He’s a fellow Englishman who sung, produced, wrote and acted his way out of obscurity and into our attention time and time again.
He used his strong personal image to leverage this attention to sell.
His name was Davie Bowie and here are his top 5 rules of sales success –
1) Learn from your bad sales experiences
Everybody screws up a deal at some point.
Even if you’ve lost the business make sure you take something away from it.
“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.” – David Bowie
If you’re getting moderate success in sales it’s easy to just plod along and keep making the same mistakes.
You might not even realise that you’re screwing up on the same objections every time until you take the time time to review your mistakes and learn from them.
2) Keep trying to find new ways to astound your customers
Similarly never stop experimenting with new ways to add value to your customers.
We started sending out a bunch of stickers to everyone who leaves reviews for the Salesman Podcast on iTunes.
Plenty of people left reviews themselves, we didn’t really need to add this extra incentive but immediately when the stickers started showing up at listeners homes they facebooked, tweeted and shouted to the world how thrilled they were.
A simple, cheap, quick experiment like this might bring you way closer to your customers inner circles.
3) Believe in the product you sell
I used to think other wise but I’m now more convinced than ever that you have to love your products if you’re going to have massive success in selling them.
Customers are more informed on specifications, pricing and the competition than ever. Therefore a passionate salesman can really make the difference.
Prospects know that if you’re genuinely excited to be selling your product or service that you’re not trying to rip them off or manipulate them.
Their guards drop and you’re more likely to close the deal.
4) Forget about money and just be passionate (the money will follow)
This is something that I can’t agree with 100%.
When you’re at the bottom coming up, chasing the cash is important. It’s the life blood to your career.
You need the cash to invest in yourself, pay rent and to build your network.
At this point cash is king.
“As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?” – David Bowie
However once you reach the $60k+ bracket money seems to matter less and less the more and more you acquire.
Don’t get me wrong, you should be pushing for $100-$250k+ a year. You should be ruthless to close deals and steal business away from your competition but at this point money isn’t the biggest motivator.
What you’re doing with the cash be it – investing, giving it away or leveraging it to build your legacy becomes more important and more motivating.
The passion from these endeavours is what takes you from the little boy cash to playing with the big boys.
5) Be happy and your customers will be too
For whatever reason, smiles are contagious.
Do you want your prospects to be happy to see you or irritated?
“I’ve never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.” – David Bowie
Throw out smiles every opportunity you have. They’re free, easy and they do make a difference in the world of sales.
Smile :).
