In sales, nothing builds confidence like continuously improving your skills.
Salespeople who regularly have trouble selling are either missing one or more basics in their sales skill arsenal, or they just don’t practice them enough so that they’ve really “got” them.
It’s been common knowledge for some time that 80 percent of sales are made by 20 percent of salespeople.
At SELLability, after more than 5 years of global research and billions of dollars in sales, we have isolated the exact abilities possessed by the top 20 percent of salespeople in the world—the ones responsible for 80 percent of sales. This knowledge is now available to all salespeople. All they have to do is take the time to learn it.
But it doesn’t end once you have the knowledge. You then need to go through those basics regularly, and practice, practice, practice until you have them down cold. And then practice them some more!
Of course, to get the full scope of what you need to know and what to practice, you need to sign up at SELLability.com. But here is an example of the basics that you need to be practicing regularly.
Sales Process
At SELLability, one of the breakthroughs we made to isolate a precise, bulletproof sales process. Here are its basic steps:
Prospecting, which consists of knowing all about the people you’re going to sell to and knowing your product or service, and what makes you different. A very important part of practicing this step is coming up with an “elevator pitch” to quickly introduce a potential prospect to your product or service.
Once you have it, practice it on different people. Revise it until you have a very easy and fast way to make your product or service understood by others.
Research, which consists of fully understanding the prospect you’re going to pitch to, their market, and their company.
Contact and Interview, the step at which you’re going to establish trust. This is probably the most important sales process step to practice and get down cold because that establishment of trust is going to carry you throughout the rest of the sales process.
Qualifying, which is meant finding out why the prospect should purchase your product or service—from their point of view. This is another step that’s worth practicing again, and again. Without qualifying the prospect, you will make it no further.
Education, the stage at which your prospect understands why your product or service is essential to their business. This is another stage you must drill repeatedly so that you can address each prospect on an individual basis.
Agreement, the stage at which the prospect or customer has decided to buy.
Closing, the stage at which you complete all the paperwork and logistics necessary to successfully transition your prospect to an actual customer. It is also the stage at which your brand-new customer makes the transition to your delivery team.
There is an example of the factors you need to understand and practice over, and over again. That is a sure route to the confidence you need as a salesperson.