THE MOST IMPORTANT SALES TOOL: YOU!

Paper or power tools don’t make sales. You do. You are the most important tool in your toolbox. Use your time, efforts, skills, and strengths effectively to gain higher efficiency, lower stress, higher productivity, greater happiness, and job security.

To best utilize your strengths, you need to know what they are. Regular assessment of your abilities and what works and doesn’t work for you is a smart practice. Assessing your strengths for the Skill and Will factors discussed in Chapter 11 also provides a platform for you to build from. There are two tools you can use to assess your strengths and weaknesses:

1. The Tribal Types Tool. Use the Tribal Types Tool as a personal assessment to identify how your customs impact your communication and collaborative selling activities. This knowledge explains why you do and don’t engage in certain activities. For example, as an Achiever I don’t enjoy detailed work, which causes me to procrastinate on some of the tedious but vital administrative work. My colleague, Anne Solomons of Touch Point Training Consultants, is an Expresser and doesn’t like to do work that keeps her in the office and out of touch with people, so she finds ways to work people contact into every workday.
2. The Sales Survey. Use the Sales Survey at www.conversationsthatsell.com to identify your benchmark of the Skill and Will components. The results of the survey make it easy for you to capitalize on your strengths—and suggest which of the components you may want to develop further.

Use the information from your assessments to pinpoint your self-development opportunities. For maximum impact, choose two or three specific Skill and Will components from the assessments to focus your development efforts. A tip for you: Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking you need to tackle the lowest scoring items. Often you will benefit more when you further develop your strengths and areas of moderate strength than if you pick the lowest scoring items.

Once you know where you want to focus your self-development efforts, you are ready for Chapter 13 and an easy-to-follow process that will help you achieve your goals.

The value of the tools in your toolbox is higher when you consistently incorporate the tools into how you manage your activities and prepare for your conversations. You will get more from your time and efforts and working smarter leaves you with more time and energy.