Sales Courses - Can You Teach Success?
At the heart of any successful business there is a salesman. It needn’t matter if the business itself is specifically “sales” orientated or if their profits are driven by a successful sales team. Whether you're an accountant, a mechanic or a restaurateur your success is utterly dependant on convincing enough clients to choose your services over the many hundreds, if not thousands of similar service providers in the market place. In short, without being able to sell your merits over those of the chap down the road, it’s unlikely that you’ll get very far.
This fact aside, the growth of consumer society and the relative increase of expendable incomes since the Second World War, has lead to far more products and services being available to us. Naturally, with more products there are also more middle-men; and servicing that middle-man industry is now an endless list of sales trainers, sales gurus, sales courses, motivational speakers and sales related literature. The industry is estimated to be worth several billion dollars each year and there is, without doubt, much that a sales novice can learn from it. This article will discuss some of the key areas that are considered a prerequisite of sales success, so as to determine what the easiest areas to improve are and also what traits, if any, can you not teach. By examining these points and thus determining your particular weaknesses, you’ll get more out of sales training and most effectively your improve performance.
Image
It’s a cliché of the worst sort but - you do never get a second chance to make a first impression. Image is hugely important in many areas of life but in business, perhaps, even more so. How to successfully refine your image so as to project the right signals, is an area that any good sales trainer will approach. The commonly held wisdom is that your professional image should not just be an extension of your social personality but is something that you can learn to develop and refine for success. At its most basic this may simply mean the right choice of attire for the situation you’re in, however, the image you project is created by more than just the clothes you’re wearing. It has been of communication; that 93% of what is conveyed is non-verbal, so good sales training aims to help you to develop the correct body language, vocabulary and vocal tonality to ensure that you’re sending out the right signals.
Professionalism
Professionalism is, of course, very closely related to image. The correct image will project an air of professionalism at all times, however, being professional is about more than just the image you project. It is the combination of a number of factors that a sales trainer can bring to your attention and help you to develop. Fundamentally, it’s not just what you do; it’s how you do it as well. Points as simple as learning proper time-management techniques can drastically help; as being rushed, being late or worse still, missing phone calls and appointments, will seriously damage your credibility. Perhaps the key point with professionalism though, is product knowledge. Being the expert in your field and thus clearly exhibiting the value you will bring to your clients’ business, is one of the easiest ways of selling yourself, without acting like a salesman.
Technique
The way in which you approach possible sales and build the rapport you have with clients is extremely important to sales success. Sales training courses usually, quite rightly, put a lot of emphasis on sales technique and will be able to discuss them in greater depth than can be done within the confines of this guide. It’s also worth noting here; that sales techniques, like business strategy in general, are extremely varied. There is always more than one successful approach to any given situation and a good sales trainer will be able to give you a variety of techniques to use in different circumstances. Most will agree, however, that sales techniques are designed to help with the three core objectives of salesmanship; qualification, persuasion and closure. Here’s a brief description of each:
Qualification
Qualification is commonly regarded as the most important part of the sales process. It is the action of finding out as much as you can about a potential client; with all the emphasis on the client and his needs, rather than you and your product. Extensive client knowledge puts you in a very strong position, as you are able to explain in terms specific to his or her needs, how your services will help. It also a helpful time-management technique, as obviously not everyone will be a suitable client but without effective qualification, a great deal of time can be wasted before this is discovered. Not having sufficient knowledge of what the client requires or making assumptions rather than asking questions is an easy mistake to make and can be very damaging to your sales figures. A sales training in this area then, will teach you how to identify sales prospects by asking the right questions.
Persuasion
In this area, perhaps above all, sales training is most helpful. Nobody wants to be considered a hard-nosed or pushy salesman, which leads many to shy away from the act of persuasion; even when they know that they are offering the best product or service. However, persuasion shouldn’t be pushy or hard-nosed at all, as it is simply the act of explaining how your service meets the key requirements discussed during qualification and then creating the confidence in your solution to overcome the clients’ natural scepticism. How to do this in a friendly, informative manner should be covered in any sales course, as it is very important to sales success.
Closure
Most sales training courses these days will shy away from teaching techniques to “close” the deal. The reason for this is that after having correctly qualified and persuaded a sales prospect the “close” as it is commonly termed, should really already be done. What’s left is the negotiation of terms that are appealing to both the buyer and the seller or sometimes, just plucking up the courage to ask for the business. Sales training can help on both counts because there is certainly no shame in trying to cut a good deal for yourself. After all, that’s exactly what the client wants too! A sales trainer will be able to teach you techniques which give you the confidence to maximise each deal and thus, to be more successful.
What can’t be taught?
Well, the areas discussed above very broadly cover the main points of salesmanship but within them there’s nothing that ostensively can’t be taught or at least improved by the application of better technique. It would be foolish to assume that there are no natural abilities that help make one a good salesman though, just as it would be foolish to assume that training alone can make someone a great sportsman. However, both the best and the worst salesmen improve through sales training, just like the best and worst sportsmen do. Why? Well, as any good salesman will tell you – because there’s always room for improvement.
