Any other sales professionals frustrated by the "experts" contradictions?

I have been helping people for a very long time. The only consistency that I have found in sales is that it is inconsistent. This is because everyone is different, with their own ideas, thoughts of how things should be done, how to do business, buying and even owning preferences. Considerations about everything under the sun.

When selling... sell yourself, product or service to the problem. Be the solution to the need. The fulfillment of the want. Talk to the person, not the considerations.

There are so many experts, gurus and "he's the man" systems out there and each one has a set of principles and practices that lead to the same thing - money.

I live by what my Papa told me when I was 5 years old. In his words - You just do the right thing and money will follow. In 56 years that has never been wrong in any thing I did, action I took, or even didn't take, in providing another with a product or service.

Read 10 books and you will get 10 different opinions.  The one that really frustrates me is the thought that you will become successful in sales without prospecting.  Just be a "social media" king and you will be uber successful.  Those that preach that doctrine either have never actually been on the front lines or are just trying to sell you their latest program.  Social media is a "touch' but not the only solution to sales!

Dear Joe,   I don't know if this helps or not, but in the charity business of which my wife and I are extremely qualified over the years just to get people to do the right thing as they should such as volunteering to help their community it is the most difficult challenge we have ever faced.    I'm sure their moral compass tells them to jump in with both feet, but for some reason they just DON'T!!!    Your thoughts???   "No More Starving Animals",   Henry

Experts in any professional fields gives you the theories how to accomplish success / goals as per their respective expertise in their own field. You need not follow exactly what they recommend but understand how they were successful and see how you can apply their strategy to your product and services which is unique from theirs.
In short, know your product uniqueness with your competitors product, target those Customers who has the problems and that your product is the actual solutions to their problems This is the strongest / successful strategy to prospect your Customers and drive your sales targets with those Customers.
I don't think there are any experts who can give you a guaranteed strategy / undertaking to meet your Sales targets. If you find one go with it and share a part of your profits. It would be a secured & successful Business.  Hope this makes sense.

I think you can ssk 5 people 5 questions andget 5 different answers.   Do what works for you.

I sell big equipment & machinery and my prospecting consists of looking for people who are trying to sell it them selves , and have paid big money to advertise it and upon there 2 or 3  advertisement i cold call and ask if they would consider a professional selling it for them.I explain to them that i have one job to do and unlike them my job is selling equipment and i answer my phone 7 days a week from 6.30 am to 9.30 pm and i return phone calls or e mails same day in most cases..I sell world wide so many buyers have no idea what the day or time it is were i am so selling a big yellow machine happens a lot on Sunday  happens quite a lot.The one sales secrete that has worked well for me and was given to me many years ago by a great sales man is a silver tie pin with the following inscription YCSSOYA (YOU CANT SELL SITTING ON YOUR ASS ) r ember if you get one sale in ten then you need to make nine call,s and as for books a good who done it might be nice.

Maury has "nailed it again!" Don't get caught up in the "minutia" or the "expert" roadblocks! I have been in sales my entire life, traveling to the U.K. and the Middle East...and yet when I am delivering my professional selling skills seminars, I will always get "one wise guy" that wants to state in front of the entire class: "Those that can sell SELL, and those that can't TEACH!" They violate the rule: "Praise in Public, criticize in Private!" And so, I usually return the favor and "lacerate them" in public and remind them "I had to first sell the seminar" before being able to "sell it again during the seminar" then I close it out by stating that I will earn more in one day than they will make this month! Ha! We all laugh, take a break while the "ignoramus" and I shake hands and laugh it off!!! So, my friend, FOCUS on the pennies and the dollars will manage themselves. If you set 15 appointments per week, that's seeing 3 people every working day, you will earn 6-figures even if your closing ratio sucks! It's always been about the "law of large numbers!" This is not rocket science! Sell the relationship and whatever else you are marketing is merely a by-product!  All the best!

There’s a statement I once heard that seemed cliche until I lived it: 
“if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”. 
What is an expert anyway? Someone who has experienced a situation with 10,000 variables, where the outcome was one of 10,000 things? That could be considered an expert in 1 in 100million outcomes.
Your business, you, the economy,  your decisions, available capital, resources, etc are unique to you. No one is a better expert on that than you. Guidance is most helpful when based on the fundamentals. Learn the fundamentals and then test/measure until you move the needle. I’m no expert, just a believer in what I’ve experienced when using Fundamentals to  move the needle in the direction I intended it to move. 

I have always followed a simple rule which works well regardless of what "Sales system" you employ. You have two ears and one mouth, the message is listen twice as much as you talk. What are you listening for? The EMOTION behind the need to buy. People purchase things to resolve four major wants: Control, Acknowledgement, Safety and Growth. Listening carefully for the clues your prospect gives you will help identify their feelings about what is most important to them. Once you know that, you could use all the sales mechanics whether they conflict or not!