More sales basics in this part two of the beginner’s guide to sales, where we discuss more sales skills a new or beginner salesperson needs to master. OK. Let’s start.
Learn To Master Sales Prospecting
The skill of sales prospecting and the ability to generate new qualified leads are what set apart sales professionals from run-of-the-mill salespeople. As a beginner salesperson, mastering how to prospect (even cold calling), ask questions, uncover needs, and qualify an opportunity is the foundation of building a strong sales skillset for future sales success. You probably know that prospecting involves researching, identifying and qualifying potential leads who fit your company’s ideal customer profile. There is little return from targeting prospects who do not fit your target profile or do not have a need for your solution. Prospecting today is a multi-channel approach including cold calling, email, and social media. Long before you ever reach out to them, you must know your value proposition – why should they listen to you? Understand their needs and pain points, plus what insights are you bringing to them to open up a sales conversation?
The ability to open up a genuine sales conversation is the launch pad to see if any opportunity exists that you can fulfil. Then you should have a clear step-by-step process, such as discovery questions, qualification questions, demos, trials, etc., as the path towards closing a sale. Then, sales training, reflection or learning from more experienced colleagues will help you to continuously improve your sales skills and achieve greater success in your sales tactics. By mastering the basics of sales prospecting, you can build a strong foundation upon which to build your other sales skills and set yourself up for a long-term successful sales career.
Embrace Handling Sales Objections
Sales objections are part and parcel of selling; in fact, very few sales happen without customers raising objections or concerns. They may also challenge your solution or proposals as a means of clarifying the potential return on the investment you are asking them to make. So, the ability to handle sales objections is a crucial sales skill for any beginner salesperson. Your ability to handle and get past these objections is where selling becomes real and true negotiations can begin.
So, rather than anticipating rejection and failure, we need to set ourselves up so that we can overcome any hurdle towards a sale. How do we do that? First, make a list of every possible objection a prospect or client might have (ask your colleagues as well). From the smallest concern to the larger stalls, approach every sales conversation with the confidence that you can answer the questions or resolve any obstacles that will pop up.
Note: salespeople who display confidence and understanding during objection handling truly set themselves apart. What is important to always remember is that, when your prospect raises an objection, it does not necessarily mean he or she has rejected your offer. They may simply be examining their options, weighing the risks, or trying to wrap their heads around the idea of change, which most people typically resist. Now you can see that sales objections are not a bad thing. All they mean is that you have not built up sufficient value in your proposition and that they do not see your products and services as a must compared to what they have to pay. There are two ways to build value. You can either increase the severity of the problem, or you can increase the value of the solution. The real key to getting past any sales objection is showing the prospect relevant insights and information that helps them see the value in investing more time with you.
Confident Sales Presentations
As a beginner salesperson you will be glad to read that audiences don’t want perfect presenters. They want real people who they can relate to. That should be incredibly comforting news to all salespeople. So, don’t be perfect; just be real. Good sales presentations are made up of three things:
1) What you say to your audience,
2) what you show them, an
3) what you give to them (in the form of a handout).
Also, it’s important to define what a sales presentation is. You might think that you don’t deliver sales presentations because you are talking to a prospect on the phone. But anytime you speak to provide information or persuade a customer, you are presenting! Simply anyone you communicate or sell to, whether that is a buyer listening to your sales pitch, a boardroom presentation with ten people listening to you, a hundred people listening to you at a trade show.
Some of the biggest moments in your life are about presentations. A job interview, a promotion interview, a business pitch, a proposal etc are all presentations of one kind or another. When a topic is important, people want to hear from you in an honest manner. It is still the best way to make people sit up and take notice, to make them understand that you are conveying is important, and to convince them that they act on the information provided.
Today’s prospects want to do business with salespeople who have a clear understanding of their needs, their challenges, and their goals. Tailoring your sales presentation to fit your prospect’s unique needs and establishing a compelling story is the price of entry to get people to listen.
Closing the Sale Techniques
Closing the sale is a learned skill, not a natural one. The more often you use different closing techniques, the more likely the customer will buy from you. Keep focusing on the commitments you have gained and reinforcing the future outcomes as the customer moves away from pain. You can confirm a sale by simply reminding the customer of what they will gain and the challenge that will be eliminated. The brain uses emotions to assign value and mark something as being trusted, either good or bad. It is how the brain distinguishes between what matters and what is irrelevant. So, the decision to buy is not at the end, what we call the “closing the sale”, but it is being made through all the sales conversations.
We need to get a series of “Yes commitments” at each stage in the buying journey.
Remember, closing a sale is not really a buying decision; it’s a business decision!. We need to ensure that the buyer is emotionally attached to the future state and committed to undertaking a change management project. Making “king” customers the winners, with both business and personal benefit. The buyer and buying group must see and feel the change. These are the core elements that ensure a positive buying decision in your favour.
Never forget that closing is logical. “It is not the penultimate moment of the sales process, but rather a logical conclusion to satisfying the needs of the customer.
Sales Negotiation Tactics
As human beings, we negotiate in many, many situations whether that’s with the boss for a raise, our friends on where to eat, our customers on best solutions or even our partners or kids. All of these relationships and interactions require negotiation skills. In other words, a negotiation is any communication in which you’re attempting to achieve the commitment, approval, agreement, or action of someone else.
A sales negotiation is like trying to get from point A to B. You know where you want to end up, but you might encounter adventures on your way. You need to be flexible and adapt to the current situation and the behaviour of who you are negotiating with. A sales negotiation consists of three types of behaviours: influencing, convincing, and persuading. To influence means to have an effect on the behaviour of someone. To convince primarily means to make someone believe in something. To persuade is to induce someone to do something through argumentative reasoning. A sales negotiation is an interaction between two parties with different interests who try to reach an agreement that bridges those interests and thus satisfies the individual motives of each party. Your role as a sales negotiator is to change the attitude of the other party toward the interests that we are trying to fulfil.
No matter how large or small, how important or minor, how near or far, a negotiation involves six basic steps. You can refine your delivery skills over time and fortify them with additional techniques and strategies, but your ability to execute these six steps is essential:
- Prepare.
- Set limits and goals.
- Be clear.
- Listen.
- Pause.
- Close the deal
Also, the following four points define a straightforward method for sales negotiation tactics that can be used under almost any sales situation. Each point deals with a basic element of negotiation and suggests what you should do about it.
- People: Separate the people from the problem. (avoiding I’m right, you’re wrong)
- Interests: Focus on interests, needs, and outcomes, not positions.
- Options: Generate a package of options before entering the negotiation.
- Criteria: Insist that the decision/result be based on objective criteria.
Reflecting on how they will approach sales negotiations, beginner salespeople can improve their chances of closing deals and building successful relationships with prospects. Remember, sales negotiation is a skill that will be fine-tuned with practice, so don’t be afraid to experiment and learn from each interaction. If you believe in yourself, your company, your product, your service, or your cause, anything is possible.
Be A Master Of Communication
If customers could make purchase decisions without communication, they would not need you. You as a sales professional exist to communicate effectively and to facilitate effective communication (both to and from the customer). Your ability to communicate and your company’s ability to do so are both critical. The first and most important reason for communicating is to build relationships with other people. Did you know that about two thirds of our conversation time is entirely devoted to social topics: personal relationships, who is doing what, who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’, and why?
Ideas are the currency of communication. We are paid for our ideas. When we communicate, we trade ideas. Like currency, ideas come in larger or smaller denominations: there are big ideas and little ideas. We can assemble the little ones into larger units by summarising them. Like currencies, ideas have a value, and that value can change: some ideas become more valuable as others lose their value. We judge the quality of an idea by how meaningful it is.
The most effective communication makes ideas explicit. We may take one idea and pit it against another. We may seek the evidence behind an idea or the consequences of pursuing it. We might enrich an idea with our feelings about it. Whatever strategy we adopt, our purpose in communicating is to create and share ideas. Ideas (vision, future, solutions, resolutions) that our customers can latch on to.
Conversation is the main way we communicate. Through conversation we build relationships, share information, promote our ideas, and put forward solutions. All the other ways we communicate – phone calls, presentations, meetings, even written documents – are conversations of some kind. Selling is a network of conversations. Conversations are the way we create shared understanding. If we want to improve our communication skills, we could begin by improving our conversations.
Seize The Moment
Every moment in our personal or professional life presents us with choices about how to perceive situations and how to respond. Choosing not to react but to respond confidently is, in itself, a choice. Instead of fleeing from fears of cold calling, rejection or sales objections, consider facing them head-on with a transformed mindset that embraces challenges and acts with boldness and wisdom. Life continuously tests our boundaries, which could be our personal limits or comfort zones. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable! One can either lean into the discomfort, expanding their capacities, or fall into detrimental reactions. As a sales professional, time is your most valuable asset. When selling, immerse yourself fully in that role. If a prospect says no, say thanks and move on. Moreover, confront any selling apprehension directly, as it can stifle your growth. Identify its root, find a solution or a coping mechanism and address it. Never let selling or your sales skills be a roadblock; let it be the trigger to achieving your goals. Evaluate your current skill set against your aspirations; maybe undertake some sales training. Always remember your perceptions are not reality and can be redefined. Believe in yourself, harness your willpower, be ambitious, and seize every moment.
