Ten Commandments For Increasing Sales

Robert J. Smith, BBA, MBA, MFA, Ph.D., is a business consultant and founder of Robert J. Smith Productions and Smith Profits.

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In 1956, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston, made its film debut. In the film, Heston, who plays Moses, makes his demand to the Pharaoh: “Let my people go!” While certainly different circumstances, working in the financial services industry for the past five decades has given me my own set of 10 commandments for increasing sales, and my rallying cry has become, “Let my sales flow!” Now, I want to share those commandments with you. The best part is that you won’t have to wander through the desert for 40 years to benefit.

1. Thou shalt commit to storytelling.

The film’s director Cecile B. DeMille is often credited with saying, “The greatest art in the world is the art of storytelling.” You want to frame your discovery meeting in a way that prepares your prospect to buy, and you can do this with factual storytelling. Use storytelling in every one of these edicts.

2. Thou shalt invoke reciprocation.

Prepare your prospective clients to reciprocate when they receive benefits from you. We all know that when someone does something for us, our nature makes us want to do something nice for them in return.

3. Thou shalt establish that you are in demand and your time is scarce.

Before they meet with me, my prospects understand that my time is not only valuable, my time is limited. People sometimes have to wait weeks to see me, and they know that when they do see me, our time is limited because I always have another client or prospect coming in right behind them.

4. Thou shalt present your authority.

If you are not yet an expert in your field, you need to gain expertise as quickly as possible. When I was a young financial advisor in metro Detroit, I had trouble getting Ford, Chrysler and General Motors executives to schedule appointments with me.

They all had much more life experience than I had, and many of them had been handling their own finances longer than I had been alive. I asked my general agent how I could gain credibility with them. Fortunately, he gave me great advice: “Earn your Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) and Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) designations. As soon as they understand that you know more about how money works than they ever will, they will meet with you, and they will listen to you.”

I completed those 48-month programs in only 13 months and received a surprise letter of commendation from my CEO for completing them in record time. I didn’t do so to smash the company record, though. I did so to gain the expertise necessary to get appointments and close sales to provide for my wife and newborn child.

5. Thou shalt prepare your prospect to provide steady referrals.

Make it easy for your clients to provide you with steady referrals by providing great service. I had a couple of snowbird clients who summered in Florida and wintered in Nantucket. They did better than provide referrals; they made appointments. I would fly to Nantucket on a Sunday night, and they would have my entire week laid out for me and their millionaire friends lined up to meet with me.

6. Thou shalt establish consistency.

Communicate with prospects at a minimum of once per month, whether that be in-person, through telephone calls, reports, magazines or newsletters. If you are not communicating with your prospects and clients, someone else is.

7. Thou shalt be likable.

If your prospects do not like you, they will not buy from you. Likability breeds trust. According to Dale Carnegie, 71% of customers would “rather buy from a sales professional they completely trusted than one who gave them a lower price.”

8. Thou shalt prove your concept.

Providing proof of concept is the fastest and most effective way to gain credibility with your prospect and instill faith in your product or service. Proving a concept is not only efficient and effective, but concept proof can also be accomplished inexpensively.

For example, the gym I work out at, Iron Bodyfit, is a French company with more than 150 franchises throughout Europe and around the world. However, when moving into the United States and Canada, the French company quickly discovered that potential investors and franchisees here in the States approach things differently. As a result, they did a detailed tracking of a test subject over a three-month period to gain proof of concept they could show investors.

9. Thou shalt prove that your concept works for many individuals.

Make certain to show your prospects your client success stories and provide them with testimonials. Show them third-party case studies whenever possible.

For example, the equipment that Iron Bodyfit uses is approved by the Food and Drug Administration here in America. And the equipment company enlisted the aid of The Mayo Clinic to develop a controlled study to support their hypothesis that physical training with whole-body electronic muscle stimulation is superior to conventional training alone in healthy subjects.

10. Thou shalt establish reviews, at least annually.

Keeping your clients informed can help cement your status as a trusted advisor, and client reviews are necessary to track client progress. For example, I always meet with my financial advisory clients at least annually to track their investment results, to see if their tax status has changed or if their protection needs have changed, etc. That way, we know that they are always on track to meet or exceed their goals. This final commandment can not only help you to gain more business, but it can also help you to gain more referrals as well.

Paramount invested more than $13 million (roughly $120 million today) so that Heston could part the Red Sea as Moses. That investment made “The Ten Commandments” the highest-grossing film in 1956, with more than $93 million made worldwide. It was also nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

The good news is that you don’t have to invest millions to increase sales in your business—just consider my 10 commandments for increased sales.

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