PASSION is perhaps the best and purest tool in a salesperson’s bag. Seriously.
Better than product knowledge, great pricing or awesome features. Passion can carry the day and produce a CLOSED order! Really! Would I kid you?
I think sales people sometimes underestimate the value of pure passion in a sales campaign. I have had this ongoing dialogue with my sales teams over the years with many varied points of view (and being salespeople, there is no shortage of opinions). To this thought I also want to suggest to you that energy is a first cousin of passion-they need each other to thrive.
Passion & Energy Give You an Edge in Selling!
It seems to me, and to many clients I have talked with over the years, that passion can and will be a deciding factor in those sales campaigns where you need an edge. You cannot manufacture passion. You cannot pretend to have passion. You cannot make it appear like the 4:50 train home. You have to FEEL passion and excitement ( fueled by energy) about what you are saying and selling to your prospects! I think you have to feel it in your gut that what you are asking your prospects to do is exciting and the right thing for them. That’s the essence of passion. If you believe and feel it they will to and then YOU have an EDGE!
How Passion Helped Me Close a Sale
Many years ago, I was learning to sell e-learning when the market was very immature and trying to find some footing. Everyone was in the space and it was becoming commoditized very quickly. I was transitioning to this space after being at Xerox for 13 years and it was a whole new world for me. The point is that while it took me awhile to learn the many vagaries of e-learning, I knew in my gut this was a good place to be and I was excited to be at the front of the wave. That excitement came out when I talked to clients. Most of which believed that people still learned the best in a classroom. I am sure you might be able to imagine how challenging of a sale that was. The fact is that the prospects caught my total enthusiasm and they got charged up. One client from a large pharmaceutical in New Jersey said to me after a presentation ..” I did not know anyone could get some excited about something so boring…”. I will tell you the next thing he did was sign the order and he was riding the wave of passion that I felt.
The lesson? Your sales will go up if you like what you are selling and do it with passion and energy and enthusiasm. Your clients and prospects will even smile when they think about the sales professional who made them actually excited about becoming a client!
So, love what you are selling and be passionate about it. Share that passion and your prospects will get it as well! Then you have an EDGE!
As always, let me know what you think and…Good Selling!
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