Sales with Anja Rogan Pirc
Selling is a difficult skill. Graham's career started in sales but we have Anja Rogan Pirc to tell us all about sales from her perspective. Anja is world famous because she's an international best-selling author, a public speaker and a charming person!
Also, we just want to congratulate Kevin again on becoming a Grandad to baby Louis! Sending love to the family!
Anja's journey to sales
It started in sales door to door about 10 years ago. Anja was originally an au pair in England and she felt bored when the kids were at school or when she had the weekend off. Therefore, Anja was creating holiday and Christmas cards - being a creative soul - and sold them door to door. It was just for fun really.
But, when she went home, reality sank in that she needed to either go back to university or get a job. Without a diploma, it is hard to get a job that isn't low-qualification, such as cleaning, etc. But, another option was sales and so Anja tried that, selling vacuums door to door. Though this sounds boring, Anja was excited about this product because it was a vacuum that helped people with asthma. For her, this job wasn't just about selling. It was about the product itself and being excited about it, to help her sell well.
From there, Anja found other industries which she helped promote. She was present wherever she could be, helping run seminars for example. When she was behind the curtains, there were lots of opportunities to learn for free because you can see how everything is put together and managed. This grew into the position of sales manager and then sales executive within different global companies.
http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sales-and-women.mp4
Value
Anja keeps returning to the idea of value - it's your value that makes you stand out. In Kevin's industry, quite a lot of the leaders - indeed, almost all - will be male. So, a stand-out woman will stand out because of her extra value.
Selling in general comes down to the idea of an attractive value proposition, and it's this proposition that has to come through rather than the personalities or genders (etc) of the people selling.
Graham notes that, on Anja's website, she has the sort of questions that Graham (being a fellow salesperson) knows he would have. It shows her skill because sometimes you might have had a rubbish day. One of the first questions Anja poses is:
"Are your potential clients or customers currently saying no to you?"
And this tunes into your struggle with sales.
So, why are they saying no?
http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Why-are-people-saying-no.mp4
This is such a broad question because everyone has different perspectives. Some have mainframe issues, where they struggle with the product; they might not feel confident or competent enough to deliver that product. Others may simply not be able to sell right - you don't have a system and don't know what steps to take and how to take those steps so that the process feels natural and leads to an organic and certain question "when do we start?"
The price won't matter because both the value and the process feels right. Some people struggle to gain converts because they are going to where they think they are needed. Now, we know that you should never go to where you are needed. You should go where you are wanted. Essentially, the reason prospects say no will not be the same for everyone. But these aspects will filter through the reasons for you personally.
One of the key things to remember - no matter what we are selling - is we are selling to people. Marketers and sales people are people-people. Whatever it is that throws you off - whether it just be a bad day or a more long-term problem - Anja helps sales people look at that problem and deal with it and show how it effects prospects.
http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Getting-underneath-the-surface.mp4
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