The Key for Success in Business: Selling..Selling..Selling

One of the biggest mistakes a salesman can make is to list the features of the product or service he wants to sell. What's wrong with that I hear you say? Well, more often than not he'll real off loads of features which are of no interest to the purchaser. Does the young mum struggling to keep three kids under control need to know that this car does zero to sixty miles per hour in seven seconds? No. She needs to be shown the benefits that the car offers. This car has five doors'. That's better! But it would be better still if he said' seating the children in the back of the car is made easier by these wide rear doors'. In other words sell the benefits of your product (what it does) rather than the features( what it has) I've heard a kitchen salesman say this range has eighteen mil carcasses made from mdf and nickel plated hinges'. So what? They are features! He should have said There's no chance of the doors falling off because we use exceptionally strong materials, and there's no way the hinges will rust because they are nickel plated'. These are benefits!

Regardless of how you view it sales are extremely important to your entrepreneurial pursuits. I suggest that you begin to look for basic sales books to help increase some of your knowledge on the process.

Some good authors to start with are Zig Ziggler's classic books on sales and marketing that are written with very simple content and also include some great humor.

The key to getting sales is to want sales!

Oh, we all say we want sales, but do we act like we want sales? Is that desire for sales reflected in our telephone manners? In the way we answer our phone? In the way we answer questions from prospective clients? In the way we train our staff?

In many cases, the answer is, "No." Usually, that's because most people don't understand the underlying principle of a sale solving a customer's problem.

A sale is a sale; it doesn't matter what you are selling be it a box of nails, an expensive car, a trip to Belize, or a gift basket. Customers are people first, and as people, they want to be treated well, they want to be heard, and they want their buying problem solved.

Sales professional is someone who invests in his knowledge, who reads magazines and web portals dedicated to sales people and attends seminars and conferences. A sales person who follows the trends understands how essential it is to improve him personally.Professionals are ones they know how necessary this is to start selling more. And of course they are the ones who are earning more.

There are three main forms of representing things to ourselves. We use the visual, auditory, and feeling senses to interpret information we receive. With the information we receive via these channels we create our representations of things, or basically the meanings we give to things. Everyone uses a combination of these three modalities in specific ways to create a certainty within themselves to buy. In eliciting your clients preferred strategy you simply need to ask the right questions. These powerful questions will give you the basic key to unlock the buying response.

A better option is to offer a free or low-cost group session. Give an introductory talk about your services and answer questions, perhaps even offer a discount to those who sign up with you right then. This way, you're truly leveraging your time and talent by allowing your prospects to self-select themselves out without your having to go through that process individually.