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Let’s start with the basics. Here are five sales tips for beginners that form the foundation for successful selling.
1. Know Everything About Your Product
It’s important that you understand how your product functions, and the specific features that will help solve any problems your customers may have. After all, you’re the ambassador of the product — if you don’t use it, why should anyone buy it from you?
Go through all the product demo videos and support documents that are available. Try to understand the purpose of each feature and exactly what problem it is designed to address.
Some basic questions for which you need to provide great answers to your customers are:
Your customers usually aren’t interested in the more technical aspects of your product. They want to know how the product can make their life easier immediately. A thorough understanding of the product doesn’t just make you a more confident cheerleader of what you’re selling. It also helps you get to the root of your customer’s pain points and allows you to quickly and thoroughly map your product to your customer’s needs.
Your prospects have a singular interest — solving their problems. By talking about the magnificence of your product, you can only get you so far. How does your product directly benefit your prospect?
Use each interaction with a prospect to ask questions to identify their biggest pain points, such as:
It’s important that you actively listen to the prospect’s answers. Too often salespeople are so engaged with pushing and selling that they forget that sometimes the best salespeople listen more than they speak. This way you can learn a lot about not only your prospect, but also your own product and how to better sell it.
Offer a solution focused on the buyer’s pain points. Sales pitches work best when you show prospects that you understand their obstacles and that your product can solve those problems for them.
Your prospects are looking for answers — and they expect you to provide them.
One of the best sales tips is to prepare in advance for all meetings with all the information you may need to give your prospects to turn them into customers. This includes knowing as much about them and their situation as possible. As the saying goes, “Show them you know them.”
Being well-prepared for a meeting demonstrates not only your competency and knowledge but shows that you care enough to be present and confident in all customer interactions.
Sure, there will be times when you have to just show up, or maybe even when a prospect calls you out of nowhere. In these cases, it’s important to have quick access to any information your average customer may need, and be able to discuss it in-depth.
Be sure you have a handle on the following:
A surprising amount of sales reps don’t take the time to research their prospect or prepare for calls, which only undermines their efforts and leaves a poor impression on the prospect. Pre-call planning helps you obtain the necessary information you need to add value to the conversation. Developing this sales habit will create trust from your prospects — and confidence within your own sales game.
If there’s something all sales experts agree on, it’s the importance of the follow-up stage.
It doesn’t matter if you have the best product in the market and your meetings go flawlessly — if you don’t reconnect with the prospect afterward, the opportunity for a sale can slip right through your fingers. In fact, 80% of sales require at least 5 follow-ups.
Follow-up emails are a great way to stay connected with your customers after your initial interaction. It shows you care enough about their experience to check-in but allows the conversation to happen at the customer’s convenience.
Apps like Badger Maps can be used to integrate with your CRM so you can schedule follow-up time into your day without compromising time in the field. This lets you stay on top of follow-ups and helps keep track of administrative tasks while keeping the time spent on them to a minimum.
Follow-up emails can be categorized in a few different ways. Some great follow-up emails that pros always send:
Don’t let a low open rate for your emails or a lack of response from prospects discourage you. Be persistent and continuously work on the quality of your emails and leads.
When giving tips for sales, there’s no easy way to say this, so let’s just get it out of the way: Sales and rejection go hand-in-hand.
Facing rejection is always difficult, especially when you're just getting started in sales. Sometimes competitors will swoop in and fly away with your lead. Some people either don’t need your product or aren’t in a position to spend the money at this time.
It’s important that you understand that none of it is personal.
There might be hundreds of reasons a customer might not be interested in what you’re selling, but most of them have very little to do with you.
That’s why it’s important to control the controllable, using each rejection as an opportunity to strengthen your sales game and adapt to the needs and concerns of your customers.
Rejection reveals weaknesses in your sales game. The good news? With the right tweaks to your pitch, you can turn those weaknesses into strengths.
Each rejection is instrumental in thickening your skin and strengthening your resolve, two characteristics that will go a long way in making you a top salesperson.
Don’t let rejection defeat you — treat it as the opportunity for growth that it is.