A good product or service salesperson needs to know exactly what he or she is selling, believe in it, establish a relationship with the customer, understand or create his or her needs, respond to objections, close the sale, follow up and also publicize his or her offer on social networks.

Know your product or service

The first step for a salesperson is to get to know what he or she is selling, i.e. the features, benefits, price and options available to the customer. To sell well, you need to be able to recommend the right purchase to the customer, and the only way to do that is to know what you’re selling. A good way to do this is to use the product or service you’re selling to learn about its strengths, weaknesses and uses.

Be convinced

As all good salespeople say, you can’t be convincing unless you’re convinced yourself. If not, change the product you sell, or change jobs! A technician is not always the best salesman: he knows his product well, but so well that he often sees its faults rather than its qualities.

Establishing a relationship with the customer

The best sales techniques will be useless if you can’t establish a relationship of trust with your customer, especially if you’re selling services and intangibles. We know, for example, that a financial advisor has to sell himself to sell his establishment’s service. The relationship can be established in different ways, by finding common ground, an anchor, or simply by getting on the same wavelength as the customer. As all good salespeople say, this is a key point, but one that’s difficult to define: you have to adapt to the customer’s personality.

Respecting the sales process

Sales methods may differ, but the stages of the sale remain the same, you need to know:

• Getting in touch with your customer
• Discover your needs
• Reformulate your request
• Offer the right product or service
• Responding to customer objections
• Closing the sale
• Follow-up
• Reach out on social networks

Try to find or create the need

It’s impossible to sell if the customer doesn’t have a need. We must therefore try to detect it, or even create it, if the customer doesn’t perceive a need at the outset. It’s important to find out what the problem is, without using the word “problem”, as this may offend your customer. A problem is a gap between your current situation and your desired situation. It’s important to find out what his current situation is and show him that he can do better. Only then can you present your product or service and show them that it’s the best way to improve their situation.

Respond to your customer’s objections with conviction

The good news is that any interested customer needs to have some objections to reassure himself before making a purchase. You need to respond to them with conviction and, if possible, even use them to discover and respond to your customer’s real motivations or hang-ups, which will make the sale easier. You also need to be prepared to deal with the objections and attacks of difficult customers without letting them demoralize you.

Close sale

You can sell perfectly, but you’ll never sell your product or service if you can’t close the sale. If you let the customer think it over, you run the risk of having worked for another salesperson who will profit from your efforts and cash in on the sale. Closing a sale requires you to be assertive and always assume that the customer will buy.

Customer service and follow-up

Recurring customers are where the money’s made, so you’d be remiss if you didn’t follow up and provide them with excellent customer service. This gives you several advantages: you can check if he’s satisfied, ask for references, find out if he has other needs, and show him that you’re there to help. This requires the use of a customer relationship manager (CRM).

Ensure a presence on social networks

The role of salespeople and representatives has changed, and goes beyond simple customer relations. They now have to promote their company’s products and services on social networks, and make them shine on the net.