Selling is an art. An art that needs to be learned, practiced and sustained to survive the competition. Every person is not a born salesman, for that matter no one is. Some gradually realize their hidden talent, some learn with time, some run away from becoming a sales guy. For some reason we all are involved in selling, either on personal front or professional.
Organizations are nowadays looking for the most perfect sales guy to sell their products or services, competent to achieve the targets. Having said that, many youngsters might not turn up for selling owing to the difficulties in making sales, though it varies from person to person. Hence, let’s make selling a bit easier considering its significance in the present times.
Below are few points which could be considered before trying out your hands in selling or if you are not a professional sales guy for making sales or if you want to improve your selling skills:
• Understand the real Selling: Selling is not about putting undue pressure on the customers. It’s about convincing and persuading people to take your services or products. For that, you must first yourself understand the real meaning of selling, its purpose and its impact on the customers. The salesperson should appear as a concerned person with genuine interest in their customers’ problems and not as the one who is incessantly praising their products or offerings.
• Figure out problems of your counterpart: Once, you understand the real aspects of selling go ahead and try to figure the problems of your customers. Infact, selling turns out to be successful only when you understand the problems faced by your counterpart. In short, place yourself in your counterpart’s shoes. They would accept your offerings only if they have a problem. So try to exactly point on that and then convince them with your best of the skills and solutions.
• Prepare and Practice: As said, ‘Practice makes a man perfect’, practice is a must. Prepare a sales pitch and keep practicing. Practice in front of a colleague and ask him/her to give feedbacks. The sales pitch can be modified with time depending on the situations and people encountered. Preparing yourself and practicing constantly will surely lead to building up of confidence and an increase in morale.
• Stay calm: This is an important requisite to keep you going. You might go awry with your sales pitch. But do not lose your cool. This is normal. Just stay calm and relax. Do not forget to keep up the confidence on your face. Your confidence can convince the other person and your confused look can hint them to escape their way out without accepting your offer. Thus stay calm, keep up your body language and have relaxed facial expressions.
• Close the deal: This won’t be so easy. Your counterpart would think about many aspects after you present the offerings. They would think about the finance that would be involved, the strategies of their competitors, the possible outcomes due to acceptance or rejection of your services/products, etc. Anyway, make the move to close the deal by asking something like, “Are you ready to take the next step? What else can I do to help you make this decision?” If your shot was unsuccessful, don’t worry. Go back to your target in three months and ask, ‘How’s it going? Are your needs being met?’ If they are, great, but if not,” you may have another shot.
Selling is a difficult task. But do remember it is the lifeline of any business and one of the most beautiful, significant part of the entire process.
Written by Faber Ramya Pillai
