The Full Report on Being a Better Salesperson

So there are many factors to include regarding a business to be successful. Those are called Critical Success Factors (CSF). But where does the Point of Success lies? Is it in production? Is it in management? Is it in smart financial planning? No. The Point of Success (PoS) is the point in where you know that you’re business is achieving or being successful. Any business can be measured on how successful they are and it’s not on being luxurious with its physical environment. It’s how much they make in sales. Hence, any businesses PoS is in sales. Every sale is as important as the business itself. If there is no sale at all, there wouldn’t be a business. But it’s a different story if you’re business is owned by the government or if your business is meant for charity purposes only.So what can you do in sales? Simple. Become a salesperson, or become a marketer. Generate or make more sales per day or per week or per month or even per year. There are many guides online to teach you on how to make more sales or by being a better salesperson. No matter what it is, you need more sales to make your business more successful. Read articles, blogs, news, guides, etc on how to become a better salesperson. But after I did a few browsing around, this is what I get from several guides. All points remained the same but I am gonna explain it a way for you to understand in my own words and maybe more:

Image by AlexWitherspoon via Flickr

Becoming A Better Salesperson:

(They are in no particular order as they are all just as important as the one before it and after.)

1. Confidence - Knowing full well that a business cannot survive on its own without making money out of it. Making sure that the Return on Investment (ROI) is well worth over the Initial Investment. By being confident, there is a positive attitude towards a motivating goal in order to make more sales. Nobody will be able to take you seriously, if you’re not confident enough to sell your product, service or business to the clients or other businesses. Confidence means everything, especially on a first impression.
2. Playing the numbers game - In a world of sales, there will be customers objecting or rejecting your sale offer. To some customers, they may outright say,”No” for no reason at all. Its a harsh reality that any people doing sales will have to face. So in order to be successful, you have to play the numbers. Example, every 100 people comes into your store, 10 people bought something and the other 90 people just browsed around. So in a sense, your rate of success with each customer coming in is 10%.
3. Quality over Quantity - Looking over some guides, I’ve found out that they always mention the “1 in 10 Rule” or “Every 9 No’s, there’s 1 Yes”. All that I can agree with but I’d like to experiment this next tip by being more effective than efficient. It’s true that you’re not getting faster revenue this way but at least for anyone who is new, you may need to consider doing quality service. Making sure that instead of every 10 customers rate of success is 10%, why not increase that rate of success by another 10%? Because by looking at this small country, Brunei, there isn’t a lot of people to play the numbers with. Around 350,000 people are in this country and if you take 10% of that is only 35,000. It may still seem a lot to most people but that is because you have not taken into consideration that getting that 10% would require at least 35,000 days to finish. (Assuming you contact 10 people per day and make that 10% sale.) As to the ratio of weeks, months and years to achieve that goal would be 5000 : 1167 : 95 respectively. So in the long run, you have 95 years to hit that 35,000 people to sale. Therefore, if you can manage to bring the rate of success higher, you would make that goal sooner than you think.
4. Honesty or Trickery? - There are some parts of the Internet which I find agreeable but also arguable when doing sales. Some salespeople would prefer to be honest and tell the customers on what they will be getting after they make the purchase. Some salespeople used pressure and such trickery like “Once in a lifetime opportunity” in order to close the deal as soon as possible. (Though, people don’t say trickery. I just named it that way on my point of view.) I find both ways to be useful and I find them to have both their pros and cons about it. However methods you choose to be, is of your own discretion:
   1. Honesty’s Pros - All information provided. Customer relationship will bond stronger. Retention in sales. Potential increase of sales. Reliable payment. Useful feedback. Amount in sale may be less than expected. Rate of Success is higher.
   2. Honesty’s Cons - Sale efficiency may be less. Slow start (offer) and finish (close the deal). 
   3. Trickery’s Pros - Sale may or may not be efficient. May include false information to close the deal. Short potential in sales. Amount in sale may sometimes or regularly be more than normal.
   4. Trickery’s Cons - Improbable retention in sales. May or may not have a potential increase in sales. May come to unreliable payment. Customer relationship will bond for a short period of time. May or may not give the required feedback. Rate of success may be lower than expected.
5. Knowing your stuff - Of course in every selling business, one would need to understand full well of the product or service that they are offering. Because once a customer asks a question and you cannot answer, there will be a high potential of loss in sale. Knowing your stuff includes its benefits, perks, added services, after-sale services, etc. Again, it may be repetition from the first one on confidence but things can never go wrong if you do know your stuff first before you start selling.
6. Plan, plan and plan - After knowing your stuff, you need to find out what should you once you meet your potential buyer. Be mentally and emotionally prepared for anything that might happen upon meeting. Anything unexpected can happen. And any expected that could happen, that can be easily prepared by making a list of possible asked questions (or FAQ a.k.a. Frequently Asked Questions), and answer your customer accordingly. Then do your next step, what would you do if your customer does this? What would you do after you finished explaining your product? All of this are vital before meeting or contacting your prospects.
7. Customer Relationship - Don’t misunderstand this step. It doesn’t really mean that you have to be in an “actual relationship” with your customer. But at least stay connected on both personal and business level with them, if they so choose. Being on a personal relationship as a friend or an acquaintance is fine enough. Getting to know your customers are what makes sales grow. To get sales is getting a customer. Growing your sales is growing the bond between you and the customer. Because once the customer finds you different than an ordinary salesperson (usually those salespeople tricks people in buying stuff for no apparent reason.), they’ll begin to trust you. And then once that happens, they’ll know who to give their contact to. Hence, more prospects more sales.
8. The “No” word can be harsh - Always and almost always there will be customers that will say “No” to your product. Its a harsh world and you need to handle the frequent rejection if you’re going to be in sales. As a matter of fact, if every time you hear the “n” word, and you cry and have not recovered from that sort of rejection, you shouldn’t be in sales at all. There are ways to handle these rejections. And according to my experiences in having a relationship(and I mean having a girlfriend), I always ask;Why? What did I do wrong? How can I be better?; and the like to make sure that I can become a better boyfriend the next time. (Or sometimes I managed to change myself to stay with my girlfriend after the harsh feedback =D) Do the same in selling. Make sure that there’s a good reason for them to say the “n” word and see if you can change their mind.
9. Silence is definitely golden - Usually there are some salespeople who would walk into a meeting, talk and talk about the products and services they have, tell them how it works and what’s it all about and ask them if they would like to buy it. And after that whole speech, the customer says,”No”. Now isn’t that a waste of time? First things first is to listen. This is why there are failed relationships. They fail to listen. Listening to your customer wants and needs and then satisfy them with the right product or service is the way to go. Listening is one of the most effective way to better understand your prospect. But some of them needs to be prompted with open-ended questions. Careful not to ask close-ended questions. They usually just make your sales a lot harder. With open-ended questions, your prospects will enjoy talking and giving out whatever information that may benefit you. It may be financial situation, problems, life, socially, domestic, etc. Any of these can be gained so easily if you just listen to them. So be silent enough to hear the golden dubloons shimmer.
10. Closing the deal - Sometimes when you make a sale, you have not finished it. It’s like you started a project on building a house but you didn’t finish half of it. Because you need to close the deal. Once they’re interested, make a follow up action. Ask for a sale. Usually when a really good opportunity arises, you have to make or break for it. These are usually a rookie’s mistake and hopefully you won’t make them.
11. Learn through experiences - I have found out from experienced sales personnel or other claimed to be masters of sales is that some of the sales technique cannot be learned online. You need to experience it first hand before you can get any better. If you can become a sale master in less than 6 months without any real training but learn things by the book, it would be incredible! However, everyone is a rookie in a sales world and will always start that way. And as time goes along, there will be more lessons in how to generate more revenue in a short period of time.
12. If all else fails, have fun! - Though I’m not sure if this could happen to anyone. But I find it interesting after reading some guides somewhere that if you fail to sell, have fun! Enjoy talking with him/her, make sure that she comes out of the room or hang up the phone all comfortable like and have fun. Reason being is that you do not want your time wasted with a sale that didn’t happen. So find another good purpose to make this contact. Having fun is the way to say,”at least I had fun selling this guy/gal” even if you didn’t make any money out of it. Who knows? They might change their mind or views about you and give you another call or appoint another meeting.