Business owners, there’s no way of getting around it – you need to sell products and services. Recently, there has been a shift from old-fashioned methods because new-age technology has changed the game. Regardless of whether you implement cloud computing software or digitize your records, the ability to sell will never diminish. It’s the lifeblood of your organization that will keep you in the black and out of the red for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, some sales teams aren’t up to the job. For businesses that want to go back to basics, the key is to implement traits of successful sales teams from around the world. Here’s a selection of the top characteristics.
Sticking To Buying Personas
Your customer base is integral to your ability to sell. After all, they are the people who will decide whether to part with their money or keep it in their pockets. So, the first hurdle is to create buying personas to avoid targeting uninterested customers. This tactic will save you a considerable amount of resources. However, it’s only a starting point. Once you have personas, it’s vital to stick to them, or else you’ll stray off course. When this happens, you tend to resort to hoping for the best.
Enhancing Knowledge
Salespeople have bad reputations. You might believe that salesmen and women are necessary evils, yet they’re cocky and arrogant. Okay, some people who work in the industry might be these things, yet the majority understand their limitations and try and fill the gaps. Considering they are the best of the best, it’s not below you to point your team in the direction of online sales training. The sector changes like the weather, which means a company that doesn’t invest in training is bound to fall behind. Knowledge is power, and so is the ability to be humble and admit you don’t know everything about sales.
Not Trying New Things
As far as successful traits go, this one sounds outdated and narrow-minded. After all, you’ve got to try new techniques to find better ways of working. While this is true in other areas of business, it doesn’t translate into sales. Why? It’s because experimenting could be a waste. And, if it is, that’s valuable minutes you’ve lost to make a sale. This isn’t to say that you should never switch-up your approach as change is necessary. However, it’s vital to maintain a winning strategy once you find it. It’s a repeatable method of selling, and that’s all you need to know.
Following Up
How often can you say that you follow up a lead? The leads that converted will spring to mind, but what about the ones that got away? In reality, too many sales teams only work hard if they see gold at the end of the rainbow. Although it’s easy to see the logic, it doesn’t take much time or effort to send an email or make a phone call. After all, they intimated their interest, so it’s the least you should do to try and cement that interest.
Does your sales team exploit the above to sell successfully?