There’s a sales superhero in all of us: How to be great at sales as a non-sales professional

Are you in a professional role but still tasked to bring in new business? For example, you might be an engineer, an architect, a financial advisor, or a lawyer who is expected to close some contracts has some business development expectations or likely tasked with closing contracts.

Many non-sales professionals, who are often technical experts, struggle with selling because:

• They don’t like being ‘salesy’
• They don’t like the pressure
• They find it difficult to start the process
• They don’t know how to close the deal
• They don’t want to follow up
• They feel nervous, uncomfortable or lost

And most of the reasons are caused simply by one root cause:

They don’t have a good sales process / they don’t know how to sell.

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The myth of the ‘Used Car Salesperson’

It’s not helpful that selling is often compared to how the old ‘Used Car Salesperson’ would do sales, and is synonymous with sometimes unethical, aggressive / strong and transactional approaches.

This is NOT how effective sales should be done. It doesn’t leave the customer (and the salesperson) feeling good and it actually doesn’t convert very well.

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Effective selling isn’t difficult

When you can have sales conversations with humility, trust, and humanized principles, you will feel more comfortable having these conversations because you'll just be able to be yourself. In addition, you can ensure these conversations are constructive by applying a strategic (and scientific) process and methodology that anyone can learn.

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Simply follow a proven process

A proven sales process acts as a roadmap to guide you through each step of a sale. Make sure your process includes:

• How to identify potential customers
• The approach you’ll take to ask/book meetings
• How to conduct sales meetings (first and second) including- active listening and the types of open questions?- how to effectively present solutions- handling objections,- securing next actions
• How to follow up and,
• How to close the deal.
• And… how to ask for referrals.

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By having structured steps, individuals without a traditional sales background can systematically approach sales in a methodical way that reduces the reliance on innate sales talent. It allows non-sales professionals to learn and apply sales principles effectively, leading to successful outcomes even without extensive sales experience.

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Learn the most impactful skills

Learning key sales skills, even those used by expert negotiators like the FBI, can be surprisingly accessible for non-sales professionals. These skills are not exclusive to sales but are part of everyday interactions and are not inherent to only a select few but can be developed through understanding the methodology, practicing and having a bit of guidance. Most of these skills are easily trainable and anyone can learn and apply these powerful sales and negotiation techniques in their professional lives.

Here are some of the impactful skills you can focus on:

• Building trust – what to do to build trust with someone
• Active listening and strategic silence
• Asking open questions – extremely useful skill to master in meetings to guide the meeting to where you want it to go.
• Presenting your solution – master aligning your solution to their needs
• Asking for the deal – one of the elements people fear most, yet one of the most important, so getting good at this is critical.
• Handling objections – besides preparing for objections, it’s important to understand the methodology used by experts to handle objections

It actually works

100% of the professionals I have worked with who have faced the initial struggles listed at the start of this article have been surprised by how effective they can be by just following a process and learning and applying some simple skills. They’re also ‘shocked’ by how much confidence they’ve gained and quickly they can improve their results.

If you’re a non-sales professional and you want an introduction to doing sales the better way, check out my LinkedIn course “Sales Skills for Non-Sales Professionals” to learn the key sales techniques used by experts to be more efficient and effective in winning more deals and influencing sales outcomes.

The course offers some powerful strategies that are taken from The Infinite Sales System? – my flagship program used by large B2B companies in various industries across the globe.

Enjoy selling!