subject: How To Be An Effective Salesperson [print this page] Figuring out how to be an effective salesperson may sometimes seem like something that is out of your control. Or that you sometimes have to be more lucky than good.
And while there are many successful salespeople out there that are successful from being in the right place at the right time, there are clear and practical things that you do to become consistently more effective and successful.
Here are ten areas to look when trying to improve results:
1. Put in the work
Let's get this one out of the way early as it is a given, but you have to put in the work and have high activity levels in order to be effective.
Some salespeople think that being in sales means you can have freedom and as a result, you don't always have to work that hard. But the reality is, if you don't get lucky with a ripe territory, you will need to work hard to be consistent and effective.
2. Continue to learn
Never stop learning. Sales is a skill and there is always room for growth and development. You can continue to develop your knowledge about sales tactics and techniques. Or you can continue to learn about your products and your industry to become a deeper expert in your field.
3. Reflect back
One thing that is often over looked with how to be an effective salesperson is to focus on reflecting back on previous conversations and previous opportunities. By reflecting back on what could have been done to improve previous results can help with decision making moving forward.
4. Ask good questions
An average salesperson takes whatever information the prospect gives them. An effective salesperson is strategic with the sales questions that are asked to not only extract more information, but also extract the right information.
5. Manage customer information
When you ask questions and collect customer information, what do you do with it? Are you just keeping the notes on a pad of paper or are you digitizing the information so that it can be shared and easily accessed later?
6. Clearly find and diagnose pain
Being able to find and diagnose the pain and challenges that the prospect is experiencing is key to how to be an effective salesperson. This will not only help you to generate more leads, it will also help you to identify which prospects to spend your time with.
7. Thoroughly qualify the prospect
Picking up with the previous point leaves off, your time is very valuable. Thoroughly qualify prospects to make sure you are trying to sell to the prospects that fit best and have the highest probability of moving forward.
8. Build rapport
Building rapport is important because not only do prospects buy from vendors that they like, but also having rapport will make the prospect more open with information and more responsive to requests.
9. Build interest
At some point, you are going to need to be able to build interest in order to master how to be an effective salesperson. There are some very clear and practical things you can do to improve your ability to build interest.
10. Control the sales cycle
You can either go with the flow with prospects and deals or you can try to be strategic to improve your control over sales cycles. At some level, a deal can only move at a certain speed, but there are things that you can do manage the sales cycles and keep things moving forward.
