Sales is an art (read as: the art of selling) that most sales reps and even executives do not understand about. Here are my few tips that I believe will enhance your sales skill and acumen.
1. Never go into a meeting without a plan
Always know how to close the deal and plan it way ahead. Include the plan and strategize a way to put a supporting idea to close the deal in your presentation so that you influence the decision makers without much trouble. That said, be always on the lookout for more than one way to close the deal. Each customer is different and plan your strategy in a way to maximize the number of ways you can close the deal.
2. Be on time
This tip will be useful in more than one way. Be on time — for everything. This includes from sending your collaterals, decks, quotes etc to showing up to meetings on time, talking to your prospects right on time etc. The core idea is to increase the professional trust in your customers minds and to show that you have a shared responsibility along with the decision makers to move the deal to a closure.
3. Know what your customer wants
This may seem like a highly cliched tip, but most sales people do not work on understanding what the customer really wants. If you can strike the right chord with the customer on his hidden needs, and provide a relevant service or product, the deal is already closed there. So go ahead and put sometime to make sure that you know what the customer ideally wants.
Bonus Tip: Since you have been reading my post for sometime, here is a bonus for you: Be Adventurous — Try new things that might work or not work in the sales scenario. Learn from the feedback and move things around to see if there is a better way to do things than before. And best of all, note down your learnings so that others can learn from it too!
