Take-aways from a talk in the Trust Center 7/14/16
Sales – art or practice?
- Sales skills can be learned!
- Sales skills are some kind of an art but there is practice, discipline and strategic thinking behind it. Everything you design needs to be thought through. For example:
- Should you use channel sales vs direct?
- Should you consolidate or keep your sales forces separate when acquiring another company/ being acquired?
- How many of sales reps should you hire?
- What is the compensation structure?
- How do you provide feedback, manage productivity?
- Strategic sales decisions will affect your product, your relationships with the customers, with your investors and many more…
Sales fundamentals
- Attitude, enthusiasm & goals
- Sales are all based on personal relationships - are you accessible? Are you listening? Do you ask questions to learn about your customers? Do they feel like you care?
- Product knowledge - you really need to know your product in order to sell it well.
- Selling tactics & strategies - can be learned and practiced.
Always ask yourself: what is the benefit for my customer?
- Decisions are made by humans, so you should learn - what motivates your target customers? Who helps/ influences their decision? What makes them feel good?
- Be an active listener and ask questions! the more you ask, the more your customer feels they’re in control and the more information you get.
- In complex sales, or B2B, there is a lot of permeation work required. Take the time to learn about the organization structure, the decision making units
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