Learn to listen and your sales will soar
SALES skills are essential for almost every career, whether they are in your job description of not.
‘I learned sales skills in my first job, working in customer services at Ford Motor Company, though I did not realise it,’ says Doug Stewart, now chief executive of green gas and renewable electricity company Green Energy.
‘I have had four careers and sales has been central to all of them — instead of selling to people, I have helped people buy,’ says Doug, who went from Ford to a recruitment company selling exhibitions and then his own car dealership before starting Green Energy.
‘People don’t like being sold to,’ he says, ‘but if you create empathy with customers, listen to their needs and offer a solution, you will have more success.’
Sales is vital to achievement in almost all roles and careers, says Doug, 60, from Ware, Hertfordshire, who says anyone can develop their own sales skills.
‘Analyse your interactions with customers to find the productive parts of the conversations and build on them.
‘Learn to recognise where the co-operation between you stopped. Often, this will be where you have tried to close a sale too soon. If you learn from your successes and mistakes, you will develop better sales skills that will help you succeed in any career.’
Cliff Walker, trainer and network marketing specialist, says: ‘Everyone has to sell at some point, but high-pressured approaches usually backfire. If the fit between the customer’s needs and what you’re offering is appealing and relevant, it removes the difficulty from the sales process. ‘You become a solution to their problem rather than an unwanted irritation.’
He also recommends thinking of a customer’s ‘no’ as ‘not right now’, and counsels against desperation, but in favour of following up as well as doing online and offline networking.
If you want formal sales training, then some recruiters will provide it.
Pareto Law recruits and gives sales training to graduates before placing them with employers, but also provides sales courses and executive recruitment.
See pareto.co.uk