The right stuff.

• Author: Levi, Steve
• Position: Salesmanship

THE RIGHT STUFF

YOU CAN'T MAKE A LIVing selling by accident unless you work for a car repair shop," quips Alaskan humorist Warren Sitka. But, mirth aside, selling by accident is exactly what many Alaskan sales people had been doing. In the days when there was money gushing out of every business in Alaska, no one had to be a good salesperson; he or she only had to show up.

But boom times have gone and markets have changed. Money is substantially tighter now, and competition for dollars that are left is ferocious. Sales still are being made, though. The pavement may feel harder and the shoe leather may be wearing faster per sale, but skilled professionals still are closing deals. Herein are some of their secrets to successful selling.

According to Steve Strait, sales manager for Anchorage television station KTVA, "The primary factor in sales is attitude. If you have a sales staff that is motivated, it shows in their sales figures. With a good attitude, it's relatively easy to sell. When that attitude starts to falter, you have problems." At KTVA, he motivates employees to sell using incentives, awards and fringe benefits.

Paul Bingham, owner of Paul D. Bingham Sales Training, says "selling" is a misleading term. "Nobody sells. That's a myth," he explains. "Few things are sold, but there is a lot bought. The first problem many sales people have is believing that they are selling a product. What they should be doing is letting each customer express his or her need and then provide a product or service to satisfy that need."

Bingham says the salesperson's greatest enemy is disorganization; his or her greatest attribute is perseverance. The industry figure for the average number of calls to make a sale is 5.6. But Bingham says sales people often tend to make a lot of calls that more accurately should be called social calls.

"Persistence pays. My hardest sell, for instance, was to a man whose secretary was hard as nails. After I'd tried everything, I found out where the man lived and showed up at his home at 7:30 a.m. with coffee, toast and a limousine to take him to work. That was a 45-minute sales call and I closed," says Bingham.

He suggests a good avenue for sales people having a hard time bypassing a secretary is a telegram. "People read telegrams," he says. "They go right to the person to whom they're addressed and they don't stop at the front desk. Making sales calls between 5:00 and 6:30 p.m. is another good idea. The only people who are...