10 simple steps – that require no sales skills but will make you a great salesperson

Below are 10 simple steps – that require no sales skills but will make you a great salesperson

We have all heard that ‘everyone’ in an organization sells – because everyone in an organization engages directly or indirectly with their customers and everyone who engages with a customer in your organization affects the perception of your company. Yet in many companies ‘selling’ is seen to be the preserve of the salesperson. If anyone applies the points below when dealing with customers, they will be better than the average salesperson.

The following are things you can do to be a great salesperson without having any sales training. The reason being that many salespeople fail to do these things. You would think that the following would be obvious – yet I consistently see salespeople failing to do this. 

So, ensuring you do the following things that should be common sense will put you ahead of the game.

Reply to inbound emails within an hour

Sounds obvious that inbound enquiries should be responded to within an hour. The majority of salespeople do not – some can take days. Typically, prospects will email your company and several others – if you respond promptly you will be ahead of the competition.

Reply to customer communications within 30 minutes

Again, should be obvious. It doesn’t matter if it’s a problem or an opportunity – customers expect timely responses. It gives them confidence they are dealing with someone they can rely on.

Be enthusiastic

We all know that enthusiasm is infectious. Yet so many salespeople fail to be. Whether that is enthusiasm for your company and your products and services of for what your customer is doing. 

Organize your time commercially

I have seen salespeople that are genuinely busy in that they are working long hours but fail to hit targets. Be aware of the value and opportunity of your customers. Organize your time so you spend the most time on the customers that create or can create the greatest value. Many salespeople organize their time trying to keep all their customers as happy as they can – the customer who shouts the loudest gets most of their attention. There is nothing wrong with keeping customers happy of course. However, don’t spend all your time on customers that are not making you or the Company much money but soak up your time. Organize your time, according to the value of potential of your customers 

Listen

There are lots of saying on this – e.g. “God gave a salesperson 2 ears and one mouth so they would listen twice as much as they speak”. Yet I hear so many salespeople – just talk to or talk over people intent on getting their points across – without even checking if the person they are speaking to understands the point(s) or has any questions. Listen to the customers who will tell you – certainly if questioned correctly – what they need and what their issues are.

Clear objective

What do you want as an outcome from the meeting? You may not get the outcome you are looking for, but it’s certainly unlikely if you are not clear on what you are looking to achieve. I sometimes ask salespeople before they go to a meeting – what are you looking to achieve – how are you going to close a deal? Quite often they haven’t thought of that – they assume that they will simply go with the flow of the meeting and see what comes – such an approach will ensure that particular salesperson is generally unsuccessful.

Be clear of benefits to the customer

People will buy from you if what you are offering is going to help them in some way. So, asking yourself how your product or service could be of benefit to the person you are trying to sell too is key. Yet I see lots of sales people present or send communications where they talk about how great their product or service is, but never at any point present how that might be useful to the person or people they are presenting to – leaving it to the prospective customer to try and work that out for themselves!

Be on time

If you have an appointment, make sure you plan in enough time for any potential delays. Do not plan on arriving 1 minute before, on the basis that your travel and connections should happen exactly as you hope.

If you are going to be late make sure you advise the customer.

Everyone’s time is precious – arriving late puts you are a massive disadvantage, 

Dress Professionally and appropriately

We all judge people to a greater or lesser degree based on first impressions. So, dress appropriately for the customer you are meeting – if you at least look the part – you are not putting yourself at a disadvantage.

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Work Hard

If there are 2 people with the same ability and one works harder and more tenaciously than the other – who gets the most sales? 

Even so I see some salespeople that go through the motions or where their activity is minimal and not surprisingly their results are poor.

Gary Corbett is an investor in international technology businesses. With an expertise in sales and marketing, he has worked across a wide range of businesses for over 30 years.