A sales person is 3 in 1

If I ask you who is a sales person you can probably answer me but if I need you to define a sales person, I am sure most of us will hit ‘i’m feeling lucky’.

A salesperson needs to play minimum of three characters if he/she is a sales person by “choice” and not by “chance”. If anyone wants to stay in the profession of sales, they should focus on these three traits for sure, if not more. If one has become a salesperson due to lack of opportunity in other functions or departments and because he/she prefers to be a sales professional over being unemployed, than this article is not for such professionals.

Anyhow, this is one of the definition of a salesperson; An individual who sells goods and services to other entities. The successfulness of a salesperson is usually measured by the amount of sales he or she is able to make during a given period and how good that person is in persuading individuals to make a purchase. If a salesperson is employed by a company, in some cases compensation can be decreased or increased based on the amount of goods or services sold.

I feel the above definition is more to do with the role a sales person plays or what his job demands. There is more to this and I have covered few more aspects related to a sales person in my subsequent part of the article.

I define these roles as Gentleman, Salesman and a Sales Machine (read as your ‘designation’)

• Be a Gentleman or Gentlewoman (I know Lady is the term, but believe me the term gentlewoman exists :))

Don’t oversell, don’t over commit. If your services or products are not going to help the customer, guide him to the right vendor. This way you will win the customers heart and also the vendor’s who you have recommended, will be obliged and might return the favour some day.

CONTRACTS ARE IMPORTANT, BUT CONTACTS ARE MORE IMPORTANT!!

• Be a Sales person

Master the art of asking probing questions.  My suggestion is that any question which takes less than 20 seconds to ask and ensures minimum 2 minutes long answer from the customer can be termed as a probing question.  Listen to each and every word that is coming to you as the response. Try to hear what is being shared and also what is not shared. You should be an attentive listener instead of your mind wandering to look for the next probing question.

Try not to be following any script or pattern of starting the conversation with overview of your company, its offerings and what your benefits of your product. Once you have understood the reason why the customer has agreed for the meeting and his expectations from you, then only pitch your offering and that also if it really fits the need.

STOP TELLING, START SELLING!!

• Be the Sales Machine:

Whatever said and done, one has to meet the ‘targets’ too and it will become bit difficult (in the short term maybe) to achieve the targets as I am suggestion you to be a Gentleman and Salesman, but in the long run this is going to churn you numbers as you will be creating a long lasting impression on your contacts. They will remember you in their conversations with their contacts and will highly recommend you to their industry colleagues.  So now you will ask how to compensate for the lost numbers?

Be a swashbuckler. Keep digging for new contacts. Keep reaching out to the prospects and keep qualifying them. Make it a routine to reach out to ‘n’ number of new people via social, professional or personal network. Do all these 4 activities on a daily basis and without getting disheartened; prospect, contact, qualify and close (or at least try to).  Don’t do these activities in a sequential manner; these are to be done in parallel. More the pipeline, more the chances of closure and less will be the burden of targets.

SELL ON THE TANGIBLES, CLOSE ON THE INTANGIBLES

 In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits

And here this is what I am saying:

• People = Being a Gentleman / Gentlewoman (people selling it to people)
• Product = Being a Salesman (Understand the requirement and portray your offering accordingly)
• Profits =   Being the Sales Machine (More the sales funnel, more will be the closures)

Is there anything else that can be added? if yes, do leave a comment!!