Have you heard the saying “a good salesperson can sell anything no matter the product or the service.” Is this really true? This saying probably comes from the time of door to door sales, when there was no TV and practically zero competition. Today there are different steps involved in sales, or in other words other qualifications required to be a successful sales person. You have to be a good marketer, you need to be knowledgeable about your competitor, your market, your product, also you have to be well organized and structured. Here are some examples:
Example 1: If you are working for a well known corporation, leads come to you because of long term marketing activities conducted on a corporate level. Everybody has a familiarity to your product/service. As a sales person, you need to adjust your product/service according the customer needs by following up with them, and close the deal. The most important step is to understand what your client really wants and offer them the best customized package of your product/service. In this type of sales most of the time you don’t even get to see your client or the client necessarily see your product/service prior to buying it.
Example 2: For a small businesses, you need to do a lot of marketing (mostly local marketing) to create prospects and when you finally come face to face with your potential clients, you need to convince them to buy your product right there and close the deal right away. If they leave your business without buying your product, chances are they won’t return. In this scenario other than being a successful sales person, you need to be a successful marketer at the same time.
Example 3: To make sales for a mid-size company, kind of a combination of the top two examples. It requires marketing skills, a lot of follow ups and face to face sales skills to close the deal.
I am fortunate enough to have experienced all the 3 examples above. I agree that the main techniques of selling are the same while the product/services differs, in instance, good understanding of clients needs, offering them customized services/products among your portfolio, building a rapport, following up with them and leading them to close the deal, etc., but the roads you follow are so different.
In today’s world even a great salesperson can not sell everything, but it always helps to find a road to follow that will lead you closer to achieving your goals!
