What do you feel when you meet a salesperson – whether you’re looking to buy a new phone for yourself or equipment for the office or home? Are you happy to chat to them, confident that their aim is to help you? Or do you dread the encounter because you think they’ll put pressure on you to buy more than you need or persuade you to pay more than you planned? And who needs more pressure!
The good news is that salespeople are being trained differently these days. They’re being taught to take more of an interest in helping their customers – not just getting the order form signed. The emphasis is on getting repeat business and building good, long-term relationships with customers.
But what if you’re on the other side – you’re a salesperson and you’ve got to make a living? Well, communication is the key, plus being prepared to give good customer service. When you’re with a client, ask questions about their business needs and then listen to the answers. Think about how you can help to solve your customers’ problems – think of yourself as something of a business consultant.
This means that you have to do planning and research first so that you understand your client’s industry and where his business fits in. Why not have a look back to my earlier post: Five Ways to Develop Commercial Awareness for some ideas on this.
But if you are thinking of a career in selling – or you just need to sell your own products and services – then this is reassuring news. It means you can shake off the image of the pushy salesman, with one foot in the door. And this may be one of the reasons why more women are going for a sales career and achieving real success. It’s often suggested that women have better ‘soft’ skills such as emotional intelligence and empathy – though you can’t generalise about things like this. We’re certainly finding that the ratio of women who enrol on our Professional Sales Techniques course has risen considerably over the past couple of years.
To help you get started we’ve chosen Professional Sales Techniques as our ‘course of the week’ starting next Monday. So, if you fancy being one of the new breed of salespeople then checkout our Facebook and Twitter feeds – or contact us by email – because we’ll be offering £25 off the course for seven days only!
