6 Tips for New Sales Professionals

Sep 7, 2018

Plan!

The best sales people are always prepared. This means from planning your day and targets right down to planning your calls. Do your research, from our experience in consultancy nothing annoys a prospect more than answering a list of questions you should really know the answer to. Know the products, know their market, plan, at least in brief, your presentation. Most importantly, plan the client objections in advance - determine likely objections from the customer and how you will counter these.

Develop needs not wants

There’s a difference between someone liking your product and actually needing it to solve a problem. And that’s just it, find out what your customer’s problems are and link your products as solutions to their problems. If you can be a problem solver as a sales person you will always be needed! But take time to uncover the true problem, this may take you several sales meetings and a lot of networking but worth it in the end.

Measure and Review

Whether you set your own KPIs or have them set for you, it’s important to keep track of your progress and measure the results you are getting. Monitor your own sales activity, the number of calls you make, the number of appointments you get and sales developed. Furthermore, make use of your CRM system to monitor the sales cycle with your customers, when do you need to follow up with them? Perhaps there’s a customer you need to reach out to?

Go for No!

In the book by Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz, “Go for No”, they reposition the idea of rejection and a healthy way to handle it. No is just the journey to getting to a yes. After all, sales is as much a science as an art, the more no’s you collect the quicker you’ll get to yes. An inspiring read for any sales person!

Invest in your own personal development

You can learn all the sales skills in the world but if you don’t know how to master the soft skills of rapport, communication, empathy, trust, the likelihood is you could do more damage than good to your client relationship. It’s easier to do business with people over a long period of time if we like them and these skills of character and confidence can only be developed by working on yourself. Find yourself a good coach and get to work on being the best version of you!

Cross train

On the other hand, competence is not to be underestimated, the more well rounded and diverse your training the more value you can bring to your clients. Invest in learning about Social Media and selling through Social Media, work closer with your marketing department, develop competencies in public speaking and presentation skills. These are skills that can serve you for life and will transfer to many industries whether you choose to stay in sales or diversify your career.