Learn to sell the correct way and this skill will stay with you throughout your sales career. Learning to sell is a mixture of mindset, application, art and skill. While learning to sell doesn’t have to be overly complicated, it also shouldn’t be reduced to a just learning how to push for an appointment or trying to close a deal using pricing. The real way to learn to sell is to fully understand the foundations of selling including strategy, sales process and sales methodologies.
The first thing to acknowledge when learning to sell is that selling is a producer’s role. There is no avoiding that anyone involved in selling will be expected to sell something and hit targets. Yes, sales training and support will be provided but there is no hiding the fact that salespeople are paid to bring in customers and revenue. Regardless of what has to be sold, whether it’s a product or a service, salespeople will need to find, engage and sell to a customer.
To better understand on how to learn to sell, it’s probably helpful at this point to explain that at its very core, selling boils down to conversations and commitments. Conversations with customers to work towards a sale and a series of commitments from a customer to progress towards a sale. While this is a simple concept to grasp the devil is in the detail and there is lots of hurdles, obstacles, twists and bends on the road to securing a sale.
Learn to Sell – Understand what is selling
Selling is defined as the process of a buyer paying the seller (or company) an agreed price for a product or service to be delivered. During the sales process, the seller will engage the buyer in a series of planned conversations to convince the buyer that their solution will solve a need that the buyer has. It also includes getting the buyer to make a series of commitments to ensure that the time invested will be rewarding for both parties. At the end, if the buyer makes a commitment to purchase, they will agree a price and other terms in exchange for the seller delivering the product or service.
Learn to sell will entail acquiring a broad range of selling skills including sales prospecting, cold calling, business development, nurturing relationships, engaging customers, presenting plans and solutions, negotiating pricing and closing deals. It also includes skills such as business knowledge of the product, markets, trends and business challenges. It takes this and more for a salesperson to enact the exchange of value between a buyer and themselves.
Learn to Sell for the Digital Sales 3.0 Era.
Learning to sell is now about acquiring the selling skills that make buying easier for a customer. Today’s savvy and social media connected buyer demands that the buying – selling process needs to be easier without a lot of the noise they can hear when listening to a sales pitch. They also want interactions with the seller to be more rewarding, informative and fulfilling. So when it comes to learning to sell, we should consider what sales skills needs to be prioritized that reflects this new selling environment.
The modern customer now wants to engage with a seller or company for longer term value that goes beyond the immediate product or service on offer. They want to have conversations with sellers who really understand the “what, why, and when” of their business needs. Selling will become more collaborative and intelligent.
Sellers will need to have empathy plus the ability to really understand a customer’s needs. The sales skills to engage comfortable with a customer on their level and on their terms.
The seller must have the ability to add value to the customer in every conversation and at every stage of the process. Learn to sell will also include leaving aside self-interest.
Sales training that helps the seller to be highly component at active listening along with asking targeted discovery questions to uncover real business challenges.
Learning to sell means the seller can create a compelling vision for the value that their product will bring to the customer. In their conversations they can build rapport, tell stories and sell their personality, because even in this digital world, people still buy people.
Skilled sellers will have business acumen meaning they have a genuine interest in how business works. Learning to sell where the sales training shows them that successful selling is a process not an event, so they constantly use the 3Ps of selling — Prepare, Probe, and Propose.
Learning to sell involves the seller being a credible contact, they understand how to build credibility in the eyes of a customer and add value to their business life. The seller has developed the sales skills to pinpoint, quantify and communicate clearly the value their proposed solution will bring to the customers business while getting their commitment to stay with the sales process to the end. The end meaning a successful conclusion of a sale made.
Some salespeople are born, however for most of us, we need to learn to sell and acquire the range of skills that goes into getting customers or prospects to commit to buying. Selling is not an easy career, if it was, everyone would be doing it!!