Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sales
Sales
Sales
Requirements
You need to be a good observer and listener (key to succeed in sales)
Open mind and persistence. Sales is a demanding but also very rewarding role.
Negotiating Tips
1. Establish Rapport and create a relationship
2. Do your research
3. Prepare
4. Know your bottom line.
5. Establish a fall-back plan
6. Aim high – what is your ideal outcome
7. Question and listen
8. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want and don’t be afraid to go first
9. Don’t be in a hurry.
10. Give the other person room – you both need thinking time
11. Always be willing to walk away.
12. Show the other person how their needs will be met.
13. Don’t give anything away without getting something in return.
14. Don’t take the issues or the other person’s behavior personally.
15. Make a list of concessions or extras you could offer that in reality make no
difference to you.
16. Only make concessions for a reason. (e.g. you are getting something back in
return)
17. Practice negotiating in situations where you have nothing to lose.
18. Remember that there is no substitute for discussion.
19. Keep reminding yourself that it is not about winning and losing.
20. Agree what has been agreed at the end of the negotiation
7. Qualification Questioning
ISRs need to start off every sales conversation by asking questions during the
Discovery phase to analyze a prospect’s business needs (i.e. Needs Analysis). It’s
important to not just throw random features and benefits at the prospect hoping
something will stick. In fact, I tell ISRs to stop sharing all of your product’s capabilities all
at once. This is a bad tactic. Instead, you need to delve deep to discover your
prospect’s business pain and how your product can help them solve it by asking
qualifying questions. These questions help you determine what you should share about
the benefits and value in your product based on what is going to be most important for
them. Beyond the Discovery stage of the selling process, over time, ISRs will need to
qualify prospects for Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline, Competition and Buying
Process in order to get all the key criteria that will help them get to the purchase. Being
good at qualification is critical to be a successful ISR.
8. Time Management
The most effective ISRs are able to make the most of their time, with more dials and
more connects than other reps. The key to being highly productive is using good time
management skills. You need to train each rep to sort through leads to find the most
promising ones, and not waste too much time on a deal that isn’t going anywhere. You
can use analytics to identify the industry, business size, and other characteristics of
ideal leads, and share the information with your team. It’s vital to make the most of the
hours in the day to bring in more deals per rep.
9. Objection Prevention
Great sales reps practice the art of proactive “Objection Prevention” and not merely
“Objection Handling” and can thus reduce some of the most basic objections by way of
how they approach a sale. Train your reps to be strategic and think ahead by studying
what typical objections come up in most cases. For example, there is no reason to get
to a point when a prospect can say, “I don’t have a need for this” or “Call me again in a
few months”.
It is possible to be proactive and address a common objection before it even comes up.
For example, at InsightSquared, many of our reps hear people say “You do reports for
sales but I can get reports from Salesforce anyway.” Instead, we preempt that objection
by sharing during our Discovery Call that our cross-object sales reports are impossible
to run in the CRM and yet these reports can save time for the Sales VP or CEO to run
and can help grow revenue significantly and all this is possible in a few clicks of a
mouse button instead of days spent in Excel with data that will be antiquated by the time
you’re done.
Make sure your reps are ready to sell, and have all the sales skills they need to be a
successful ISR. By teaching them these 14 key skills, you will improve their sales
abilities. The power is in your hands to train your ISRs effectively and see your sales
numbers soar.
Every business is more than their product; a product – no matter how good it
is – most often is not enough to convince someone to buy it. This is what
makes sales representatives important. Every representative is the face of his
or her company to clients, giving personality to an inanimate product and
business. A company’s brand and marketing strive to add personality to the
business, but salespeople really drive it home. This is where a salesperson’s
personality comes into play. A sales representative’s personality and attitude
will shape the customers’ view of and feelings toward the product, company,
and brand. The way a client feels about the rep they interact with will often
determine the way the client feels about the company, as well as anything
they sell, do or make. A sales representative’s personality, then, must give
clients positive, confident feelings about the product or service they are
considering. This raises an obvious question: what kind of personality traits
make for the best salespeople?
It’s true that there are successful salespeople possessing certain traits that
other successful salespeople lack. There isn’t exactly a formula that
guarantees success or a perfectly-proportioned blend of personality traits that
ensures consistently mind-blowing sales results. However, there are
personality traits that tend to work in a salesperson’s favor, and these traits
are worth nurturing.
Drive Without Pushiness: Any good salesperson must have the drive
to succeed. They must have the necessary motivation and ambition that
can withstand failure. Obstacles do not crush the best salespeople,
because a good sales rep has the internal determination to overcome
any hindrance. However, that ambition must never reach a point of
excessive aggression, since disproportionate pushiness will be
interpreted as disrespect.
Pro tip:
If you want to learn how to improve the mental stamina or mental
toughness of your sales team, look into the psychology techniques used
in sports. These techniques can help sales people overcome the fear of
failure (or rejection), master the art of confidence, and learn how to keep
their composure when in the hot seat or under intense demands.
Pro tip:
Charisma is not something that someone can learn…either someone is
charming or they aren’t. However, if you understand how to be likeable
to nearly everyone it will be easier to disguise a lack of charisma. How
is this done? By understanding the buyer as well as what keeps them
up at night and brings purpose to their life. This will require some
research but can be well worth the effort.
Pro tip:
Staying positive requires a mindfulness of being positive. In other
words, if the desire is to eliminate negative thoughts, perceived threats
and pessimism among sales teams there must be a clear understanding
of each representative’s emotional intelligence. These tests help to
identify two things: strengths and weaknesses. Strengths can be
leveraged so that these skills work to a representative’s advantage,
while weaknesses offer opportunities to improve. Additionally, when
used in conjunction – someone’s weaknesses might complement
someone’s strengths which is where micro-teams consisting of 2-4
people can be highly effective.
Pro tip:
Recent studies have demonstrated that most people, not just those in
sales, use deception even if it a white lie, within the workplace. The
number one reason a lie is told – fear of losing a job or losing a
customer. One of the best scenarios managers can set up for teams is
to welcome honesty, even if that means that losing a sale or
customer. When the fear of termination is eliminated, sales teams will
be more willing to be honest. Furthermore, post-sales customer check-
ins should also address the issue of honesty in surveys, etc.
Pro tip:
A little healthy competition never hurts in sales environments. However,
if the only competition is around quotas, there may be significant missed
opportunities to promote a more rounded (and healthier) competition
that better represents the business or brand. For example,
competitions, at the micro-level, can be on scoring the highest in
customer satisfaction surveys, minimizing the need for post-sales
support, earning repeat business, earning the most margin per sale,
etc. Another way is to offer a larger motivator for top performers. This
can be a non-cash incentive such as an all-expense paid trip to an
exotic location as it not only rewards for positive outcomes but provides
insights into new cultures and encourages conversation with prospects.
Confidence Without Arrogance: Part of a salesperson’s job is building
customer confidence. The goal is to make a client confident that they’re
making the right choice, assuring them that the product or service in
question is truly beneficial to them. But a salesperson lacking
confidence will have a hard time building confidence in his or her client.
Sales representatives must possess confidence in the product or
service they are selling, truly believing that what they sell is beneficial to
their customers. However, this confidence must be balanced so that it
doesn’t come across as arrogance.
Pro tip:
Better educated sales representatives as well as first hand experiences
with products and services can do wonders for even the least confident
sales representative. If confidence appears to be lacking, it could be a
symptom that additional training is needed, or that it is time for
management to step in and build confidence through encouragement.
Pro tip:
Knowing the right questions to ask can be taught, and in other cases it
comes from experience. This is where a combination of training and
partnerships with experienced, top performers, can be helpful. Most top
performers are rarely asked how they do what they do, but are more
than willing to share if when inquiries are made. This combined with
mentorship programs can be a powerful combination in helping sales
teams learn the questions to ask – as well as helping them to refine
their intuition as it related to the customer base.
Conclusion