It was my initial years in Sales. I was an aggressive sales person. [As aggressive as ever.] My colleagues then would vouch for my aggressiveness. I didn’t get bogged down with rejections after rejections. I knew I was getting closer to my prospects. It was an elimination process for me. I was eliminating customers who would not buy from me. It is like finding answers by elimination in an objective type question.
I regularly did prospecting, cold calling and what not. I did not have god fathers to help me. I qualified customers. But never moved anyone into archive. I did not underestimate any customer or his worth. I thought someday they will ripe and I will be able to harvest. I kept in touch with them occasionally and shared updates. I did not get carried away by large deals as well. And I did not walk out of any large deals because it might be a long drawn out process. Rather, I was ready for the long haul. I was built for a tough life. I learnt things in the hard way. Little by little. Didn’t lose any of those lessons.
But business needs to happen. Right? Nothing was going as per plan. I was making calls. But results were not forthcoming. Did soul searching. Where was I going wrong? I qualified customers. But that’s where the problem was. I didn’t ask the right qualifying questions. I slowly learnt and became assertive and did not shy away from asking the right questions. It is both my time and my customers’ time that were at stake. So, asking the right questions were important. I made many cold calls. And built my sales pipeline with one lead at a time.
I didn’t undercut. Nor did I throw freebies. My customers were happy to buy from me at a higher price. Really. Looking back at it, I can now confidently say it was grit and determination that kept winning deals for me. I thought I will win deals and I did. I thought I will win large deals and I did that as well. It has been a tough life but one that has taught me quite a few valuable lessons.
What lessons have you learnt out of your experiences?
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Happy Selling!!
