Here is a collection of basic tips on which, I believe, the principles of selling rest.
1. Mediocre products with great sales teams always beat great products with mediocre sales teams
This was said by Donal Daly, a strong advocate of the importance of having good salespeople in a company.
2. Everyone likes to buy, but nobody likes to feel they’re being sold to
You’ll hardly succeed in sales if all your customers see when they look at you is a salesperson.
3. Selling is done by listening, not by talking
The popular misconception persists that a good salesperson has the gift of the gab, but the truth is that sales are made by knowing how to listen. You need to give the customer the feeling (a false one) that they are leading the conversation. By asking the right questions and stepping in only when needed, the customer will lead us to the close of the sale themselves.
4. Sales courses don’t create star salespeople
Courses can help you improve, but nothing replaces the need for thousands of hours and hundreds of customer visits. Besides, the easiest thing to learn is sales techniques. That’s the baseline everyone starts from. They work for some and not for others, so to become a better salesperson you’ll have to learn dozens of things that seem to have nothing to do with sales, such as human psychology, body language, public speaking techniques…
More truths about sales
5. Everyone makes a living from selling something
In fact, there isn’t a single company in the world that can survive without selling. Whatever your profession, you are selling something, unless you are the end product that provides the service once the sale has closed, and even then, you are selling yourself to your company as an employee every day.
6. The secret of good salespeople is that they make customers, not sales
Many salespeople and entrepreneurs forget this essential requirement in business.
7. Sales opportunities are like fresh fish: they stink after three days (Thomas Roy Crowell)
And nobody likes their fish to go off, right?
See also: 4 truths about the art of negotiation
8. Value and respect your customer’s time. Give them a good reason to listen to you
As a line from Mad Men puts it, when a client meets with you, they have a thousand reasons to be anywhere else. So don’t waste their time.
9. Loyal customers are usually better than new ones
Although we need both kinds of customers, because we have to keep growing, never forget that loyal customers are the safest thing you have (for now), while new customers tend to be more costly to prospect and riskier because you don’t know them. When we’re just starting out, we have no choice but to put 100% of our effort into new customers (since we have no others), but after that, focus your greatest efforts on trying to turn all your existing customers into loyal ones.
10. Everyone buys emotionally, but everyone insists they buy based on logical choice (Jerry Acuff)
Use those biases to your advantage.
11. In a sales process, never answer a question without giving an answer
Although this technique is widely used by politicians, for some reason, when it comes to sales, customers aren’t so easily fooled, and they want a clear, concise answer. Don’t ramble.
12. Contact with the customer is what a business is all about (Jay Leno)
Perhaps this is where small businesses can have a big advantage over large ones. There are still huge numbers of people who prefer the human touch and want to know they aren’t just a code number to a company they spend money with on a regular basis.
13. Success in sales is the result of effort, dedication, discipline and hard work
As in most fields (business, investing…), there are usually no shortcuts in sales either.
14. Every visit or call always ends in a sale
The salesperson sells their reasons to buy, and the customer sells their excuses not to. The strongest arguments win, but there is always a sale. The secret is to be a better salesperson than the customer you are visiting.
See also: 15 habits of successful salespeople
Featured image: Bob's Seafood Stall, Folkestone Fish Market 1979 by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
