One of my greatest assets as a salesperson is that trust is usually easy for me to gain.  Part of this is because I am a straightforward person.  If I don’t know the answer to something, rather than make up an answer, I admit it.  People tend to respect this admission and also tend to believe the rest of what I say more readily.  A great deal of my success in sales came from this approach of being honest with people, admitting my own limitations, and conducting myself as a professional.

Another important part of building trust is how you communicate with people.  In my experience, there are way too many creative people who talk down to “average” people, as if the artist is somehow more intelligent than everyone else.  Of course, there are dumb people in this world.  Of course, there are artists who are very intelligent, but there are also some extremely intelligent people in all walks of life.  Just because a person doesn’t have a formal education in a particular area doesn’t mean that person doesn’t have the curiosity or capacity to learn.  Here’s two quick examples to illustrate this point:

My grandfather was about 6′ 5″ and close to three hundred pounds.  He spoke with a fairly thick Appalachian dialect that descended directly from Middle English.  He was a expert marksman in his National Guard unit that served in the Korean War.  His highest level of formal education was high school, and he was a rural mail carrier for thirty-three years.  People who never looked beyond the surface saw an ignorant hillbilly and dismissed him out of hand, but anyone who spent any time around this man quickly learned that his curiosity about the world was infinite.  He knew as much about geology and botany as anyone I’ve ever known personally, and on more than one occasion, he amazed me by telling me what certain rock formations meant or describing in detail the varieties of certain species of plant.  He was also an avid bird watcher and kept at least three bird-feeders outside his front window to attract robins, blue jays, and hummingbirds.  The people who dismissed him as dumb missed out on one of the finest human beings I’ve ever known.

My next example comes from when I started graduate school.  On the first or second night of my first graduate level creative writing class, a group of us went to have a beer after class.  At some point, the conversation turned to Bluegrass music.  I’ve never claimed to be an expert on any form of music, but I enjoy listening to all kinds, and Bluegrass just happens to be one of my favorites.  However, either from a severe head injury I received in high school or just genetic defect, I have a terrible time remembering the names of people and songs.  It’s very frustrating for me, but one Bluegrass artist I greatly admire is Bela Fleck.  I love what he’s done bridging Bluegrass with Jazz and respect his ability as a banjo player.  On this particular occasion, my instructor, who had joined us at the bar, turned out also to be a mandolin player in a Bluegrass band, and rather than embrace me for my interest in his music, he chastised and demeaned me because of my apparent lack of knowledge as he rattled off name after name of musicians who I simply couldn’t recall.  I’m certain that I had heard many of them play, but that deficiency in my recall of names gave him the impression that I was not sincere in my love of the music.

I tell that story because from that point forward, I lost trust in what he tried to teach me.  His looking down his nose at me and talking down to me as if I were simple cost him my trust.  That’s something I’ve seen other writers do when they’ve encountered fans who didn’t have the same depth of knowledge of a particular subject.  If you want to maintain a person’s trust during the sales process, you need to talk to them on their level as if they are your equal.  Selling is not a pissing contest, and it’s not a measure of how much smarter than everyone else you are.  It’s about making a connection with a person.  To that end, find what you have in common with them and focus on that.  Talk about subjects that interest them and let them share their knowledge and passion with you.  If you do this, you will find that people trust and respect you a lot more than if you smack their nose and send them running with their tail between their legs.

To many of us, this sounds like common sense, but in my travels at various conventions, I have witnessed countless writers, artists, and musicians get into these kinds of ego matches with potential fans and customers.  In those cases, the sales process is dead before it ever gets started.

www.thirdaxe.com

The foundation of any sale is trust.  Without it, the potential customer will never move beyond the “just looking” phase, and trust is a very fragile thing.  It must be developed and cultivated throughout the sales process, but it has to be established first.  A professional salesperson achieves this in many different ways.  A car salesperson, for example, dresses appropriately for their business situation, and the good ones carry themselves with an air of confidence that says, “I know what I’m doing.”  Most creative people do not wear business attire on a regular basis, nor should they.  In most cases when it comes to clothing, what would work for selling a car won’t work for selling a form of art.  However, there are still things a creative person can do to come across as professional.

First and foremost, always look your customer in the eye and maintain eye contact as much as possible.  People who cannot do this, even if it’s just from shyness, come across as having something to hide, and few people want to spend their money with someone who seems shady.  If you have trouble with eye contact, work on it.  If you are good at what you do, don’t be afraid to look at your customer as you talk about your work.

Also, if you don’t already have a brief synopsis of what makes you a professional in your field prepared, you need to develop this now.  This synopsis needs to be brief and poignant, conveying in less than twenty seconds why you are qualified for what you do.  A good synopsis avoids personal information and focuses on your background in your field.  Mine is fairly simple, and I use it at almost every show I attend:  “I have two books on the market and am currently working on the third in the series.  I have a Master’s degree in writing from the University of Memphis and have worked as an English Instructor for over eleven years.”  That’s it. 

Obviously, this statement has evolved over the years, and if you are just starting out and feel like you don’t have much to offer, don’t worry.  Talk about your influences and study in your field, but don’t overload your customer with “data-dump.”  Few people have the patience to listen to your dissertation on the cultural influences of the Aztecs on Spanish pottery.  Just mention the names of your two or three biggest influences and be done with it.  If the customer wants to know more, they will ask.  If you are more established, avoid overwhelming your customer with all of your achievements, as this can be just as annoying and might make you come across as pretentious.  In terms of this synopsis, brevity is the key.

The most important part of trust sounds obvious, but it can sometimes be the most difficult to maintain.  Be honest about yourself and your qualifications.  Don’t exaggerate yourself or embellish your background.  You may get over on some people for a little while, but eventually, you will be found out.  If your credibility ever gets damaged, you will have a hard time getting it back, and in the long run, your career will suffer.  For those of us still in the early stages of our careers, we sometimes feel like we need to “puff-up” our accomplishments to stand out from the crowd, but in my experience, talent shines through in the long-run.  Trust yourself and your ability, and your customer will trust you.

www.thirdaxe.com

From my experiences working as a professional salesperson during my hiatus from education, I’ve been contemplating writing a sales book for some time.  However, with the deadline for completing my third novel looming and a fairly heavy teaching load, there simply isn’t enough time to take on another book, so a very close friend gave me the idea to share my ideas via blog.  I hope to share what I learned about the sales process so that other creative people can improve their skills in marketing and promoting their work.  This blog is not geared to one particular group such as fellow writers.  Rather, it is intended to be an overview of the general sales process so that creative people regardless of medium can benefit.

Let me start by saying that I wasn’t a salesperson when I first started.  I was forced into the profession by circumstances, and I entered it reluctantly and believed some very common misconceptions about sales.  Let me also admit that I am not the greatest salesperson on the planet.  In my experiences, I have encountered some remarkably talented people who are true professionals and know how to adapt to almost every sales situation.  That being said, I personally have been fairly successful at every sales position I’ve held, and once I learned what I was doing, I consistently remained in the top ten percent at my last sales job.  Also, I have taken what I’ve learned and applied it to selling my books at conventions and festivals and have seen a pretty good increase in total sales per show.

That’s enough about me.  Let’s take a look at the sales process.

In any sales situation, you have to think about the customer’s mindset.  Very few people leave their house thinking, “Today is the day I’m going to buy a painting” or “I need to find an unknown author to read.”  They may think those thoughts randomly from time to time, but very few people make it a point to leave their home and their daily routine to achieve this purpose.  Even someone who is purposefully going to a gallery or a convention is doing so with the mindset that they want to know what’s out there.  In other words, in their mind, they’re in the “just looking” stage.  The challenge for the artist is to move them from the preliminary stage to the close.

To achieve this, you have to follow the four stages of the selling process.  Very simply, these stages are 1) Trust, 2) Need, 3) Assistance, and 4) Urgency.  Without all four steps working together, the sale will not come to fruition, and the artist will consistently hear, “Let me think about it.”  Let me explain something, most people who want to think about it are sincere.  They have every intention at that moment to consider your work and come back to buy it later, but then they get back in their car and start remembering trash day, soccer practice, the dentist appointment, and everything else in their day to day life.  The next time they think about you is a long time later, and by then, they have forgotten everything they wanted to think about.

That’s where the sales process comes in.  A successful salesperson understands that people love to be sold.  They love to be convinced that a product is right for them.  Even people who claim to hate salespeople deep down inside love the game.  It’s not salespeople they hate; it’s bad salespeople who make them feel mistreated or misguided that they hate.  That’s another big point about the sales process.  You don’t have to lie and cheat to sell.  A professional salesperson doesn’t try to fit a square peg in a round hole.  If the product you’re selling, whether it be a painting or a CD or a book, does not work for that person, don’t waste your time with them.  Find the customers who are the right fit and sell those people.

That’s all for now.  Tomorrow, I’ll start talking about the first stage, Trust, and explain some of the ways to establish the foundation.

www.thirdaxe.com