After a young salesman unexpectedly passed away, he was told that he could choose where he wanted to spend eternity: heaven or hell. He was allowed to visit both places and should then make his decision. “I will first look at heaven,” said the salesman. Inside it was very peaceful and quiet, everyone was playing the harp and looking cheerful. It all looked very beautiful, but the salesman was never really that kind of music guy.
“Can I see hell now?” he asked. An angel pointed him to the elevator and he drove down to the basement where he was greeted by one of Satan’s faithful followers. Over the next half hour, the salesman was led through what appeared to be the best nightclubs he had ever seen. People were partying loudly and, if you’ll pardon the expression, they were having a hell of a good time. After the tour was over, he was sent back upstairs where the angel asked him if he had made a final decision.
“Yes, I have,” replied the salesman. “As great as heaven looks, I must admit that hell is more suited to me. I have decided to spend eternity there.” Without further delay he was sent to Hell, where he was thrown into a cave and chained to a wall. Afterwards he was tortured in various ways. “When I came down here,” he cried out in rage and pain, “I was shown a whole bunch of bars and parties and other great things! What happened?”
The Devil himself, visibly amused, answered him from a corner of the cave: “Oh, THAT was just the sales pitch!”
What are the characteristics of a good sales person?
How can you tell if a salesperson is lying? It’s simple: his lips move. Everyone has fallen for a sales trick at some time or another, whether at the weekly market, when buying a car or at the souvenir stand on holiday. However, this does not mean that good salespeople can only achieve their goal by tricks and utopian promises in sales presentations. You can certainly be a top performer in sales, convince through reliability and increase customer satisfaction. In this blog post we take a look at the skills that make a good sales professional. We will tell you the most important characteristics of successful salespeople and show you how you can use them to drive the sales department in your company to new heights of excellence. We’ll start right away with a golden rule for salespeople.
Selling is less abouttalkingandmore about listening
The most promising way to sell something starts with listening – the keyword is satisfying needs. Good salespeople show that they hear and understand the challenges, concerns and needs of a prospect. This helps them to be seen as someone you can trust. If you make yourself a credible advisor who focuses on the prospect rather than the sales, your interviewer will drop his guard and stop resisting ‘getting something sold’. It is only when vigilance is lowered that prospective buyers are willing to discuss the real issues and become open to reveal information about themselves – information that is worth its weight in gold for a seller. But a good salesperson does not only understand what his customers say. He also understands what his customers feel. This leads us to the next characteristic of a sales professional: empathy.
Good salespeopleare empathicsalespeople
By putting themselves in the position of the prospect, top sellers know exactly how to turn products or services into revenue. Empathy is an important prerequisite for anticipating the wishes of a customer. The best salespeople put themselves in the position of their counterpart – without judgment or ulterior motives – in order to really understand. In this way they learn how they can best help their customers. After all, most people don’t really care about what a salesperson knows or is able to do until he or she shows them that he or she really cares about them. Another good way to demonstrate this: creativity and ingenuity. Successful salespeople always adapt their sales strategy to the respective customer.
Offer your customers what Google & Co. can’ t
Creativity is also important in sales. You may not believe it, because creativity is more often associated with artists, but it’s true. Top performers in sales always see things a little differently. Everything ultimately revolves around value creation. As a supplier, you already have a portfolio of products and services. But it’s not as if every customer is satisfied with a standard solution. To find a solution that meets the customer’s needs now and in the future, salespeople must be able to customize their offering. They must listen to the customer’s suggestions and find out what goals they want to achieve. The creative thinking and analytical skills of top salespeople enable them to offer solutions that others simply cannot see. Strong salespeople are therefore not afraid to take a solution-oriented approach and deviate from the written script. Today’s customers are usually very well informed anyway. The insights gained from the sales talk must therefore go beyond the standard information that customers can also obtain by simply researching the Internet.
Why sellers will be needed in the future as well
In a world where everything revolves around automation, it may seem at first glance as if the need for salespeople is diminishing. But if you look at most businesses and companies, you will see that the sales and distribution departments have not become smaller. They have simply changed, adapted to contemporary conditions and developed further. At MySolutions, too, we are always striving to evolve in order to help our customers make the right decisions. The best way to do so is to collect some impressions of the sales strategies of our employees in a personal conversation. If, despite our excellent sales presentations and the engaging nature of your salesperson, you are not convinced by our software for manufacturing companies, a special surprise awaits you in the basement…