Having the skills to become a good salesperson won’t help you in your job – if it’s sales-related – but your entire life. There’s a difference between a salesperson who hits their quotas and an outstanding one who smashes them. If you want to learn how to be a good salesperson, follow these tips:
Define a good salesperson. First, they’re passionate about their job and don’t approach all customers the same way. They have a strategy to get to know their customers’ needs and persona, therefore knowing to approach each customer differently. Resilience is one of their traits, and they’re confident about the products/services they sell. On top of that, they learn from unsuccessful deals and implement what they’ve learned to make the next ones even better.
1. Set a sales strategy that can be measured and repeated
Average salespeople don’t have a repeatable process or strategy in mind – they flow according to how they feel. On the other hand, good salespeople have a strategy in mind that allows them to close as many deals as possible. Of course, this strategy can be changed according to the customers and optimized.
Good salespeople track their results and quantify them. They don’t let the tiniest details slip because they understand that it’s the small things that differentiate them from average salespeople. Good salespeople understand the significance of analyzing key metrics in their results and adjust their strategies and processes accordingly.
2. Be confident in your product
Selling your product/service is one thing, and knowing every single detail about it is another. Back in the day, people didn’t have that much access to information, but now they can easily retrieve information about anything from the internet. So, you can’t give them half the information and expect them to buy because they will do their research.
To gain a customer’s trust and maintain a good relationship with them – which is one of the most important skills in sales – you must gain their trust by truly understanding your product/service and showing them that it will add value to their lives. For instance, for janitorial sales jobs, the salesperson must know the cleaning services and products very well and understand what the customers want, whether it’s basic cleanliness or a spotless place.
3. Listen
Good salespeople are a hundred percent present when they are talking with a potential customer. They aren’t just nodding at everything they say while daydreaming about something else – they are actively listening to the prospects. They know how to have an engaged conversation which makes it more meaningful and adds value to the customers.
They listen closely to what the customers have to say, not just spill information meaninglessly without understanding the customers’ needs and wants. It’s valuable for salespeople to learn and practice active listening because it’s a great and incredibly valuable skill to develop.
4. Make the messages personal
So, you’re a salesperson who has been drafting the “perfect” message to send to tens of prospects at a time and wondering why they’re not replying. It’s because when it comes to approaching potential buyers, there’s no “one size fits all” message.
A good salesperson should make an effort to understand the customers and send them a personalized message. This helps them market their product/service from a point that the prospect would find intriguing because they’re facing an issue in that area. Also, a prospect feels like a salesperson understands what they’re doing and finds them more credible, not just someone who wants to sell.
5. Be honest with the customers
As mentioned, the key to a successful sale is to make the prospect trust you and have a good relationship with them, and that requires you to be honest. Salespeople are becoming better and have stopped using the “say anything to sell” technique. They’re more honest with the customers.
Never tell your customers that your product has a feature that it doesn’t or that it will fit their needs when you know that it won’t. Although fooling them might close some deals, it won’t keep you in business for long – and definitely won’t make you an above-average salesperson.
6. Always follow up with your prospects
Some salespeople don’t follow up with their prospects after sending the initial proposal, which makes them miss out on many potential deals. They don’t even know if the customer checked the message or not. But, good salespeople have a database of the customers they approached, and when they approached them, and have a step-by-step process on when they should follow up.
