Transcript: Hey guys, it’s Ben Lai from Sales Ethos. Today I’m going to share with you one of my favourite one-liners in sales of all time. The phrase is “Always Maintain Initiative.” I’ve given it an acronym AMI, which also stands for Australian Marketing Institute… But this is MY acronym, Always Maintain Initiative!
Why “Always Maintain Initiative?”
Now remember, as a salesperson, it is your role, and you are highly paid for your ability to make things happen. If you’re constantly maintaining initiative, that means you are in control of the situation. You’re not relying on other people to give you results. And you are in control of your results and your future.
The reality for our prospects and our clients is that they are inundated with things to do with information. And as a result, they are distracted. If you leave a message for them to call you back, you can pretty much expect that they’re not going to call you back unless they’re a special kind of person, or you’ve made a very compelling case for them to call you back. Therefore you have to maintain the initiative.
Leave a message for them, but then say at the end “I’ll try calling you again in a few days.” Don’t leave things for them to do. The (more) things that you leave in on their side to do, the less likely it is that they’re going to progress it. We just have to face the reality that they have too many things on their plate. And… So this is one of the ways that you can provide great service to them. By maintaining the initiative, you’re actually taking tasks away from them. You’re making things easier for them. You’re making it easy for them to buy.
The “Always Maintain Initiative” mindset
What I want you to do is to think of yourself like a leader. A leader leads different followers to do something, to a better place, to a better outcome. In the same way you need to lead your customers on the buying journey on the buying process. You need to show them how it’s going to benefit them and make it easy for them to buy. This is a really critical thing to always maintain initiative.
Just remember whenever you’re sitting down you think “What should I do?” Well, just maintain initiative! Leave as little as possible for your clients and your prospects to do, and this phrase will serve you well for the rest of your sales career.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed that. But feel free to leave a comment below. What are your favourite sales one-liners? Another one might be “Always Be Closing.” It’s a bit of a classic one, ABC. Leave a comment below. Don’t forget to like and subscribe, and remember that integrity plus skills equals success!
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