Ecommerce Shopping Cart - Search Engine Marketing Software

 Stop Parking Domain Names
Develop Your Domain Names
 

Selling More Effectively as a Trusted Sales Professional - Thirteen Tips


Do you want to sell more successfully using an honorable and straightforward approach? Read these thirteen sales tips to help you be perceived as a trusted sales professional by buyers. Incorporating these sales tips into your selling process will differentiate you from the rest and help you sell more successfully.

  • Attitude can be everything. It is important to remember that your attitudes drive all actions and these actions are perceived by buyers as trust-building or trust-breaking. The most important change you can make to sell more successfully is to adopt and reinforce attitudes that will lead to actions resulting in greater levels of trust. Conversely, it is just as important to "lose the attitudes" that result in actions that are trust-breaking.

  • Truly believe in the product or service and company for which you sell. This is a really difficult hurdle for most sellers who strongly believe in straightforward selling. If you don't believe your products or services will benefit your buyers, then you will constantly be in conflict with yourself during the sales process. If selling using a straightforward platform is truly important to you, it might be necessary for you to find another product or service you will better represent to truly be successful using this approach.

  • Intimately know the product or service and environment in which you sell. Do you need to be an expert? Maybe not. But it can only benefit your customer to know as much as possible so you can identify if your product or service can best meet their needs. A significant aspect of building trust with your buying counterparts is quickly establishing credibility. First and foremost, you should know much more about your products and services - as well as your competitors' products and services - than your prospects. Secondly, you should know your customers' organization and industry and the unique challenges and issues they face better than any of your competitors. Lastly, "I don't know" is a very appropriate answer when that is, indeed, the case. If you're new to a market, letting your potential customers know that up-front will help lower their expectations and make you feel more comfortable when giving "I don't know" as an answer. When you use this response, however, make sure you offer to find out the answer in a specified timeframe, and then be sure to keep that promise.

  • Live within your means. It's simple. Don't force yourself into a position where you "have to make the sale" or you lose something. For one, prospects don't like to feel like you are desperate for business. Secondly, if you want to sell using an honorable approach, it's important to reduce the risk/reward for a given sales situation. If you typically make only three to five sales per year and find yourself in serious debt, don't you think there's a definite likelihood that you might "stretch your value structure" a bit to make sure you win the sale so that your debt can be reduced?

  • Focus on helping the prospect rather than making the sale. If all you're thinking about is making the sale, this will be perceived negatively by your prospect through your actions. It doesn't mean you should never think about the sale, it simply means that you need to focus on the prospect's needs first and foremost.

  • View yourself as an advisor. This is a different mindset that may be foreign to a lot of salespeople. If you adopt the mindset that you're an advisor with the primary goal of identifying and fulfilling your potential customers needs, your attitudes and actions will be perceived very differently by your counterpart(s) than if your view yourself as a sales rep needing to "overcome the obstacles" and "close the sale."

  • Focus on the long-term. Admittedly, this is difficult. Most salespeople are used to the frequent calls from sales managers reminding them that "we've got to make our monthly or quarterly targets." If you can adopt this attitude, though, you will likely see higher sales, both short-term and long-term. Buyers hate to be "closed." If you take a short-term mentality, there's a high likelihood that buyers will perceive you as trying to close them - this is trust-breaking and your sales will likely suffer in the short AND long-term.

  • Some business is not worth pursuing. Most sales managers probably hate this one. It's important, though, to be realistic about each sales opportunity. You're not going to win every sale, so why work under the assumption that you will? Oftentimes, there are many early indicators that will lead you to believe that there's a low probability for making the sale. If that's the case, move on and spend your limited time and energy on opportunities where there's a higher probability for success.

  • Tell the prospect if your product or service will not meet their needs. Once you've had a reasonable opportunity to ask the appropriate questions, you must be willing to let the prospect know, as soon as possible, if your product or service will not meet their needs. This will result in a more efficient buy/sell process and save both you and the prospect valuable time that could be better spent elsewhere. The prospect will respect and probably trust you more for selling in this manner, and very well may purchase or recommend someone else to purchase from you in the future.

  • Ask questions, listen, and take notes. Entire books have been written on this subject. Prior to every prospect meeting, you should already have a list of at least one dozen questions to ask. The prospect's response to each of these questions should oftentimes be followed by one to three additional questions to drill down to the true issues and needs. Always take notes. This will show the prospect that you're truly listening. Also, send your typed notes to the prospect and ask them to review to ensure that you did indeed "get it right."

  • Follow the 80/20 Rule. When meeting with a potential buyer, you should try to talk 20% of the time and allow them to talk 80% of the time - a lot of salespeople and sales managers get this one confused.

  • Be direct. Answer buyer questions directly. Why do you think there is such a loss in the public's trust with politicians? How often do they provide a direct answer to a question? Rarely. Just because most politicians set a poor example, doesn't mean you should.

  • No "closing." One of the worst things you can do as a salesperson is to spend a lot of time and effort building trust with a prospect, only to destroy your "trust factor" towards the end of a complex sales process. No buyer likes to feel they're being manipulated or "closed." Make a recommendation, preferably with several options for the prospect to consider, and ask them to identify the next steps with a timeline. Tell them you'd really appreciate their business and ask what next steps you can take that will be helpful to them.

    • Robert Reed is a consultant, speaker and president of TrustBuild. TrustBuild offers the Trust Seal Program to identify and differentiate trustworthy sales professionals from traditional competitors. Sealholders are provided with easy-to-use tools and information to help them break through the buyer "trust barrier" to gain a competitive edge and win more sales. Visit TrustBuild.com to learn more about the Trust Seal Program for trustworthy sales professionals.

    Shopping Cart Uses Top Google Keywords to Maximize Revenue
    Ecommerce shopping cart hosting uses search engine marketing software to sell products online. Use top paying Google keywords and PPC campaigns to maximize revenue and boost your income stream. Get a merchant account for credit card processing and make money on the internet with merchandise sales.

    MORE ARTICLES:

    Former SpectraLink VP Distribution Sales to Head CommtechWireless Europe
    With the recent acquisition of SpectraLink by Polycom, CommtechWireless announces the appointment of former SpectraLink VP Distribution Sales Mikael Andersen to CEO of the newly established CommtechWireless Europe.

    Why A Home Business? What About The Scams? How About The Internet?
    Why A Home Business? What About The Scams? How About The Internet?

    Accounts Receivable Financing: Exporting Green Products
    Financing clean technology exports with bank financing, support from the U.S. Ex-Im Bank, and various forms of guarantees and insurance can grow your business, combat global warming and improve our environment.

    Brand New Publicity Manual for Doctors Reveals Hundreds of Strategies to Generate TV, Print, Radio and Internet Media Coverage
    "Operation Publicity: The Essential Guide for Doctors who Want to Maximize Publicity for Their Practices, Procedures and Products" by health care publicity expert Diana Laverdure ($59 at http://www.operationpublicity.com) is a brand new publicity manual for doctors in all medical disciplines who want to build credibility, increase their name recognition, position themselves as leaders in their field and attract more patients by generating an ongoing stream of positive TV, print, radio and Internet media coverage.

    Pashmina Sales Donate to Breast Cancer
    A global pashmina retailer has partnered with the International Breast Cancer Research Foundation to make a donation at every purchase in support of the Pink Ribbon campaign.

    Dating Online-Is it Safe?
    You might have considered joining the throngs of people obsessed with online dating but have not yet taken the first step in trying it out You want to satisfy your curiosity but are hesitant because of safety reasons

    Premium Chewing Gum Manufacturer ZAPP! Brands Announces Ground Breaking Network Marketing Program After 6 Years of Impressive Growth
    Aspartame Free - Sugar Free Gum Manufacturer Responds to increasing customer requests for a program that allows the word-of-mouth-driven company to empower its customers as team members. Company recognizes tremendous opportunity in the face of growing concerns over artificial sweeteners and heightened awareness of the benefits of Xylitol.

    Social Networking + eCommerce = Web x.0
    Goosca.com unveils the beta testing for its new social networking platform that allows users to carry out online shopping activities.

    The 3 Factors in Choosing the Right Over-The-Counter Acne Products
    Nowadays it is increasingly difficult to choose the right acne skin care product to buy The main source of such inconvenience can be contributed to the large number of skin care products available to the consumers and in part of the medical advances made possible by the skin experts

    Forex For Beginners ? Making Money From Currency Trading
    FOREX stands for Foreign Exchange and it stems from the international financial market. That is, the Forex market, the place where currencies of different countries are bought and sold in a similar manner to the buying and selling of share market in the ASX, Australian Stock Exchange.

    How To Keep Your Customers 'In The Loop' By Automating Your Sales Process
    In this day and age everything can be automated, and that means that you are able to do more business However, it's very important, and even more so when you are on the internet, to keep your customers in the loop

    What is the Google Dance?
    As with any good web developer, the ability to time the changes Google will update your website and refresh the content for better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is in your favor. Welcome to the world of "Google Dance".

    Establishing Internet Traffic
    One of the best ways to get high targeted traffic and one way links to your site is to write articles and submit them to Article Directories, Ezine Publishers, and High traffic websites that accept article submissions.

    Seeking Help To Increase Your Internet Sales
    ?How do I increase my internet sales?? Have you ever asked yourself that before? If so, you are definitely not alone. Each year, thousands of online business owners wish that their sales would increase. In fact, there are some business owners who not only want their internet sales to increase, but they need them to. If you are one of those business owners, there is a good chance that you need to have your online website achieve a higher search engine ranking. It has been said that high search engine rankings are one of the best ways to make an online business a profitable one.

    TESTCo On Track to Double Revenue in 2007
    Offshore software testing provider experiencing rapid growth once again.

    Develop Your Domain Names | Site Map | Home

    Privacy Policy | Copyright/Trademark Notification