tips to succeed in sales

At certain times in the year, most people are working hard to make their numbers. Yet, at the same time, many have no idea how long it takes to turn a prospect into a profitable customer. Creating a prospecting timeline can help benchmark past experiences and streamline future ones. Begin this process by examining a few recent customers, and then break down the key activities you went through.
Your goal should be to determine the specific activities that were the most time consuming, and then figure out a way to shorten the time spent on that particular step. Most people are amazed to find that a couple of activities take the majority of time. By knowing this, they can work to alter their selling process. Plan now so the upcoming year will be your best year ever.

When we near the holidays, its a great time to begin preparing your schedule for making phone calls to people to whom you rarely talk. Theres no better opportunity than during the holidays to call someone you havent spoken to recently and wish them a great Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. If you make 5 calls per day, just think of how many people you can network with by the time December 31 rolls around?

Often the holiday period becomes a very difficult time to sell when youre in a business to business environment. If this is the case for you, use the holiday period to sell yourself and your knowledge. Send your customers information about your industry, the economy or other points of interest. Although they may not read the information, they will notice that you took the time to send it to them.
Use these months to deepen your relationship with your customers. When business gets back to normal after the first of the year, youll have new things to ask them about and, more importantly, youll be viewed as a salesperson who is interested in more than just money.

How much do you know about your customers customer? It doesnt matter if you sell B2B or B2C, the question still demands an answer. I work with too many salespeople who, when asked this question, have only a shallow answer.
Take the time to find out all you can about what motivates your customers customers. Spend time with them, talk to them, and, most of all, get to know what drives their decision making process. When you can identify this information, you can then provide your customer with even better service.

Start the New Year off right by developing the habit of recording the questions you ask on a sales call. Create a complete list of all the questions you ask to open a conversation, explore facts, close a sale, etc. Along with recording the questions, make a note of the type of responses you receive. Within a few months, you will not only have documented your questioning skills, but also developed your own personal list of questions you feel very comfortable asking.

There is always something new you can learn about your customers, whether they are newly acquired or long term accounts. Use each sales call as an opportunity to be teachable. Its amazing how customers change! Unless you keep up to date knowledge about them, you will soon find theyve changed and you havent. After each sales call, ask yourself what you learned about the customer and, of course, make sure you record it in your customer profile.

At the end of each day and each week, compare your accomplishments to your overall sales goal. If you achieved the volume you needed to hit your goal, congratulate yourself! If you didnt, identify at least one thing that did go right and might help you achieve your goal in time. Always find something positive to end the day with. Before you leave, dont forget to set up the next day or week! The last thing you want to do is use those very productive first minutes of the day doing anything but selling.

Looking for a reason to contact a customer or a prospect? Search their name on Google.com to see if there are any listings for them. Youll be astonished at what you can find concerning your customers/prospects or others with their same name. Regardless of the outcome, the search should give you some interesting antidotes you can use on the next contact. When that contact is made, the customer/prospect will be amazed you took the time to do the search, and if you do find something in reference to them, youll have the perfect subject to talk about.

Never end a sales call without having agreed with your customer on something, even if its not the close of a sale. The objective of coming to an agreement, no matter how small it might be, is to demonstrate to the customer that youre able to move the sale forward. If possible, gain agreement on one particular aspect of the sale and use this as a building block for the next time you meet. However, if you cant see eye to eye on a particular aspect, you may at least be able to concur on the items you intend to follow up on or a time to get together again. The important thing is that you agree on something and use whatever it is as a next step toward a future sales call.

In each day, make time to not do any type of selling. Rather, use that time to reflect upon recent sales contacts and identify at least one thing you did well in each. Think of the questions you asked, the body language you used, and the information you shared. After youve pinpointed the best of the best, take the time to plan how you can do that same activity in every other sales call you have.