One of the best things about sales is that you can start at an entry level in an organization and work your way up. While it does help to be an outgoing, people-oriented person, it’s not essential because the ability to sell well is mainly a result of training and experience. While many sales jobs still require telephone conversations or in-person meetings, businesses are also using the Internet as a medium for sales, ranging from sales letters to making sales pitches after a webinar or a podcast.
A sales career offers you many advantages. It lets you be yourself, selling in a style that fits your personality and interests. When you’re talking in a natural way, it builds trust and rapport.
Another huge benefit is that it offers unlimited opportunities, as you can transfer sales skills from one product to another, selling increasingly more high ticket items as your career grows.
With that in mind, here are 5 tips on how to learn to become an excellent sales person.
- Learn the art of the sales pitch.
If there is one thing that all sales people have in common, it’s the ability to engage customers and describe their products in a way that fits the other person’s needs. Learning how to start a sales pitch is an art. Interestingly enough, in today’s world of advanced technology, the pitch alone, delivered via automation, makes it possible to sell without being there in person. For instance, it’s possible to write a sales letter or create a video on a website that does all the selling for you because of the structure of the presentation.
- Learn how to love learning.
As a sales person, you need a thirst for knowledge and a good memory to do well. When talking to someone, it pays to learn more about them, details that will help you to get to know them better over time. When you’re asked to sell a new product, something you’re unfamiliar with, you will need to know it well enough to answer all the questions a customer may have about it.
- Learn patience.
It takes time and patience to learn how to be a good salesperson. Even after extensive sales training or product knowledge training, you won’t automatically close all your sales. You’ll make awkward mistakes in your pitch or product descriptions. There is a huge difference between learning something and pitching it well. Rather than get upset with yourself for not being a quick study, you have to learn how to be patient with yourself, knowing that if you keep trying long enough, you’ll develop a fluent presentation.
Besides learning to be patient with yourself, you’ll have to learn how to be patient with your customers, too. They may hem-and-haw about buying your product when you’ve clearly outlined the benefits, delay payments, or ask you questions that you’ve answered a dozen times before. You can’t afford to get upset and you have to practice patience.
- Learn to practice.
The best way to master any new selling skills is by practicing over and over again. Practice rehearsing and practice talking to customers. Go over the successful and unsuccessful closes you’ve had with customers in your mind to figure out what worked and what failed to work. Through repetition, learning from feedback, and refining your approach, you’ll get increasingly better at learning one sales technique after another.
- Learn to personalize your presentations.
The worst thing you can do when talking to a customer is sound like you’re recalling a rehearsed script. When your presentation is stilted, when you repeat memorized concepts and power words, the customer will sense that you’re not interested in their needs, wants, and desires, but only interested in closing a sale. They have a sixth sense when listening to a canned pitch. It’s not enough to say all the right things; you have to tailor your presentation to fit your natural speaking style. You need to personalize the script so that it sounds like you are speaking in a more spontaneous way.
Companies Always Need Good Salespeople
The more you master these five tips, the easier it will be to sell. You will get to a point where you’ll be able to anticipate objections and smoothly close the sale. Since sales skills can be transferred from one product to another, one company to another, and even one industry to another, a sales career offers a high level of job security. Companies are always looking for good salespeople.
