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Sales & Marketing

Mastering Sales: You Know What to Do, but Do You Know How to Do It?

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Anyone can read a book about sales. You can learn what to do easily by reading books and observing other people. But how do you figure out how to do those things? You know the methods, but do you know the knowledge behind those methods? The little details mean a lot when you’re talking about sales training. You need to know how to succeed in sales, and this goes beyond knowing what to do.

Sales negotiation training gives you the knowledge of what to do and how to do it. This combination will prove most successful in your endeavors to close more deals and increase revenue generated through sales. If you’re a sales manager at a successful organization, then you want to bring talented people on board to take your company to the next level. Consider these aspects of sales training that will complete the knowledge and abilities of sales representatives in your company.

  1. Negotiations

You know that you will need to negotiate. But do you know how? Many sales are lost in the negotiation phase. Untrained reps make mistakes time and time again that could have been avoided with sales training. Consider these tips to excel in negotiations.

– Don’t offer first. Make sure the other side offers first in negotiations. You get to work around what they are feeling about the deal. You can get them to make concessions right away if their side presents their deal first.

– Study the other side thoroughly. This begins before you even meet them for negotiations. What do they believe in for business? Are they known as an aggressive negotiator? LinkedIn is a great resource to learn about people before you meet them. Be sure to use it to your full advantage.

– Have specific goals in mind. Once you reach your goals in negotiations, then it’s time to wrap things up. You should have a well-defined mission each time you begin negotiating with someone. If you want to do more business later, you can. Form a good business relationship with them first before making someone your preferred contact for sales.

  1. Pass Accumulated Knowledge Along

Your new hires need to know the culture and work habits of your current sales team. Everyone wants to crush quota and be the top seller in the organization. But your new hires are at a disadvantage. They know that they need to sell, but they don’t know how. When they’re new to your company, their previous training can only help them out so much. At that point it is up to you and your team to share all the accumulated knowledge you have about your customers and your sales tactics.

If you can’t directly mentor the new sales representative, then you must find someone who can. Find one of your top sellers who may be headed into a management role soon. Depending on their personality, they should relish the opportunity to take a young sales rep under their wing for a while. They’ll need to show them the ropes as it pertains to making new sales and the procedures your company uses to do so.

  1. Handle Customer Pain Points

Even a novice sales rep knows they need to overcome the customer pain points. But do they know how to do that? If they can figure it out, then their sales figures will skyrocket. Handling customer pain points sets the good reps apart from the great reps. Handling a pain point is one aspect of sales training that everyone could use more often. Consider these tips for handling customer pain points.

– A pain point is a problem. Your customer will only buy something if they know their problems and if they know that your product will solve those problems. So how do you uncover the problems?

– Challenge client views. You want to do this nicely and professionally of course. But a great new sales technique involves challenging the business beliefs of the client. They may not know they have an issue until you point it out to them. Once they realize that you are correct about one of their problems, you are much more likely to make a sale.

– Present yourself as a problem solver. The way to do this is to ask a lot of questions that will get the customer talking. In the process of your conversation, you might find that the customer has an issue that your products will take care of. Suggest ways that the customer can improve business with your help.

– You must follow up. What is your client doing a few weeks after your last discussion? If you didn’t make a sale, maybe you just need to discuss a different pain point than before. You never know what kind of information your customer might reveal a second time around.