tips to succeed in sales

Hopkins has his personal mission statement at his desk: I must do the most productive thing possible at every given moment. Mine is peppered throughout my published writing: Inspire people to pursue the awesome experience. Successful people identify what they are about and make their choices accordingly.

Without prioritization, it s difficult to be efficient and productive. Hopkins suggests taking 5 minutes at the end of every day to sit down, assess and choose the 5 or 6 priorities for tomorrow so you can begin with clarity. Successful people don t squander effort and energy on unimportant issues.

Many people talk a good game and then never deliver. Sometimes the cause is hypocrisy and sometimes it s simply being sloppy and careless. Successful people do what they say they ll do, and they pay close attention to detail so small issues don t get neglected and become major catastrophes.

If you are always heading the same direction as everyone else, you may move forward, but you ll have little control of your destiny. Successful people often figure out what everyone else does only to do the opposite, which many times puts them ahead of the pack.

For many each no is like taking a punch in the gut or a slap in the face. The way to get up and keep going is to remember that it s just business. Successful people know that the key to getting life s few brilliant yeses is to positively cope with the many noes you get on the way to receiving them.

The greatest craving of most people today is recognition. Unfortunately, so many people are so tightly focused on their own status and problems they are ignorant to the needs of others. Successful people recognize, support and encourage others on their journey, which brings synergy, energy and satisfaction to all involved.

Prospecting is a very time consuming and arduous task. Allocate a specific amount of time each day week? and keep to the schedule. It is always easy to put something ahead of the prospecting activity but make an appointment with yourself and dont break it.

Have your kid help you write an ad for your local newspaper and put signs up around town. Less is more when it comes to effective advertising, so skip the glitter unless your kid feels really strongly about it and make signs using bold markers with your address, the date and time of the sale and an arrow pointing in the right direction.

Have your kid ask a friend to chip in for the cause, both by putting her stuff up for sale, too, and volunteering to help the day of. Not only will this double the selection of items for sale, youll have an extra pair of hands to help. In the days leading up to the sale, look over and clean all the items. Theres nothing worse than selling a pair of jeans for $3 and remembering there was a $20 bill in the back pocket.

When it comes to rummaging through other peoples used stuff, presentation matters: Have your kids help you arrange all items by category, and make it easy to navigate between sections. Instead of throwing books into a box, line them up on a bookshelf for easy browsing. Hang up clothes on an old shower rod and order them by size. No one wants to dig through piles of precariously stacked T shirts, and you dont want to be the one stuck folding and refolding them. Place hot ticket items near the end of your driveway to lure in customers. If people driving by see something that catches their eye, theyll stop to take a look.