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Originally Posted On: https://criticalfinancial.com/sales-101-how-to-make-excellent-sales-to-fill-your-wallet-faster/

 

Making money is the central goal of any business. For sure, you want to deliver a quality product or service that solves problems and makes the world a better place. At the end of the day, though, it’s all about making money!

Capital is simply a prerequisite for business prosperity. 29% of all start-ups fail because they run out of it. But you know that already!

 

You don’t need to be Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk to understand the importance of generating revenue.

You might, however, benefit from some tips on making more of the excellent sales that drive entrepreneurial success. After all, it’s one thing to appreciate the significance of money; it’s another to know how to make it.

Are you looking for newfound sales success for your business? Let us help! Keep reading for a long list of epic sales tips to skyrocket your sales in 2020.

Know Your Audience

Sales proficiency goes hand in hand with understanding your ideal customer. Think of it like telling jokes.

You wouldn’t tell the same joke to your strict, straight-laced parents as you would to your rowdy, raucous pals, right? It just wouldn’t be met with the same reaction.

In other words, you understand your audience. You realize that your friends appreciate a different kind of humor to your parents (and vice versa) and deliver an appropriate joke to either party accordingly.

The same goes for making sales.

Understanding your audience means you can personalize sales pitches to them. You know who they are, what they want, what they like (and dislike), and why they’re talking to you in the first place. With that insight at your disposal, you’re far more likely to deliver a message that ends in a sale.

Create a Buyer Persona

But how can you know your audience if you’re just starting out?

It’s a good question to which there’s no easy answer. However, one strategy that can help involves creating a buyer persona. In other words, you sit down and think about your ideal customer.

Think about your brand, mission, and business goals. Then, with that information in mind, ask yourself who would come through your door. Try to be as detailed as possible in your conceptualization!

Imagine what they look like, where they live, how they talk, and what they like to do. Consider their profession, income status, and political opinions. Think about where they hang out after work, how they spend their free time, what car they drive, and where they go on holiday. And so on.

By the end of the task, you’ll have a newfound understanding of your ideal customer. From there, it’ll be much easier to a) market to them, and b) compose your sales pitch. It’s natural for the leads for conversions to follow.

Be Authentic

Authenticity is crucial too.

Expect to fail if you deliver the classic sales pitches of old! People these days don’t want to be sold to or given a spiel about how life-changing they’ll find your product/service. Take that tack and you’ll turn them off in no time.

Instead, you need to be transparent and real in your interactions with prospective customers.

Genuineness is the greatest sales tool at your disposal. It facilitates trust, helps cultivate the relationship, and lets people get to know you (and the brand). They feel like you actually care- as if you’re out to make their lives better as opposed to just making a profit.

Keep that in mind as you start seeing customers come through the door. You’ll see an upsurge in sales as soon as you stop selling and start being yourself.

Be an Expert on Your Business

You’ll never make sales if you don’t know your stuff.

You can have the gift of the gab and a dozen sales tricks up your sleeve. Yet even the best salesperson in the world would struggle to convert if they don’t know what they’re selling.

Imagine speaking to a sales rep who knows less about the product/service than you do. It hardly fills you with confidence! If they can’t answer your questions and um and ah at your inquiries, then you’re going to look elsewhere to spend your money.

Put the charm and snake-oil away!

It’s your job to know everything possible about what you’re trying to sell. More than that, though, you need the information ready and available- to be brought out at the drop of a hat. Manage all that and you’ll find it far easier to gain peoples’ trust (and get their money).

Deliver Constant Value

Most businesses need repeat customers to survive and prosper.

The first sale is important, of course. But it’s ensuing sales from the same customer(s) that really drive results. Suddenly, you bid farewell to a revolving door of customers and see your client base start to grow.

You’ll start spending less on forthcoming sales (because client retention is cheaper than acquisition) and revenue will expand exponentially.

Think of a car salesperson. The best in the business have a long line of existing customers who come to them whenever they need a new set of wheels.

But they only get to that point by providing value from the outset.

Value’s the real secret sauce to customer retention. Make it your mission to provide high-quality service from the start. Solve customers’ problems and go above and beyond to make them happy.

In so doing, you’ll enjoy a boost in first-time sales and put yourself top of mind if they ever need something else that you sell.

Get Better at Listening

The prevailing stereotype of a salesperson involves someone who could talk your ear off.

And there’s an element of truth to it! Being good at sales requires being good with words. You need to be eloquent, expressive, articulate, and persuasive.

But it isn’t quite that simple. Knowing what to say means knowing what people want to hear. For that, you need to be an incredible listener.

That’s why you should start listening before you talk. Get better at paying attention to what prospective customers say. Give them your full and undivided attention, nodding and exclaiming every step of the way.

This will do a few things. Firstly, the customer feels heard, which helps your relationship with them. They’ll feel like you care as well, which is an endearing quality that’s sure to facilitate sales anyway.

Secondly, you’ll hear the information you need to more effectively sell them a particular product/service. And, finally, listening will facilitate the development of empathy between you and the customer. More on this next.

Be Empathic

The best salespeople can sell anybody anything at any time. Check out benbuckwalter.com to learn how to do this.

How? Because they understand what that person wants. They can put themselves in the customer’s shoes, appreciate their pain points, and deliver an authentic pitch that has those needs at its core.

In other words, it becomes all about them and less about you. Not only does that build trust, but it means you can give them what they actually need.

Think about selling somebody a pen.

It’s not the pen they need, but having something to write with, right? Understanding that subtle distinction requires empathy. Cultivate it, and you take a customer’s problems (of which they may or may not be aware) and show them how your product/service solves them.

Make Things Personal

Do you remember the good old days of email marketing?

You could send a generic email blast to your entire list and expect amazing open rates and conversions. Needless to say, times have changed!

Making a sale relies upon a prior relationship these days. People need to know and trust you before they’ll hand over their cash. Which is why the ‘one size fits all’ approach doesn’t work anymore.

It’s too distant and impersonal.

To succeed in today’s market, your sales tactics must be personalized. You need to tailor everything to individual members of your audience.

Think about Netflix, which personalizes their film and TV show suggestions to your tastes. Or consider Amazon, which provides a suggested purchases section based on your prior orders.

In both cases, the business speaks directly to the consumer- even to the point of using their first name. Everything becomes more relevant as a result, which facilitates sales.

Rinse and Repeat Effective Techniques

Learning and mastering a technique that actually sells can take time.

It’s about trial and error. You see what works and what doesn’t and iterate accordingly. Eventually, with a bit of luck, you end up with a set of strategies that drive sales in their droves!

Make sure you take full advantage of them.

Think of it like finding a new song you enjoy. You listen to it over and over again until you no longer like it, right? Well, treat your effective sales strategies in the same way.

After all, you want to make as many sales as you can in as little time possible- especially when you’re working to commission. If you know that a particular approach works, then why try anything else?

Mix things up when those techniques grow stale or repetitive. But don’t rush to alter course unless you have to. The time it takes to find a new strategy could have been better spent making money!

Make Sure You Follow Up

Sales success requires a certain degree of diligence and determination.

Imagine that you’ve sent a prospective customer an email about a particular product. You wait a few days but don’t hear back. What do you do?

Assume they aren’t interested and move onto the next prospect? Or send them a brief follow up to see if they received your first one? Option B, of course!

Never assume someone’s a lost cause just because they don’t get back to you immediately. Heck, they might not even have seen your email. It could have gone straight into their spam folder or got lost in the mass of other messages they get each day.

They might be an enthusiastic potential customer ready and waiting for your contact. But, if you don’t follow up, then you’ll never know.

Effectiveness at sales is as much about the follow up as the initial interaction. Always do your best to chase leads in your effort to sell.

Be Hard Working and Disciplined

The ‘secret’ to selling often comes down to good old-fashioned hard work.

Becoming the best salesperson in the office requires an atypical attitude. The targets aren’t there just to be met- they’re there to be broken!

It’s about doing what it takes to make a sale, being unrelenting in your willingness to improve, and going above and beyond to deliver value at all times. You might have to stay late to follow up with old leads, get in early to make sales calls, or work at the weekend to meet with prospects.

Roll up your sleeves, apply some elbow grease, and your sales rate is sure to improve.

Be Insightful

Awareness is another key weapon in a sales person’s arsenal.

Without it, you can spend an entire day plugging away at a prospect who’s never going to convert. Without it, you can forgo the follow up because you’re ‘sure’ it’s a lost cause. Without it, you can say the wrong thing at the wrong time, the right thing at the wrong time, or the wrong thing at the right time!

Thankfully, some of this comes down to experience. As time goes by, you’ll come to know when to push, when to pull back, and when to walk away altogether.

Time to Make Excellent Sales and Fill Your Wallet

Business success is reliant on making money.

And that, in turn, depends on your proficiency at sales. Unfortunately, selling anything is easier said than done- especially if you’re new to the game.

Looking to improve your excellent sales statistics and drive more money into the business? We hope this article will help! Read more posts like this one by searching ‘sales’ on the website now.