Developing Your Sales Skills and a Winning Sales Ability
Written by Priscilla Y. Huff
Tom Hopkins
Interview with Sales Training Expert and Best-Selling Author
Tom Hopkins is recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on selling techniques and salesmanship. He is the author of fourteen books, including How to Master the Art of Selling that has sold over 1.6 million copies. As an award-winning professional speaker and a master sales trainer, Hopkins has personally trained over three million students on five continents. His company, Tom Hopkins International, Inc., www.TomHopkins.com, is based in Scottsdale, Arizona.
While taking a break from his busy seminar schedule, Home Business® Magazine recently caught up with Hopkins at his home office.
Home Business® Magazine (HBM): Could you share with our readers a little about your background and what you currently do? Tom Hopkins (TH): When I quit college after only 90 days, I worked in a construction job for a year. My father was skeptical that I would ever amount to anything, so I was motivated to prove him wrong and decided to try real estate. When after six months my income was only $42 a month, I realized all the top sales producers had extensive sales training. I set out to learn everything I could about professional selling methods and found my niche. For eight years, I sold real estate and set sales records that still stand today.
In 1969, I was asked to speak at a national real estate convention, and that was the start of my professional speaking career. In 1976, I founded Tom Hopkins International, Inc., and I have dedicated the past thirty years of my life to teaching my success secrets in selling.
HBM: How can our readers learn better sales prospecting? TH: Thefirst thing I say to home-based business owners is that they have to treat their home ventures like a business and work as hard in their homes as they would at regular jobs. Productivity is all based on activity. If you have a low activity mark as far as follow-up calls, thank you notes, contacts, and talking to people, your production will go down. If you want to have a big month of income based on sales and productivity, you have to have the activity. The more contacts (you make) per month, the more sales — it’s as simple as that!
HBM: What are some common sales mistakes? TH: Not analyzing where your market is. Home-based business owners should go out into their communities and visit potential clients and introduce themselves to get a dynamic profile of the companies or clients that they are going after. Then the real work starts as you analyze your prospects’ needs and how your business can fulfill them.
Do not rely solely on e-mails for prospecting. Join organizations that make sense, your local chamber of commerce. This will place you around people who could be potential clients or provide you with leads and referrals.
Be sure to regularly read your local newspaper with a black, felt-tipped pen to search for people in the news who are experiencing changes like marriages, births, or promotions or are moving into your community. Contact these individuals, sending them welcoming letters and photos of the clippings of their newspaper announcements. Such introductions will give you the right to follow-up your welcome notes with visits.
HBM: How does one stay ahead of one’s competition in conducting sales? TH: Learn your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. For example, you make a call to a prospect who is a customer of one of your competitors, and say, “I am Tom Hopkins of XYZ insurance company and I am serving people in your area,” and the person replies, “Oh, I already have an insurance company.” Then I would simply respond, “Well, that’s good. Now, how long has it been since your needs were analyzed with regard to the latest things happening in the industry to ensure you are getting the best value for your money?” If the client says, “Well, I haven’t talked for a year or so with my insurance company,” then I would say, “Well, I’d just like a chance to give you a proposal and if I can’t do better than what you have now, then we won’t do business; but if I can and I save you money, does it make sense to visit?”
One of the key principles I teach is that you have to learn the art of questioning. If you ask the right questions, you will end up with the right answers you need for a final agreement and you and your client both end up happy.
HBM: Do you have some tips for making effective sales presentations? TH: After you qualify that a person or company has a need for your service or product, you should educate your prospect as to how they can use your products or services and motivate them to take action. Learn, rehearse, and practice your presentation. Use repetition, but not saying the same thing over and over. My sales “starter” book, Selling for Dummies, has additional presentation tips. HBM: What types of listeners encourage the most sales?
TH: The best type of listeners that I tell my students they should be in the field of sales are “empathetic” listeners who are understanding and wholly attentive to their prospects. They purposely try to decipher the hidden messages behind the words that are actually being spoken and strive to develop rapport with their prospects.
HBM: How is your home office set up so that it works best for you? TH: My home office, that I share with my wife who also runs her ventures from our home, is equipped with the latest equipment — fax machine, computer with e-mail, and such. As my company office is only 12 minutes away from my home, I also work there for two hours every morning that I’m in town.
But I want to stress to home and small business owners that as their business grows, they should find and hire the best people and pay them well. Delegating tasks will keep you from getting bogged down and free you to continue whatever it is that you do best for your business.
HBM: How do you work when you are on the road? TH: I rely primarily on my cell phone to conduct business with my staff and key clients. It is in my best interest to travel lightly to make flights that are often booked very shortly after one of my seminars in order to get me quickly to my next destination.
HBM: Do you have some final points about sales? TH: There are two things you have to do when you have any type of sales situation. One: Though Americans are known as the “Great Consumers,” they are also afraid of being sold something. You have to bring down those defense barriers so they feel at ease with you. Two: You have to make your prospects feel fulfilled, that they want to do business with you. You are building a level of trust.
If you stopped me in an elevator and asked me what is the secret to success in business and sales, I’d say, “Developing the personality and ability to have people like and trust you quickly.” The key is that if people like and trust you, they will do business with you.
Finally, give more to others than they expect, and they’ll do business with you not once, but for a lifetime. HBM
Priscilla Y. Huff is the author of 101 Best Home-Based Businesses for Women, 3rd ed., and her newest book, Make Your Business Survive and Thrive! 100+ Proven Marketing Methods to Help You Beat the Odds and Build a Successful Small or Home-Based Enterprise (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006). Questions or comments:
Previously published in the February 2007 issue of HOME BUSINESS® Magazine, an international publication for the growing and dynamic home-based market. Available on newsstands, in bookstores and chain stores, and via subscriptions ($15.00 for 1 year, six issues). Visit www.homebusinessmag.com
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