The act of selling is an art, but for many people, unpleasant experiences with manipulative sales tactics has led them to view salespeople in a negative light.
Regardless of how you frame sales, it’s best to cultivate a love for selling if you want your business to do well.
Whether you’re seeking to sell others on the value of your company or a specific product, the growth and success of your business depends on your competence in sales. The critical attitudes toward pitches may be warranted to a degree, but they can’t be used as an excuse to dismiss you from addressing them in your strategic planning.
For the owners of small businesses or startups, it’s imperative to develop an interest in sales to kickstart your company’s ability to expand into new markets and flourish.
If you find yourself intimidated by sales and worried about its negative connotation, adjust your perspective and follow a couple of tips to improve your strategy.
Be Confident
When it comes to sales, confidence is key.
For introverts, this can be a daunting hurdle to overcome. However, if you want people to have confidence in your product, then you need to have confidence in yourself.
One way you can encourage yourself to be more confident is by dressing like a professional. If you want to impress potential customers, make a strong first impression and provide yourself with some self-assurance, wear clothes that enable you to look the part of a salesperson. Once you feel like a professional, you can start to act like one.
As far as acting like a professional, many people assume a strong personality makes a valuable salesperson. This isn’t necessarily true — a strong seller is someone who can be friendly and personable to prospective buyers. It’s better to be observant than assertive, which should take some of the pressure off your shoulders and enable you to be more confident.
Commit to Helping Customers
You don’t have to be a fast-talking, manipulative sleaze to perform well in sales.
Instead of believing that sales revolves around selling somebody something they don’t need, reorient your thinking toward helping somebody get something they want. If a potential customer sought your services, they did so because they’re interested in what you have to offer. Capitalize on opportunities to mutually benefit your customers and make them happy while supporting your business.
You should always seek to invest in your customers, bonding with them and establishing an emotional connection that makes them more enthusiastic about a purchasing decision they’re considering.
With plenty of experience developing relationships and closing sales themselves, automotive salespeople provide excellent suggestions and tips that can be used to improve your strategy. Realizing that buying a vehicle is partially based upon emotion, automotive salespeople aim to help prospects enjoy the car-buying experience and prioritize their needs. If the emotional reaction and relationship-building is positive, it’s more likely the customer will make the purchase.
It’s important to make sure your potential customers are at ease during your pitch. Tell stories to elicit an emotional response and demonstrate your respect through genuine kindness.
Strive to Learn and Not Lecture
Approach sales with the eager mentality of looking to learn.
Clever tag lines and rehearsed pitches may sound persuasive in theory, but they often come across as inauthentic and smug to potential customers. What matters more than a polished plea for business is making sure your prospective buyers feel understood.
Listen carefully to the needs of your prospects and use the valuable clues they provide to shift your pitch to align with what they’re looking for. If you pause to hear their thoughts, you’ll not only improve your relationships, but you’ll also accelerate the sales process.
Selling points are worthless unless you’ve learned what your potential customer’s interests are, so maximize their influence over the sale and let them do most of the work.
Tell the Truth
Don’t try to be a hero and promise prospective buyers something that isn’t true. If you don’t know the answer to one of their questions, tell them you don’t and proceed to look into it for them. If they ask you something you know about, answer honestly and truthfully.
It’s important to be enthusiastic, but don’t overdo it — your customers will be able to tell you’re exaggerating your eagerness.
If you truly believe in the value of your company or a specific product, then let potential customers know and use your convictions to sell it. You can’t adequately convey this to a prospective buyer if you don’t believe in it yourself.
With that said, don’t presume your customers should buy into your pitch. It’s counterproductive to twist their values to conform with yours. Instead, allow customers to naturally justify buying into your company or services.
Don’t Be Intimidated by Sales
If the idea of sales makes you uneasy, modify your approach and begin to focus on ways to enrich your relationships with potential customers while seeking to address their needs. It can be challenging to approach strangers with the expectation of selling something, but if you embrace best practices for sales, your efforts will be rewarded.
