Sell More Printing When You’re 10% Pushier

Some of the very best sales advice I ever received was from Dave Fellman. It was such simple advice:

Be 10% pushier.

Simple. And powerful.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pulled that advice out of the dark folds of my memory. It has made such a difference so many times!

Here’s the context in which Dave F. offered that advice. My opportunity to work with him came at a time after I had transitioned from various roles at Express Press, an award-winning print shop here in Fargo, North Dakota, to roles at Ink Inc. and Websites For Printers (the predecessors to today’s Marketing Ideas For Printers). Those new roles meant I’d be on the front lines “selling stuff,” and that required me to adopt a new way of thinking.

A Quiet Salesperson

I didn’t quite fit the stereotype of the typical salesperson because I was a quiet salesperson. I would engage in a conversation, but at that stage in my life, I just didn’t connect those sales conversations to the sales process as much as I should have. Every conversation should move your prospect closer to making a decision about what you’re selling. There’s room for lots of nuances to help guide that decision, of course, but isn’t that the desired result, to move the prospect ever closer to making a decision?

Perhaps you’re at a stage in your career where Dave F.’s advice to “Be 10% pushier” would also benefit you. That doesn’t mean you need to be rude or obnoxious, but for a quiet guy like me, it just meant, “Don’t give up so soon! Just help that prospect get a little further down the decision-making process before you hang up the phone!”

There used to be a sticky note hanging on the side of my computer monitor that simply said, “Be 10% pushier.”

You may need that same sticky note if you’re the mild-mannered salesperson that has yet to come out of their shell (like I was so many years ago!).

Try it! That simple advice can be a game-changer for you, just like it was for me!

(This post was originally published on LinkedIn. Let’s connect on LinkedIn!)

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