Most effective selling skills
About half of the population is selling one or the other thing. If this statement sounds like a strange bell, read on further.
We start selling from the age as young as infants, a baby cries when feels hungry, and sell his/her hunger to mother and in turn he/she gets feeding. In school, when we miss the homework, we sell the excuse to our teacher. In jobs when we do not meet the expected results, we sell the justifications to our bosses ! At home, we sell millions of excuses for coming home late. Day in and day out, we are all selling.
But in real time, selling our product or concept requires a high degree of effectiveness. One need to master the Selling Skills. Let us understand this with an example. Imagine you are traveling and feel thirsty, you stop by a road side, and buy a water bottle. You will hardly notice any Selling Skills displayed by the seller. Perhaps you may not even bother to compare which company’s mineral water bottle is better ! Since your immediate ‘Need’ is to quench your thirst and you ‘Want’ drinking water.
Need v/s Want
Now let’s consider this scenario. You are going to buy a television. You would do enough market research, and even take opinions of friends about which brand to buy. You ‘Want’ a new television, but not dying without it, and hence no critical ‘Need’. You can even wait for festival season to come so that you get lucrative discounts !
In every sales, there are two differentiating factors that separate the buyers from a casual buyer to more serious buyer. Selling Skills starts from this very stage. As a smart sales executive, you must get this step right. Identify their critical need/s and their wants. This will help you to funnel a list of hot leads v/s warm leads. Once you are clear about the needs and wants, you will be able to prepare your sales speech accordingly.
Selling is A systematic Process
While most sales executives take sales job as one time activity, however let me tell you that sales is a constantly and systematically done activity. Generating leads to Closing the deal, and again repeating same cycle, this activity if done with utmost sophistication, can actually pay rich dividends. Nurturing the customers, and constantly driving them towards your product is like planting seed and watering it regularly, until it starts giving you fruits.
“If you flunk any step during Sales Cycle, you will not only fail to sell, but also lose the customer forever”
From the time unknown, we have seen the sales process evolving from one level to another. Changing time and era, pushes marketers and sales professionals to discover, innovate and redesign the sales process.
For example, in ancient time sales was more of bartender process, people used to exchange the goods to get the things. Eventually currency replaced the exchange of goods and money was paid for buying the things.1960s & 70s was the era of giant billboards, to market the product. Television commercials have seen the huge acceptance from the 90s and now in the digital era, the face of advertising has completely changed so the sales process.
Digital Era and Selling Skills
Lead Generation through digital presence
Strong & Convincing Sales pitch
Closing through Clear 'Call to action'
Today when most people prefer to buy online, it does not matter whether you believe or do not believe in the online sales model, you have to devise strong online sales strategy. When we talk about online, many think it’s about a jazzy website or a mobile app. But, online sales need even sharper Selling Skills. Website, Application and other social platforms are the virtual gathering areas, you need to filter your customers and draw them towards your product.
Constantly building and upgrading the sales funnel, proper data analysis and many other aspects make the online sale a fun to be and must have strategy. Selling Skills still remain almost identical to that of offline sales. You need to identify needs, wants and then pitch for the product, carefully pull the lead to closing. Selling Skills in this dynamic and highly competitive era must be sharpen every single day.
Selling Skills & your personality
Last but important is the face behind the product. The sales person and his/her personality makes great difference in entire sales process. For example, you would certainly like to buy a premium cell phone from a decent and properly dressed executive. Someone selling premium cell phone but in a shabby clothes, the first thing you will have is a doubt on the genuineness of the phone device. To an extent you might also doubt the credibility. Selling Skills alone may not help, but a presentable personality will definitely help in closing the deal.
consistency builds credibility
Secret of the highly successful sales people is that they have been consistent in what they do. Their communication, their style, presentation skill, quality of the product and many other aspects where a customer can have a doubt. If you are selling, you got to be consistent in every aspect of sales.
The biggest mistake sales executives do, is they change frequently, they change their product, they change their sales pitch, they change their words. It’s a blunder that one should avoid in sales. Selling skills can lead you to sky and give exponential jump in sales numbers, if not practiced then will end up in under achievement or complete no sales.
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