Most people are striving to better themselves. It's only natural. People are seeking better lives for themselves and for their families. Most want to improve their standard of living, increase their income, and put aside some money for a rainy day.

To excel in any selling situation, you must have confidence. Confidence comes first and foremost from knowledge. You have to understand yourself and your goals in order to develop an attitude of self-confidence. You must identify and accept your weaknesses as well as your special talents. This requires a personal honesty that not everyone is capable of exercising. In addition to knowing yourself, you must continue to learn about people.

In any sales effort, you must accept other people as they are. One of the most common faults among sales people is impatience. When the prospective customer is slow to understand or make a decision, too often a salesman becomes aggravated or overly aggressive. The successful salesperson takes his time. He listens closely to the other person. He directs the conversation toward positive aspects rather than negative ones. Knowing your product, making a clear sales presentation to qualified prospects, and closing more sales will take a lot less time once you know your own capabilities and failings, and come to understand and care about the prospects upon whom you are calling.

Because our society is built upon commerce, all of us are selling something all the time. Even if we are not promoting a specific product, we are least selling an image of ourselves to those around us. In selling, we all begin at the same starting line, and we all have the same finish line as the goal--a successful sale. Only by applying ourselves to the never-ending task of self-improvement will we ever be able to cross that line from mediocrity to success.

Utilizing the proper tools, anyone can sell virtually anything to virtually anybody. While it is true that there are some items that are easier to sell than others, and while some people work harder at selling than others, regardless of what you're promoting or even how you're attempting to do it, the odds can be in your favor. The principle error is one of impatience. With training this impatience can be harnessed to work in the salesperson's favor.

Selling is challenging. It demands the utmost of your creativity and innovative thinking. The greater your desire to succeed and the deeper your dedication toward the achievement of your goals, the more you'll sell.

Here are some basic guidelines that will allow you to increase your total sales and income. I like to call these tips the Commandments of Strategic Salesmanship. Look them over. Dedicate some thought to each suggestion. Adapt those that you can to your own selling efforts. You will likely be rewarded many times over for the brief investment of time you spend in studying these suggestions.

• If the product you're selling is something your prospect can hold in his hands, get it into his hands as quickly as possible. Include the prospect in the presentation. Let him hold the product in his hand, feel it, weigh it, admire it.
• Don't stand or sit alongside your prospect. Instead, face him while you're pointing out the important advantages of your product. This will enable you to watch his facial expressions and determine how and when you should begin to close the sale.
• While handling sales literature, hold it by the top of the page, at the proper angle, so that your prospect can read it as you highlight the important points. You don't want to cover the text or any graphic elements in your sales literature that might help convince the client of the product's value. Also, don't release your hold on it. You want to be able to control the specific parts you want the prospect to read.
• When you encounter a prospect who won't talk with you or provide feedback to your sales presentation, you must dramatize your presentation to get him involved. Stop and ask questions such as, "Now, don't you agree that this product can help you or would be of benefit to you?" After you've asked a question such as this, stop talking and wait for the prospect to answer. In most cases, following such a question, the one who talks first will lose.
• Remember that in selling, time is money! You must allocate only so much time to each prospect. The prospect who asks you to call back next week, or who wants to ramble on about similar products, prices, or previous experiences, is costing you money. Learn quickly to get the prospect interested in and wanting your product. Then systematically present your sales pitch through to the close when he signs on the dotted line and reaches for his checkbook.
• Review your sales presentation, your sales materials, and your prospecting efforts. Make sure you have a "dooropener" introduction that arouses interest and compels a purchase the first time around. This can be as simple as giving the customer a free item as an interest stimulator to make him more inclined to view your entire line. Offer a special markdown price on an item that everybody wants. The important thing is to get the prospect on your list of current buyers and off your list of potential clients. After you have captured the first sale, follow up via mail or telephone with the related but more profitable products you have to offer.

If you have worked hard at selling in the past, you will readily find the value in these suggestions. Study them. Apply them in your own work. When you realize your first success, you will truly agree that salesman are made not born.