Tips To Be A Better Salesman Part One
There's not a huge gap between an average salesman and a good salesman.But the gap between a good salesman and a great salesman is staggering.
A good sales rep will hit their goals the bulk of the time.
Great independent sales reps blow their goals out of the water and earn the respect, admiration, and trust of their leads.
This gets them referrals and word of mouth advertising, helping them crush their goals into the future.
Even the very best salesman always has room to grow in their role and improve their selling skills.
In fact, the best salespeople are constantly looking for ways to improve their game and are never satisfied in the profession as a sales rep.
If you are looking for greatness as a sales rep, we have good news for you.
In part one of this article, we will go over a few tips to help you grow into the best salesman you can be.
1. Understand Your Market
The most important thing you need to do as a salesperson is to understand your market.If you don't understand the people you are selling to, you will never be an effective sales person.And we're not talking about just knowing their name, position, and what they do for a living. That's the absolute bare minimum.We're talking about knowing what gets them out of bed in the morning and really makes them tick.What does a typical day for them look like? What are their main challenges and problems? How are you able to fix those problems?You need to know as much about the lives of your leads as you can.Knowing these things about your prospects will improve your understanding of how they can benefit from what you're selling them and position your product or service in a way that will have an impact on them.You also need to understand who else is trying to solve your prospect's pain points outside your company.What does your competition look like? How are they selling? Is it working?How does your solution look compared to theirs?You want to stand out and be unique while still speaking to what your prospects need.
No one wants to hear the same sales pitch over and over again.
2. Use an Effective Sales Process That Can Be Measured and Repeated
Average sales reps think that they should follow their guts or use their intuition. This isn't ideal.A great salesperson will use an optimized process that can be tracked and measured to close as many prospects as they can.A low-performing sales representative will let things slip through the cracks because they aren't prepared for them when they present themselves.A high-performing sales rep knows the state of every deal in their pipeline, what they've already done, what needs to happen next, how they can improve the quality of the offer, and when everything needs to happen.You are never able to analyze your results if you don't track them. Your ability as a salesperson will never grow if you don't know what needs to be improved.Great sales people will obsessively review their key metrics and adjust as necessary.
3. Be a Disciplined Critical Thinker
You need to have a sales process that can be measured and repeated, but you don't want to turn into a robot.You want to be able to build relationships with your clients in the short amount of time you are with them.You don't want to read from a script that dictates your every move and leaves you unprepared for the unexpected.You need to be able to alter your pitch in accordance with your customer, time, and place.This means you need to have the ability to think critically and outside of the box on occasion to reach higher sales levels.It would help if you also had an unrelenting attitude and discipline in your sales approach so you can go above and beyond to do whatever it takes to close the deal.Learning how to be a better sales rep typically boils down to developing a disciplined work ethic.4. Sell to Appropriate Leads
Again, when it boils down to it, sales are really all about leading and selling to the right clients.That means you need to understand what makes a lead a good fit for you and your company so you aren't wasting your time selling to people who will never become a customer.You need to ask the right questions so you can know who to target, identifying your buyer personas and ideal customer profiles.After that, you should be able to figure out what they're struggling with, what their challenges are, and how you can sell your product as a way to solve their problems.
When you are only focusing on the right leads, you will see better win rates, better deals, higher customer lifetime value, and word of mouth.
If you’re focusing on the people who are best served by your solution, It’s easier to close leads and turn them into customers.
This keeps you from spending too much time selling to customers who don't need your product or service, and it allows you to have a higher probability of closing them.
You just have to ensure they’re ready for what you’re offering.
Continue Your Sales Career With EMS
We hope part one of this article provided you with some great tips on how to improve as an independent sales rep.
While you're waiting for part two, and if you're looking for new challenges as a salesperson, EMS has a great opportunity for you.
We partner with savvy, motivated salesmen like you to bring our innovative credit card processing products and services to merchants across the country through our ISO Agent Program.
But, even the best salesmen never have to do it alone.
EMS will work with you to offer customized agreements for your potential customers, gain merchant approvals, provide marketing assistance, and 24/7/365 support for anything you need.
To learn more about what EMS can do for you, click the button below.