exhausted. I went home and promptly fell asleep only to be awoken by my mother at around midnight with a basket of towels in one hand and a hair dryer in the other. “Al, you have to go dry off your horse before she gets pneumonia “ I rolled over and buried myself further into my blankets.  My mother pointedly left the light on in my room and I eventually stumbled out bleary eyed and grabbed a flashlight. When I reached the barn I saw Winter, standing under her shelter, calmly munching hay as her sides quivered from the cold. The extension cord nearby looked like a snake ready to bite my hand as I snapped the hair dryer into the plug and overturned a bucket to serve as a stool. Little streams, which were not there in the morning, ran past the shelter that Winter and I were under. As I removed the moisture from Winter’s fur I could envision tiny fishes swimming down the streams, escaping towards the ocean. Once her hair was fluffy, and she seized to shiver, I gave Winter an apple and headed back to bed, only to wake up in four hours to go riding.

My parent’s although doubtful at first, began to take notice of how truly passionate I was about everything to deal with horses. Instead of books, clothes, and shopping cash my Christmas and Birthday presents soon became saddles, bridles, and hay money. I was much happier to muck out a paddock then clean the slime out of a fish bowl, and eventually the rigorous days that it took me to pay for, clean up after, and exercise my horse became routine. That heavy wheel-barrow was as portable as the gold fish I brought home all those years ago.

Poetry Out Loud

Life Cycle of Common Man
by Howard Nemerov

Roughly figured, this man of moderate habits,

This average consumer of the middle class,

Consumed in the course of his average life span

Just under half a million cigarettes,

Four thousand fifths of gin and about

A quarter as much vermouth; he drank

Maybe a hundred thousand cups of coffee,

And counting his parents’ share it cost

Something like half a million dollars

To put him through life. How many beasts

Died to provide him with meat, belt and shoes

Cannot be certainly said.

          But anyhow,

It is in this way that a man travels through time,

Leaving behind him a lengthening trail

Of empty bottles and bones, of broken shoes,

Frayed collars and worn out or outgrown

Diapers and dinnerjackets, silk ties and slickers.

Given the energy and security thus achieved,

He did . . . ? What? The usual things, of course,

The eating, dreaming, drinking and begetting,

And he worked for the money which was to pay

For the eating, et cetera, which were necessary

If he were to go on working for the money, et cetera,

But chiefly he talked. As the bottles and bones

Accumulated behind him, the words proceeded

Steadily from the front of his face as he

Advanced into the silence and made it verbal.

Who can tally the tale of his words? A lifetime

Would barely suffice for their repetition;

If you merely printed all his commas the result

Would be a very large volume, and the number of times

He said “thank you” or “very little sugar, please,”

Would stagger the imagination. There were also

Witticisms, platitudes, and statements beginning

“It seems to me” or “As I always say.”

Consider the courage in all that, and behold the man

Walking into deep silence, with the ectoplastic

Cartoon’s balloon of speech proceeding

Steadily out of the front of his face, the words

Borne along on the breath which is his spirit

Telling the numberless tale of his untold Word

Which makes the world his apple, and forces him to eat.