Learning how to get better at sales is often a long-term process for most people. Great sales techniques take practice and time to implement properly. However, everyone needs to start somewhere. If you’re trying to become a more effective salesperson in your industry, it pays to start thinking about how you can upgrade your sales efforts.
Here are some top tips on how to be a good salesman or salesperson.
The most important strategy to master when you become a salesman, is getting to know your audience or customer. The more you know about the people you’re selling to, the easier it is to tailor your pitch or sales strategy to suit their needs.
The reality is that every customer you speak to will be different, with specific priorities and pain points to consider. If you want to learn how to be a good salesperson, you first need to learn as much as you can about your general audience, then you need to dive deeper into the needs of your individual leads.
For instance, if you’re selling SaaS software, your customer is probably the technology leaders in the B2B market. With a little luck, your company will already have buyer personas to help tell you more about the kind of buyer you’re targeting, from the size of their business to their location, typical requirements, and spending budget.
To make your sales pitches more personal and therefore more engaging, you need to go beyond the basics of the customer persona to find out the individual requirements of each person you’re selling to. This requires you to ask the right questions.
Empathy is a fantastic sales tool, so get to know your audience by asking them what kind of problems they’re currently facing, and what they’re trying to do to fix those issues. For instance, if you’re trying to sell accounting software to your customers, you might ask them what kind of problems they’re facing with their bookkeeping tools now.
The answers your prospects give can help to inform how you pitch your product later.
If you want to be great at sales, you need to commit to constantly improving and honing your skills. Think about the areas of sales you’re currently struggling with. Some people have a hard time with cold calls, and hate feeling rejected when their prospects hang up the phone. Other people struggle with the “follow up” process and trying to book a second conversation with leads.
Make a list of the issues you need to overcome in your sales strategy and think about how you can start to improve in those areas. For instance, if you’re struggling with phone selling, try making a number of calls each week where you practice different strategies.
Setting specific, achievable goals gives you a direction to focus in when you’re building your sales knowledge and talents.
If you want to become a salesman or salesperson who constantly gets good results, you need to work on your own personality, and the confidence you display to others. Having good confidence (without being cocky) is essential to be a good sales rep.
If you sound nervous and uncertain, your leads aren’t going to trust you to suggest what they need to buy. With that in mind, practice your sales pitches and scripts until they sound perfectly laid-back and confident, without seeming rehearsed.
It might even be a good idea to practice pitching to your friends and co-workers, so they can give you feedback on where you might need to increase your confidence.
An important part of learning how to get better at sales is never assuming you’re the best salesperson out there. Even if you constantly hit your targets and reach your quotas, there are going to be people out there with better results than you. Looking for those individuals and learning from specialists is how you expand your skillset.
Follow podcasts where you can learn about sales techniques from industry veterans and consider working with mentors to help expand your talents. You could even look into investing in things like sales training courses, where you learn how to master things you might struggle with, like cold calling or account-based selling.
Sales calls are one of the biggest areas where salespeople tend to struggle. If you’re specifically having a hard time with your sales calls, make sure you:
