When I was offered the opportunity to share some of my sales and marketing information with the readers of TRO, I jumped at the chance. According to me, I have a lot I want to share. You probably already know I look at marketing and sales through my own personal lens. The older I get, which means the more experienced I get, the easier this “selling thing” gets. It has been my observation over the years that we shoot ourselves in the foot. We complicate this thing called sales and it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve been in the industry since 1984, and I want to share a few secrets and tactics that will help the home-based entrepreneur and storefront travel professional to become more successful. 
I consider you as entrepreneurs, as well as travel agents/consultants/advisors. I really don’t care what you call yourself, you are an entrepreneur. I’ll start by going back a few years. I was selling meeting services to a large corporation. It was my first sales call at this company. The first thing I saw upon entering the conference room was a huge bouquet of balloons. Here I am calling on the decision maker with hopes of selling my services when the first thing I see are celebratory balloons… next to a cake. “What are you celebrating?” I asked. As it turned out their current vendor (our competitor) had just won an award for the service they were providing. Wait a minute. We were making this sales call in an attempt to knock them out of the box, trying to replace their current vendor. And they are celebrating. With balloons. With a cake. With a trophy. This is called bad timing. I wanted to turn around and dash for the door. I said to my boss who was attending this initial meeting with me, “We can’t sell these people anything. They just won an award. What are we going to do?” My boss replied, “We’re here, let’s talk.” We sat down. We told them what we had to say and we left. To me, it was an embarrassing exercise in futility. Two days later my phone rang, and we were awarded the business. (Very strange!)
As all good salespeople know, when you are awarded the business, you stop talking. You graciously accept the opportunity and prepare to put your promises into action. Period! That decision puzzled me for a year. Having befriended the decision maker over time, one day I asked, “Dan, why did you give us the business the day after your current vendor just won an award?” He looked at me and said without the slightest hesitation, “Mike, it was an easy decision. I didn’t like them.” I will always remember his words. This is a key selling point: People do business with people they like. If you want to increase your sales, become more likeable. There’s also another point worth mentioning. People like people who like them. So, if you want to get to the point where more people will start liking you, start looking for more things and more reasons to like your customers and to like your prospects. This will work in your favor without having to exercise any manipulative sales tactics. Bottom Line: If you want to be more successful in sales, become more likeable.
Mike Marchev is always looking for a few more proactive travel professionals to join his Sales and Marketing Club, mike@mikemarchev.com.
*** You want more to think about? Check out my weekly podcast (Miked Up Marchev). Also listed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, and iHeartRadio.
