"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" Wayne Gretzky

For some reason, I'm on a Wayne Gretzky Quote kick this week. At first this seemed weird to me since I'm not a hockey fan, but then I realized why I love Wayne's quotes:

1. He is a champion, and will be remembered as one for the rest of his life.

2. His quotes transcend hockey and are really relevant in sales.

3. My middle name is Wayne and this obviously means we have some sort connection. (this one may be a stretch)

On the sales side, I was reminded of this quote today because my wife and I were at parent teacher conferences for my step daughter Allyssa. At her school there was a great quote from Michael Jordan that said "You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them."

How awesome was that, believe it first, then you can do it.

So true, yet many of us have forgotten that it takes belief to carry things through.

Both of these tie into selling perfectly.

Customer walks on the lot and there are typically two attitudes that salepeople can take

Sales person A. Sweet, I'm getting a sale!

Sales person B. I wonder if these people will actually be buyers?

Sales person A will ask great questions to learn about wants, needs, desires, find out what motivated the customer to make their last purchase so that they can help frame their presentation in a way that will engage as many senses and buying triggers possible because they know this person will buy from someone and they belive that it will be from them, today, if they learn how to find the right car and present it the right way.

Sales person B will ask questions about credit, payments, money down, and then present a vehicle with all the things they think the customer wants to see, without truly knowing the customer because in their mind, they won't know if they have a buyer until there is ink on paper.

Sales person A will get in the close, present figures and say "I need your OK right here," becasue they will have the confidence that they've done everything to serve the needs of the consumer and they will 'know' that they're on the right car and that if they are on the right car...the customer will find a way in their mind, to justify the price.

Sales person B will get in the close...maybe...and say "well, what do you think?"

See, we need to have belief to close deals, and we need to have belief to have confidence when we open a deal. We need the belief that everyone is a buyer, the only questions are 'when' and from whom will they buy.

We condition kids to believe in themselves, then we grow up and throw away our own self belief.

How do we get it back?

Know the products

Know the customer

We're in the people business so understanding each buyer is the most important thing in the world. We need to know our products so that we can show the proper one to the buyer once we get to know our buyers wants, needs and desires.

The challenge we face is keeping that confidence after the situations where we feel like we didn't succeed. To help us all remember why and how to keep that confidence, I'll share one more quote from Michael Jordan.

“I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Whatever your history, you need to take the shot so that you can succeed or fail, because that is what will teach us to succeed in the future.

Now go out there and make today amazing!

Helping the best get better,

Mat Koenig

CEO & Founder

KonigCo

www.konig.co

#motivation

#automarketing