Are the following phrases becoming a routine part of your sales day?

"We just don't have the money right now; come back and see us next year."

"Everything looks great, but we've put a halt on any additional spending right now."

"I would definitely sign up for your service if I was sure we were still going to be in business a month from now."

If they have, you are not alone. In fact, many of the salespeople I work with have been looking for ways to work around these objections, and many think the solution would be to lower prices for the immediate future. Before you jump to that conclusion, though, think about this: in spite of the rapidly changing nature of doing business in difficult economic times, having success as a salesperson is still ultimately based on your ability to build relationships with others, whether prospects or current customers. When you can accomplish this, you'll be amazed at how quickly the issue of price disappears.

You see, those price objections you are running into are simply that: objections. Despite what you're hearing every day on the news (we'll save that topic for another day), relatively few companies are actually at the point of having to close their doors. Most of them are using the price excuse as a convenient way to say "No" to the steady stream of salespeople they see every day. To change that "No" to a "Yes" takes the same thing today that it took when the economy was booming: rapport with your prospects. It goes without saying, of course, that you must provide a quality product or service at a competitive price, especially when your prospects and customers are tightening up their budgets. You also need to be looking for ways to provide additional value to your customers along with your product and service. Once you've achieved that minimum standard, however, the focus really becomes your relationship with your customer. And though your relationship as the salesperson with the customer is the starting point, I'm also speaking of the overall relationship between your two companies. Whether it's communications between their accounts payable staff and your credit department or the interactions between their warehouse staff and your delivery or service personnel, each component contributes to the overall relationship.

What, then, should you as a salesperson be focused on in order to maintain and improve your relationships with your existing customers? How can your attitudes and actions be directed in a way that will help you to build new relationships with prospects, thereby attracting new customers and overcoming price (and all of their other) objections?

For the past few years, I have been writing and speaking about an approach to selling called DROP DEAD Sales. What is DROP DEAD Sales? It's a method that can radically increase your results when it comes to building and maintaining great customer relationships; more than that, DROP DEAD Sales offers a way to improve the quality of the relationships throughout your entire life.

Why call it DROP DEAD Sales, though? People often wonder about a phrase with such a seemingly negative connotation to describe an approach to selling; after all, who wants to have their sales career "drop dead"? A little background information is in order.

The idea for DROP DEAD Sales was originally developed as a method for dealing specifically with problem customers. It has since been expanded to include all customer relationships, including relationships with your prospects, but it began with difficult people in mind. You see, many of us, whether consciously or unconsciously, wish we could just tell an especially difficult customer to "Drop dead!" Of course, we never (well, almost never) actually vocalize this sentiment. We usually just play the scenario in our heads as a way to purge the memory of having to deal with that person, and this can sometimes be an effective way to let the experience roll off your back and move on with your day.

At the same time, though, you probably realize that picturing a customer interaction in such a negative way doesn't do much to improve your overall attitude toward customers. In fact, you probably recognize that if you keep it up, you're going to turn into a cynic. You see the need for a better way to relate to customers. You realize that this kind of thought pattern has a negative impact on your entire day, especially affecting the way you interact with subsequent customers, co-workers and even family members.

So how can you disrupt these kinds of negative thoughts? How can a person who really feels like telling a customer (or anyone else for that matter) to 'Drop dead!' change that thought and replace it with a new, more empowering one? Well, why not use the words themselves and change their association from something negative to something positive?

Thus we have DROP DEAD Sales, an approach to selling (and life) comprised of eight foundational qualities that can help you achieve great customer relationships. Specifically, DROP DEAD Sales says that when you feel like telling a customer to "Drop dead!", you must immediately remember to treat him with Dignity, Respect, Optimism and Professionalism and at the same time work on developing within yourself the Desire, Enthusiasm, Awareness and Discipline required to do so. And, while this approach to sales was inspired by a desire to improve the attitudes of sales people toward their problem customers, I'm sure you'll agree that these eight qualities go far beyond dealing with difficult customers and even beyond just customer interactions. In fact, developing these qualities can improve every relationship in your life!

For example, developing the quality of enthusiasm toward your work and the help your product or service can provide to other businesses can change your entire demeanor when approaching customers. I've seen sales reps who rarely closed deals because of their timid, almost apologetic attitude work on this one quality; suddenly, their enthusiasm and excitement take off and they become top producers! They can't wait to see prospects! They become passionate about helping customers improve their bottom lines, and that enthusiasm is contagious. Prospects begin to respond in kind, and the rep has an opportunity to lay the foundation for a great relationship that has the potential to last for years to come.

Of course, such enthusiasm leads to a more optimistic approach to customers, which can have a huge impact on the quality of your relationship with them. You'll find that when you treat customers with an optimistic outlook, you can build almost instant rapport with them. Of course, you have to strike a balance: unbridled optimism in the face of a customer who is having a rough day can lead to problems. And that's where awareness, another of the eight essential DROP DEAD qualities comes into play; you have to be tuned-in to your customer's feelings in order to be an effective communicator.

So, how can you become a DROP DEAD salesperson? Check back here for an eight-part series of articles that will examine each of the aspects of DROP DEAD Sales in turn. We'll also look at how each quality interacts with the others to create a new, empowering attitude toward customers. Making this investment in self-development will be one of the best decisions of your sales career, if not of your life! Stay tuned for more, and until next time, happy sales to you!