The Big Secret To Seed Sales...

I’ve spent virtually every year of my career figuring out how to increase sales.

I knew that if our sales team didn’t sell more than last year and make more money doing it, chances were pretty good that the “coach” aka (me) was not doing his job.

After all, it was my job to make sure that our field sellers were executing our plans and the only way they could effectively execute was by knowing the “secret” to getting sales increases.

The secret is hard to define as a sales tactic, yet when field sellers learn the secret, sales increases become geometric.

Unfortunately, only a fraction of the field sellers know that secret and worse yet, even though every company manager understands the success comes from sales increases, they do not know understand the secret.

Most believe that sending their people to time management courses to increase efficiency through better time management is the secret.

And they also believe that assembling programs of all kinds will be the missing piece that field sellers need to sell more prospects.

As important as these strategies are, they are not the secret to sales increases.

The secret to sales increases is “Seller Chemistry,” the attractiveness of the field seller.

Seller Chemistry is an invisible power that certain sales people have that becomes clearly visible when they go into action to sell a prospect.

Chemistry Sellers have an appeal that is expressed in how they look, act and talk which grabs hold to a customer’s interest.

Seller Chemistry is that seemingly magical touch that certain reps have and others do not. It appears to be an almost “instinctive” ability to get people to like them and want to be around them. Chemistry sellers understand that every action they do has the capability of pulling the buyer in closer and getting sales results.

Companies who generate sales increases do so because their field sellers have that magic attractiveness that prospects and customers find so appealing.

So how do field sellers become “chemistry sellers?” First, one must understand that it is not difficult but it takes a lot of commitment and a chance of attitude.

After all, chemistry sellers are made, not born.

In most cases they are not even hired.

Chemistry sellers all have one thing in common; they consider themselves the most important part of the sales process.

Call it confidence so strong that it borders on arrogance, but chemistry sellers have an “aura” about themselves that causes everyone to step back, relinquishing control to the seller just because they sense how sure the seller is of himself.

Confidence means control and customers find it attractive…therefore it sells! Being attractive makes the seller stand out in front of all of their competitors while everyone else seems to fade to the background and become blurry in the minds of today’s growers.

All products, technologies and programs require confidence to be sold properly so when confidence is lacking, sales don’t happen because nothing else works either.

Believing in yourself is the core of chemistry selling.

Chemistry Sellers remove all possible confidence destroyers.

They avoid comparison data, the number one destroyer of confidence because it is all based on the past…which will never be repeated.

They know that confidence and belief is not a part-time thing and companies need field sellers who are confident all of the time, not just when things are going well. But these top sellers also have a support group, including bosses who have total confidence in them to be number one performers.

Chemistry sellers believe in their abilities so strongly because everyone else believes in their abilities too.

In George Bernard Shaw’s play: Pygmalion, an Englishman claimed he could change an average, unsophisticated girl, into a lady just by teaching her to think, talk and act like a lady.

She had to believe she was an upper-class lady in order for it to work. Well, she did believe it and it did work.

Educators have also tested this same theory in the classroom and found that when teachers believed that certain students, even below average ones, could excel, the students actually did better because they believed in themselves.

In fact, students often excelled beyond their so-called capabilities only because someone else put their faith and trust in them.

So many seed sellers today will never succeed because they are constantly being questioned and undermined by bosses who don’t understand how to create a top seller.

Top sellers are chemistry sellers who need encouragement, support and confidence in order to be effective.

Once they have those things, they can and will execute every program and process a company has to offer.

The seed industry is full of “formula sellers,” those who believe that selling is some sort of A + B system that when all the ingredients are in place a sale is made. They believe that if all the elements like products (a living organism), programs and knowledge are in place and sales calls are made, success will follow.

Well, there are thousands of great products, thousands of great programs and thousands of knowledgeable sellers.

Yet there are only a few who can create the “chemistry” necessary for the customer to want to do business with a stranger.

After all, chemistry sellers are not in great number, but they are easy to spot. They are the ones who increased sales this past season by picking up new prospects and got current buyers to buy more, not by relying on increased available market or market prices that created additional demand for their products.

They relied on seller chemistry the secret to sales increases.

Happy Selling,