5-Minute Selling

CHAPTER 490% OF SALESPEOPLE SELL REACTIVELY

Almost all experienced salespeople sell reactively. This is harmful to the customer—and, worse, it's damaging to you and your family.

Most of us salespeople work in a reactive vicious circle that looks like this:

We get in to the office, and almost immediately, a customer calls or writes.

This customer needs something. It's almost always urgent. It's probably a problem.

Something is wrong. Right? And you have to fix it.

“Here's a hoop, now jump!”

And you jump. You have to. There is no choice.

This is customer service work, and you have to serve the customer. You cannot say, “I'm sorry, I can't help you right now because I'm doing my proactive communications.”

The work is to make the customer happy, and you are world-class at this. There are few better. It's what you do. It's what they expect you to do. So, you do it.

Once you take care of the problem or urgency with that first customer of the day, what happens? The phone rings again.

Who is on the other end of the line? Another customer, another problem, another hoop to jump through.

“Here's another hoop!”

And like circus seals, we jump. All. Day. Long.

We react to the incoming issues of the day. Then we go home.

The next day, we do it again. And again. And this is how we live—jumping through one hoop after another.

BUT THESE ARE ONLY 10—20% OF YOUR CUSTOMERS

Here's the thing. ...