In: Categories » Business » Management » Pave your way to sales success
| Everyone knows that building a successful sales business and having a successful sales career is no easy task. But having greater control over one’s selling skills can make all the difference for sales persons. Do not make the mistake of confusing the idea of controlling a situation with manipulating it. Some sales people treat the two as being interchangeable, and because of these few salespeople in general are perceived as being unethical. By having control, one simply means thinking of the sales scenario as being a fair ground. The general mindset of a salesperson is that the client has the upper hand. Remember you are entering the client’s to sell something that is of relevance to him/her. Obviously, the ultimate decision to pay and buy rests with the client but that is no reason to feel intimidated. And either way, it is the salespersons job to lead him to that decision to buy. And how does one do that? Broadly speaking, like in every other career, in order to be a successful salesperson you must be comfortable with that role. And this is of great importance because of the kind of attitude people have towards salespeople. In sales they say that if you don’t believe in the product you are selling in, then chances are you won’t be able to sell it. By that same logic, to succeed as a salesperson it is important that you are convinced about your skills and that you are not going to get bogged down by the attitude of the people around you. Once your relationship with yourself is settled, you need to work on building a healthy relationship with your prospect. How do you do that? Well, it is not an unknown fact that clients hardly ever give enough time to salespersons. But a paucity of time is no reason for you to rush in to the client with the word ‘sell’. It is imperative that you understand the need of the client by asking the right questions, and giving the right answers to the questions that are posed to you. You may already know the need, but asking questions will help the sales process. Given the constraint of time, it is advisable that get to know a few things about the client over a phone call before the meeting. Establish a clear agenda and a time frame for the meeting, and let the client know the same. In addition to giving you a reasonable understanding of the client, this kind of specificity will position you as a straightforward and credible person. As a salesperson you will encounter different kinds of people. It is important that you not only understand these different kinds of people, but also know how to deal with them. Knowing a prospect does not involve any psychological studies, but just an understanding of his behavior or attitude, for instance, would be enough. During the meeting with the client a question-answer session, however brief, gives a sense that the solution you are providing is tailor-made to meet his/her requirements. You should frame the questions in such a way that they lead the client to reveal his/her areas of concerns. In fact, during the sales process at the point of time when you extract the concerns of the client, is when you know you have gained control over the situation. People’s buying decisions are often based on emotional reasons. Now that you know the concerns of your client, all you have to do is make him/her see how your product/service is the natural choice to resolve the concerns. Nobody likes feeling like they are being fooled, so be as transparent as you can be in your dealings. Also, let the client get a sense that the sale you are making is in his favor. For any sale to be a success both parties must feel benefited. And now comes the most crucial part of the sales process – closing. This is that other stage where many salespersons falter. Why? They are unsure, scared even, of the word close. Once again, it is only a matter of mindset. You have to bear in mind that the sales process is mutually beneficial, and what is being sold is something that will help clients resolve some crucial areas of concern. So why hesitate? Do not ever hesitate to ask for the close, or to ask for the payments. A client would appreciate straightforwardness, and more so because he/she is probably anticipating deviousness. So keep those apprehensions aside, and go right ahead and pave your way to achieving success in the ever-so exciting field of sales.
 |
legal disclaimer
1) Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article as well for any and all copyright infringements by authors and writers. E-articles is a free information resource. If you suspect this article for any copyright infringements, please read the Terms of service and contact us to investigate the problem.
2) The E-articles directory team is not responsible for inaccuracies, falsehoods, or any other types of misinformation this tutorial may contain and will not be liable for any loss or damage suffered by a user through the user's reliance on the information gained here. Please read the Terms of service
Useful tools and features
If you like this article (tutorial), please link to it from your web page using the information above. Linking to this page, this is the only way to help us improve our service, the same time providing your visitors with a way to improve their online experience.
related articles
For many enterprises, the challenges have been met by pursuing four management initiatives: 1. Provide systematic and comprehensive knowledge management distributed widely throughout the enterprise and guided (not controlled) from central management. KM is backed up by monitoring, incentives, and detailed understanding of knowledge mechanisms to ascertain appropriate actions everywhere. 2. Pursue integrative management practices on personal, departmental, and business unit levels,...
2. Relevant Decision Information and Management Practices
No sound decisions are possible in a business setting without relevant information being available to the decision-maker. This axiom applies to all types of decision situations, whether large or small. The value creating company has established information sources and access to this information to enable persons at all levels to make rational trade-offs, whenever faced with an issue to be decided. This requires several supportive management practices: • Sharing of relevant information. • Decision...
3. The Five Step Problem Solving Approach
People who are really good at solving problems go about it systematically. They have a way of placing the problem in context. They don’t jump to conclusions. They evaluate alternatives. A good way to become a systematic problem solver is to adopt the following five-step problem-solving process. Identify the problem. This is critical: you must try to solve the right problem. Don’t try to solve a problem the customer sees as low priority or unimportant. Identify the...
4. Account Managing Versus Account Leading
Let’s look at the difference between managing and leading. The two terms are sometimes used interchangeably—such as when people refer to someone in a management position as a leader—but there are important distinctions. The difference between managing and leading is the difference between doing things right versus doing the right things. Doing things right means being efficient. Doing the right things means being effective. Sales leaders are efficient when they get quotes and other work...
5. How to Become an Exceptional Sales Professional
The two things that salespeople must do are to sell and to keep customers happy. It’s not complicated, but it’s not easy. One of my assignments while at AT&T involved designing a sales competency model. We wanted some way of assuring ourselves that our salespeople could sell effectively. We wanted to know we could relied on them to consistently deliver results that we and customers wanted. We were especially concerned about preventing mistakes by identifying the skills or knowledge they needed ahead of time....
6. Economic Incentives when creating a company
One of the critical attributes of the value creating company is the degree of attention paid to providing appropriate near-term and long-term incentives to its managers and employees. There should be a true causeand- effect phenomenon surrounding incentives and results. If a company’s incentives are based on some of the common, broad accounting measures such as return on equity, or return on assets, or even earnings per share, there is a real risk that decisions, large and small, will suffer from the economic disc...
7. Management Philosophy Choices Practices and Actions
Management Philosophy The company’s management pursues the hologram philosophy whereby each employee is a replica of the whole and understands management’s visions and the company’s daily business situation and long-term strategy. That allows employees to make independent decisions to implement corporate strategy, while taking into account short-term tradeoffs, broad business implications, and other consequences. The management recognizes that people are “incredibly ...
8. General errors and mistakes that commited by Business Companies
Companies have worked hard at restructuring themselves in response to the dramatic changes that have occurred in the economy and in their marketplaces in recent years. Here are a few thoughts concerning some of the serious errors companies have committed in their efforts to change: Mistake 1: Laying Off Only Lower-Level Support Staff Personnel decisions are made by senior and middle management— who, of course, are not going to choose themselves for outplacement. As a result, the company ends up ...