Here’s a very quick post to share with you what I believe it takes to become a professional salesperson.

The Sales Career

A good salesperson who knows what he wants will reap the rewards of becoming financially stable and satisfied with his career. Selling is a career. And you can be very good in it. Learn the skills, follow the steps, and enjoy successfully closing sales deals day after day after day.
Always learn the true essence of selling by heart. Selling is not all about deceiving or manipulating people. It involves talking to customers, becoming friends with them, winning their trust, and selling them your product. In short you are helping people.

A Good Sales Person

You do not have to be loud-mouthed and over-ambitious to succeed as a salesperson. Instead, you have to be a person of fine character and grace. Maintain your poise as well as those of your products. Once you and your products have attained that certain level of respect, you are very likely to make sales, sometimes even without trying.

Think of a good salesperson that you know of. It could be your boss or somebody in the marketing field you admire the most. It could even be somebody from the local store from whom you find yourself buying most often. Observe them. What do you think are the things that they are doing right, which makes you admire them totally? Do you think they are honest? Are they good in explaining? How do they talk about their product? How effective are their sales pitches on you?

Get a Mentor

You will learn a lot from a mentor. What my book teaches you is the basics, the theories, and the secrets of becoming a professional salesperson. Observing a good salesperson in action will show you more clearly how successful selling is really done.

Right now, you should have realised that being a salesperson might not happen overnight; or it might, depending on your determination and skill. It takes practice and patience. If you follow everything this report teaches, you can become a professional salesperson in the shortest time possible.
If you combine all these with regular practice and determination, you will not just become a professional salesperson very soon, but you might even be heading your own group of salespeople to train and manage. So keep in mind that the opportunities won’t end for you if you love your craft.

The Bike Seller

Let me finally finish with this story about an excellent salesperson:
A young person from London moves to Manchester and is looking for a job in a big department store. The manager asks whether he has some sales experience. He said that he was a salesperson in London before he moved. The manager asked him to report the next day. He will be hired depending upon his sales for the day.

The following day, the young person managed to get only one sale. The manager was dissatisfied with his turnout. So he said, “Our sales people here average 25 sales in a day. If you can only sell one item, I can’t take you in.”
But the person said, “It was a £100,000 purchase though.”

The manager was surprised and asked, “Really? What did you sell him?”
“Well, I sold him some mountain bike shorts. Then I sold him a helmet. But I learned that he didn’t have a mountain bike yet so I showed him one of ours. He bought one. He chose the biggest and heaviest model and he realised that it wouldn’t fit in his car’s boot. Also  he said he doesn’t know how to ride it yet so he couldn’t cycle home. So I showed him one of our transit vans and sold that to him too. I told him he could take the bicycle home with it.”

“You mean to tell me you successfully sold a bike to somebody who doesn’t know how to ride one? And you even managed to make him buy a van just to take it home? Why is he looking for biking shorts anyway if he doesn’t know how to ride a bike?” asked the manager, bewildered.
“Well actually, he was just buying a pair of roller skates for his kid. But I told him I might as well join him in his hobby. And since he said he’s too old to skate, I suggested he might as well ride a bike. So I sold all of those items to him.”

I wish you well.

I wish you well in your sales career. Now, get your gear going and start earning your first million. If you would like more information on how you can achieve your selling goals, please contact me.
It’s a Done Deal – How to Build Your Sales Career.
© Michael A. Holden 2018.
Email: [email protected]

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The Qualities of an Excellent Salesperson

Being a salesperson should be easy. That is, if you have all the qualities of an excellent salesperson in you. However you do your job, either face-to-face, over the telephone, or through the Internet, it is important that you possess all these qualities. Once you do, sales and commissions will just keep on pouring in and you will need an extra hand fulfilling orders.

Neatness and Appearance

For a salesperson, image is everything. It is true that before you get to sell anything, you always have to sell yourself first. This means you should be highly likeable before you get somebody to like your products. Giving your possible customers a bad impression of you won’t help at all. It would help your competitors though, because it takes you out of the picture.
You won’t always know your customers personally. In fact, you will be meeting a lot of them, if not all of them, only once in your life. Therefore, you will be approaching them and talking to them as a total stranger. In this case, they might be scrutinizing you in an attempt to judge what kind of a person you are. They might do that mostly based on your looks alone.

It is therefore important that you look neat and presentable all the time. Your aura and your physical image tell a lot about who you are and the company you represent. People do not like to deal with somebody they do not feel comfortable with. Unruly hair and dirty teeth could make you lose a sale. Don’t take the risk. Invest in your appearance. This doesn’t mean you have to buy and wear expensive suits all the time. Good grooming will make you stand out even if your clothes are old. Just make sure they are well kept and you should be fine.

Professionalism

Professionalism is how you do things right. For starters, you should not be irritating. Certain habits or conducts annoy some people. If you have a nasty habit like fidgeting with your fingers, cutting somebody’s sentence off, playing with your pen, or talking too fast, you have to do your best to eliminate it. As a rule of thumb, any habit that you think may annoy somebody else has to go – and remove it in any way possible. If you have to undergo therapies to get rid of it, do it. Much of your career depends on it. Keep in mind that the selling career entails a person-to-person contact. Because of that, you have to do everything to create a good impression and comfortable air between you and your customer.

Good Listening Skills

We talked about this before, but more than anything, a customer would like to be heard and understood, sometimes at all costs. To be a good salesperson, you have to develop your ability to listen, even to the words left unsaid. Let your customer talk. After all, they come to you because they want something. Hear them out and show them that you perfectly understood what they are trying to convey. You may just uncover a behavior or attitude that can propel you to make a sale. If you fail to do so the first time, don’t hesitate to ask them again. This will show that you are concerned about what they are saying and you don’t want to miss a detail. Don’t do it many times in a conversation; or else, the customer will assume that you are not paying attention.

Sensitivity

Always put yourself in your customer’s shoes. This is the only way you can feel what it is that concerns them and what they are trying to make you comprehend. Doing so will also ensure that you are on the right ground when it comes to dealing with people. Some salespeople become overeager to collect the commissions they would get out of every sale that they forget to treat their customer with utmost care and attention. Actually, this is the gravest mistake you can make as a salesperson. The moment you regard your customers as one-time deal is the moment you can say goodbye to your career. With that attitude, even your most loyal clients will break out and leave you hanging by a thin line eventually.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is infectious. If you’re excited about your product and the benefit it can give, your customers would soon follow suit. They would see your product in a different way, enough to complete a sale. Good salespeople are jovial and passionate about their craft. You should develop these qualities right at the start of your career.

Knowledge

This doesn’t mean that you necessarily need to have above average comprehension skills to start with. It means being smart with the good ability to grasp data. When a good salesperson sells his product, he knows all its prime qualities by heart. He makes it a point that he has the answer to the most asked- about question concerning the product he is selling at the back of his mind. He does not grope around looking for answers when somebody pops them up. Instead, he comes prepared with a smart answer all the time.

Integrity

Integrity means honesty and doing the right things even when somebody is not looking at you. Many customers want to stay clear of a deceitful salesperson. That is the reason why they size salespeople up before they attempt to buy or even before asking anything about the product. Customers want to know exactly how the product works, without any tall lies and truth bending. They only want to deal with a straight, honest salesperson.

Courtesy

Courtesy is something everybody appreciates. Customers definitely want to be treated like kings. They may bombard you with questions before they decide to buy, or they can try all your products before selecting the one right for them. Customers have varying tastes and styles. As a salesperson, part of your job is to conform to all their eccentricities. You might need to practice patience and be good-natured. Always remember that the most likeable salesperson always gets the job done.

Persuasiveness

All salespeople are required to be persuasive. They should be able to effectively convince their customers about the beauty of the product they are selling within appropriate levels. They should not drop at every block the customer throws at them. Instead, they should look at it as a challenge that they have to overcome. Most highly successful salespeople are even looking forward to all these challenges. They feel triumphant with every sale if they are able to prevail over the customer’s negativities. This is something that adds excitement and stimulation to their job.

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