7 Sales Tips for Sales Success
All successful salespeople are individuals in their own right and have their own secrets which make them so good at selling…
But there are several characteristics which most (if not all) successful sellers tend to exhibit.
Here we provide 7 quick sales tips that, if followed correctly, will guarantee you a high-quality sales performance and a successful sales career for the future.
1. Maintain a positive mentality.
A positive mental attitude is vital to your selling career. If you’re not positive about your work you will struggle to sell. With a negative mindset, you will appear to lack enthusiasm for your solutions, which is a major turn off for buyers. Be positive about your work and whatever it is that you sell and you will find it much easier to grab the attention of your prospects.
2. Be persistent.
Successful salespeople are persistent when prospecting and scoping out new business. To be a success, you need to be persistent when reaching out to your prospects, when gathering information on your prospects, and when booking appointments with your prospects. Most buyers are busy and have significant time constraints. You cannot, therefore, simply leave them messages and expect them to pick up the phone. You must be proactive and persistent when prospecting. Successful salespeople never give up and this goes hand-in-hand with a positive mindset.
3. Take care of your appearance.
You don’t have to be the best looking guy or girl in the office. But you do have to appear healthy and presentable if buyers are going to take you seriously and want to do business with you. Looking tired, poorly, scruffy or sick is another major turn off for buyers and can make your sales grind to a halt. If you’re genuinely ill, take some time off from meeting clients and do some research or prospecting which does not involve face-to-face encounters. If fit and healthy, make sure you look sharp and trim at every sales meeting. Smart clothing and professional accessories (such as a briefcase and business cards) can gain you a lot of credibility in the minds of your potential clients.
4. Be “in the know” about your prospects.
Do as much homework as you can on your prospects. Research the buying organisation’s key performance indicators, their current investments in similar solutions to those that you sell, their number of outlets, future expansion plans, and any other information that you may be able to use to your advantage.
A great knowledge of the prospect and their organisation can only be a good thing. After all, such research will enable you to work out whether they have the right budget for your solution and the information you gather may prove crucial to completing the sale.
5. Be prepared.
Successful salespeople are often so confident because they have prepared well in advance of each of their sales meetings. To ensure that you are well prepared you need to have a complete knowledge of your solution. Without such knowledge, the chances are that you will lack self-confidence and self-assurance during your meetings. You will be unable to answer the questions thrown at you by your prospects. In turn, the prospect will lose confidence in you, you will lack credibility, and you will fail to make the sale.
To be thoroughly prepared for sales meetings, you should also enter the room with a well-rehearsed presentation that exploits a compelling event in the client’s world. Furthermore, you should come prepared with a well-written sales proposal which outlines your objectives and the key milestones which are vital to making the sale.
To go that extra mile, you should also develop practical support tools and documentation that will aid the sale and identify all potential buyer concerns to ensure that you handle any objections raised by your prospect.
6. Be a master at handling objections.
Taking the above point further, it is important to bear in mind that master salespeople are also masters objection handlers. To be a master at objection handling you need to be able to avoid and anticipate objections. By pre-empting buyer objections and alleviating their fears before they have time to raise their concerns, you will significantly increase your odds of success.
No matter what you do, however, you won’t be able to avoid and anticipate every single objection. Through good preparation, master sales people are able to understand, qualify and then counter objections raised by their clients. They are then able to negotiate the conditions and alternatives for overcoming these objections before using the buyer’s motivation to gain a commitment to close the sale.
7. Develop your personal management skills.
Finally, successful salespeople effectively and efficiently plan and organise every aspect of their sales career in order to maximise their sales appointments within a certain timeframe. In addition to poor selling skills, unsuccessful salespeople often fail at their jobs because they are unable to achieve effective time management or organisational skills. This inevitably results in a lack of sales and, eventually, a lack of business and/or a loss of employment.
Successful sellers are able to effectively manage their sales appointments and are always on time for meetings. In fact, the best sellers are so organised that they typically arrive to sales meetings and other appointments ten minutes early. While this will not necessarily always impress your clients, it will ensure that you will not be late – which is always a disaster for sales professionals. Arriving late will lose your credibility and the buyer’s confidence in your competence as a reliable individual who is serious about their work.
Summary
By following these tips effectively and consistently, you can quickly increase your sales effectiveness and the number of deals you are able to bring to a successful close. It may be worthwhile listing these tips and analysing how well you currently think you perform each of the above functions. Score yourself out of 10. This will help you work out which areas you should spend time on and focus on the most.
Putting these tips into action may take a little bit of time, effort and commitment, but the rewards you will reap will be well worth it! Your sales performance will improve and you will become much more highly valued by your employers.
Written by: Steve Eungblut, Managing Director of Sterling Chase
