Key Concepts for Sales Training

Selling may be the ultimate goal of business but not many business people are good at sales, despite all the marketing courses they may have attended. A good sales person should possess several key attributes, such as confidence, insight of the business, smart appearance, skills to negotiate and the right attitude towards customers.

The majority of marketing courses are based on the concept of the seven stages of sales. Here is a short overview on each of them:

1. Planning or preparation - the step where some research is necessary. You should have an understanding of the needs of the prospect, as well as knowledge of your competitors and what they can offer. Preparing a good presentation is essential and when you are working on it, try to anticipate prospects’ questions.

2. Introduction or opening - experts say you have less tha
30 seconds to make a good first impression. Be confident, smile and introduce yourself.

3. Questioning or establishing rapport - in this phase you will have to identify the needs of the prospect and help them make up their mind. Empathy and understanding body language can help you build a better idea of what to do next. Use both open-ended questions to provoke thinking and closed questions to confirm your interpretations. The more information you gather at this stage, the easier the choice will be later.

4. Presentation or explanation - your proposition should come at this stage. Make sure it corresponds to the prospect’s needs and it includes all possible benefits. Choose your language and evidence, depending on your audience. For example, engineers might appreciate a more technical explanation, whereas managing directors would be interested in costs and profit.

5. Negotiating - there should not be many questions at this point, if the previous stages have been well performed. However, should objections arise, make sure you understand the reason behind them and deliver more information, if necessary but make sure not to be argumentative.

6. Closing or agreement - the closing is usually a statement or a line that would indicate that the meeting is over. There are various methods and suggested closing statements, depending on the outcome of the meeting and more information about them can be obtained from a marketing course online or a sales training.

7. Follow-up or after-sales - get in touch with the customer to make sure everything is going as planned. Show that the customer’s satisfaction is important for you.

Finally, remember that even if you do not manage to secure a deal, what matters is to build trust with the prospect. Think of the rejection as a possibility to meet your next customer.