5 Simple Tips To Make More Sales

We are now half way through January, Christmas and New Year are long behind us and we are once again faced with the pressure and reality of targets! To help sales people out there here are 5 very easy and simple tips to help you make more sales:

1) Do Your Homework - Before you approach a customer, do some research. Whether you use LinkedIn to find out who the relevant person is that you need to speak too, or who the decision maker is, to help you reach the right person quicker. Or whether you look into what the person or company does, what products/services they use currently, and then form your sales approach from that. You can also look at people or customers you've worked with previously and look at their industry and competition, use that to help approach similar organizations. It's a lot more effective approach to engaging with potential customers than calling up with no knowledge and no real ability to direct the conversation. Knowing more about your potential customer will give a bigger advantage when trying to engage them.

2) Know What You're Selling - Knowledge really is power when selling, and your customers will trust you a lot more if you know what you are selling. You should ideally be able to answer any and all questions that a customer may ask. If you don't know you can obviously re assure the customer that you will find out for them, but imagine how much easier and efficient it would be if you did know the answer? Make sure you know what you are selling, know the ins and outs, and the possible questions and objections you are likely to receive. Have that information to hand when speaking to customers as well just incase you need to refer to it.

3) Be Honest - People buy from people, and they buy from people they trust. Be honest, be yourself, and be transparent. Don't have a hidden agenda, don't try and deceive your customers or push a sale onto them. It's a very simple one, but it will make such a huge difference. If you don't know something, be honest about it. Give your honest opinion, your honest thoughts, and it will help customers trust you and be able to relate to you.

4) Ask Lots Of Questions - The more questions you ask, the more information you will find out. The more information you find out, the more chance you have of both building a relationship and also providing the best solution to your customer. Questions are also good for over coming objections, so if someone says no, instead of panicking or trying to come up with a smart response, ask a question and find a new way to approach the sale.

5) Ask For Referrals - If you think about how many people and businesses you know, and then think about how many customers you are speaking too and multiply that by the number of people and business they know, you start getting some pretty big numbers! Referrals are a great source of extra business but yet so many people either don't, or forget to ask for them. Ask your customers whether they know anyone else who may be able to benefit from your product. Ask them whether they could recommend it to them personally, or introduce you. Even if you only got one extra lead from each customer, how much more potential business could that generate for you?

Each of these tips has the potential to help you make more sales so give them a try and see how you do.

Do you have any tips for sales? Add them as a comment.

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