International Sales Best Practice – Stick With It

International Sales Best Practices

There are two more differences between successful salespeople and those who fail.  Today we are going to look at a very common reason why people do not make the sale.

International Sales Success

The people that come up to me to say that they want to develop an international business, but just have not managed to get anywhere, fail because they have not done enough.  They have not taken enough action.

When we look closer at the international sale, the salesperson often fails because he has not gone far enough, or deeper enough.  Success often means you have to stick with it a bit more than you think you need to.

Quote From Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book Of Selling

What’s the difference between successful salespeople and salespeople that fail? Stick at it until you win.

Last Month’s Cross-Cultural Communication Tip 2

Learn to always ask questions

In all fairness, in international sales the salesperson might think he has gone far enough.  It is easy to think that you have covered everything you need to address when you base your assumptions on a familiar environment.

The problem is that the international client might need more, or he might need something different.  This is part of the complexity in international sales.  It is not always easy to know just how long you need to stick with it.

Here is a tip to help you stick with it for as long as it takes to make the sale.

Questions And Not Assumptions

First, learn to avoid assumptions.

A good practice to cultivate whenever you have an automatic response, either negative or positive, is to stop your response immediately and ask a question to confirm your assumption.  With a little practice this becomes easy and slowly you will be able to recognize all of the assumptions you make.

Questions are key to creating good cross-cultural relationships.  The right questions will tell you whether you have stuck with the sales process long enough or not.  The right questions lead to international sales success.

To learn how to identify the right questions to ask your international clients you need to get curious and to question all of your assumptions.

So…

How many projects do you abandon before they’re complete? – Jeffrey Gitomer

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