Sales: How do I become a better salesman?

I don't try to "sell"...

Improve your communication skills both written and spoken Focus on the activity (make more calls) Learn your product/service Understand your clients needs Embrace failure. Model yourself on the behavior of the top salespeople at your company.

You might want to put yourselves in the shoes of a customer. This will get you thinking about what irks you about being pursued by a pesky salesman. You'll get an idea about what not to do, which is essential to become a better salesman. http://bit.ly/1WYGjUJ

In Sales you have three seconds to grab someones attention. When approaching a potential prospect on the sales floor are you asking the right questions that really peaks their interest based upon their needs? People buy on emotion, especially with a one shot close. Depending on your product or service, it is important to sell with a servants mentality. Ask yourself how you can provide value and portray that you are selling from a place of service right off the bat? Also, the beauty of sales is that you have the ability to control your income. Have you every thought about building relationships that can refer you business? Just because you have to work the sales floor doesn't mean you don't have the ability to become creative in how to generate leads from the outside. Think about car salesman. They have a specific time that they are required to work the lot, but the most successful have built outside relationships that send business their way. When you create an inbound stream of leads, your worries of meetin you numbers and quotas have now become an after thought. Remember, people buy from people they know, like and trust. If you get a chance take a look at my site and grab the free mini guide http://www.entresuccessproject.com. It will help you with some of the basic pitfalls sales people and entrepreneurs make with sales. Much Success!

With your sales model, the most important thing would be the opening statement for your pitch. You've got to catch all the attention they've got. Don't break it with a statement such as - "Can i talk to you for a minute? " Make a real statement - "Are you interested in increasing your revenue by 30% ?". Thats a strong opening line. It sometimes sounds cliched, but it works 90% of the time. As you say, that there's no follow up. You close it or you lose it. You must create that curiosity so that the prospect must get back to you, or at-least remember you when you follow up later. You just cannot let your leads die. Create a follow up process is what i mean. Thirdly, never give them your contact information. 95% of the time, your card will end up in their garbage bins. Always get theirs. And make sure to get back to them. Hope this helps.

Here a few tips: - be curious, you want to understand who is in front of you, his motivations, his goals, his environment- listen, listen, listen, as much as you can and try to understand what he really means- have empathy for what he feels- be enthousiast- try to help your custumerShort tips but I would advise you to follow a sales training course.http://www.challenge-action.com/formations/vente/formation-vente/

I'll give you the same advice as I do to pan-handlers (many of whom tripled their income):    1) Your appearance: Dress towards wearing 'white'; NO dark colors anywhere on you. Keep hair extremely neat and clean looking- not greasy. (put your watch and jewelry in your pocket).    2) You have a rythem in your actions and speech, so does your customer... adjust to  match theirs.    3) Listen to their points, display some time to consider them, ask them questions regarding same (even though you have a pocket of responses already). Give some 'happy example' customer stories... in third person, not your account of it...theirs!    4) Continue with '3' until you see a 'tell', scracthing of neck or nose is key... (squirming means they wish to know where the bathroom is). At that point you can move to a close, indicating that 'only today, you can give a few customers a special offer...'. Besides, they can always return it.    5) Realize your success is primarily dependent upon HOW MANY folks you pitch too... and little else besides luck.     Don't get overjoyed when you have a good day, and your keepers give you an 'attaboy', and don't get depressed when things are sour... it could be temperature, it could be too many hawkers in the area... which leaves the customers jaded. If you 'present' to 10% more individuals, your sales will go up 10%.

Sales tips usually work for short periods of time.  Unless you are working on some of the conceptual issues (need for approval, emotional involvement in the sale, money concepts), your weaknesses may continue to hold you back. For selfish reasons, you could sign up for some free weekly tips and tactics at http://www.lushin.com.

You should have a real passion for what you're selling. If you don't, most people can pick up on it. You will come across as disingenuous. We all pick up on body language, on an unconscious level. Be sincere and show interest in the person you're selling to. The secret to selling is that you're not selling a product or service, you're selling yourself. If you can get someone to believe in you, to emotionally attach to you in some way, you can sell them almost anything. When I was in insurance sells many, many years ago, I learned this lesson early on. I also learned that you should let the potential customer do most of the talking, even if you have to sit through some uncomfortable silence. People love to talk about themselves, and if you ask the right questions you will get them to talk. That's when you can develop a genuine emotional attachment. We can all relate on some level, it's simply a matter of finding something you can relate to. Show interest in them and they'll show interest in you and what you're selling.