5 Simple Steps to Increase Your Sales

The biggest investment small business owners face in fielding an effective sales team is time. It takes time to train salespeople on how to properly approach and develop a sales relationship.

Here are five basic, but effective, steps to consider for better sales results.

1. Strengthen your marketing message. Your message should reflect, more than anything, the kind of benefits you can provide. Develop your message from the point-of-view of your target market and their needs and desires. Prospects with problems are seeking solutions—not information about your size, profitability or locations. Their need is basic. Tell them how you can help and how they will benefit.

2. Develop an initial approach talk you can use anytime and anywhere. This 30-second tactic should include: (a) brief explanation of what your organization does and how it benefits clients, (b) a question asking the listener if her company is doing anything similar and (c) an action step seeking permission to follow-up with a telephone call.

3. Ask questions to determine need and readiness. Ask prospects strategic and intelligent questions about whether a need exists for your services. Some sales organizations train their representatives to ask several leading questions, aimed at obtaining an upfront commitment for an eventual sale. This strategy, however, tends to be a turn off and put prospects in a defensive position. Good questions signal interest, concern and help you determine whether a prospect is dissatisfied and willing to make a change.

4. Know implied needs from explicit needs. Successful salespeople must be able to distinguish implied needs from specific needs. In other words although some prospects imply a problem exists, they aren’t necessarily ready to solve it. They tend to speak in vague or general terms about what’s troubling them. Ideally, you want to hear the prospect acknowledge there is a problem in clear, specific terms and verbalize a desire for a solution.

5. Keep the process simple. The late sales guru David Sandler, in his book, The Sandler Rules, once said, Don’t spill your candy in the lobby. What he warned against was not regurgitating everything possible about your product or service before a prospect was ready to hear it. In other words, guard against pre-emptive selling. You can’t possibly know how to help someone before your uncover needs. People don’t care what you’re selling if it doesn’t apply to their particular situation. They only pay attention when your product or service is tailored to solve their unique problems. Don’t make a sales pitch. Engage in a conversation that results in specifics

Because today’s buyer is far more educated and informed than ever before, the single most important skills a salesperson must develop is the ability to communicate ideas effectively.