My opening line for all my sales classes at UC always was, "90% of closing sales is showing up."
My students, expecting to learn killer closing techniques, and complicated methods for getting people to buy, were usually taken aback by this. How could sales just be about showing up?
It's simple, really. If you have a good product or service, targeted to the right market, explained well, delivered successfully, then all you have to do as a salesperson is not screw it up. And how do salespeople screw things up? By not showing up.
They are late to meetings. They miss deadlines. They forget important details. They make mistakes in contracts or emails.
Failing to pay attention to detail has sunk far more sales than bad product or service.
And I know that salespeople "aren't detail-oriented," blah blah. Look, your one job is to show up where you are supposed to be, when you are supposed to be there, with what you said you'd have. That's it. If you can't master that, you aren't going to be successful at sales.