In the 1992 film, Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin put the ‘A-B-C of Selling’ into folklore, ‘Always Be Closing’.

In the movie, Blake (played by Baldwin), an aggressive ‘son of a bitch’ trouble-shooter from head office, is sent to an under-performing real estate office to motivate the sales team. His motivational approach was based on ‘fail and you’re fired’. This threat together with his ‘Always Be Closing’ approach pushed the team to questionable and unethical sales behaviour to avoid the chop.

This is how many salespeople are seen by those not familiar with ‘good selling’ and sadly, it is also an approach adopted by those in the business who don’t treat the role of sales as a career and are looking for the ‘fast-money’. The ‘Always Be Closing’ approach requires the salesperson to be unrelenting in their efforts to close the deal.

Fortunately those who are professional in their approach to sales understand what good selling is about and do not adopt this definition of the ‘A-B-C of Selling’. To be successful in sales, we need to be professional. We need to treat our customers with the respect they deserve and we expect. We need to develop a level of trust. To achieve these things we need to be good communicators.

So let’s redefine the ‘A-B-C of Selling’ to ‘Always Be Communicating’. Read more →