Selling Skills



A lot of sales gurus tend to think of selling skills as a science nowadays. They believe that sales techniques can be reduced to a number of principle that are invariable from person to person.

I have always viewed sales as more of an art. Sure, there are certain professional skills that everyone has to develop. You need to understand talking to people, making a pitch, adjusting your technique to deal with a stubborn customer, and skillfully negotiating an end deal, but there are many different ways to go about it. The important thing is to find what works for you personally.




For most people, learning selling skills starts with assessing their own personal strengths and weaknesses and finding the perfect approach for them. A lot of salespeople are unaware of their own personal strengths. They are so used to putting on a salesman persona when going into the job that they don't understand that their own personality can be the greatest asset. Being able to relate to the customer demands being able to emotionally engage with him or her. No selling skill in the world can make a for genuine personality. Learn to use yours and you will increase your sales overnight.

That is not to say that there aren't specific selling skills that are independent of personality. One of the most basic ones is learning how to control the turf. You have to be able to make the customer yours. For the duration of your sales pitch, he or she cannot even think about leaving. If possible, you should make it hard for the customer to think about leaving afterwards as well. You do this by creating a warm and friendly, yet dominant personality, by controlling the space, and by certain tricks that are specific to the sales pitch you're giving. If you get a customer to hold on to a clipboard, for example, or to listen to your pitch while in the corner of a room away from the door, you will be able to hold his or her attention for longer. Knowing your terrain can help, but the most important thing is to have a wide array of techniques to call on when you need them.

Of course, some of the skills that you need are specific to your area of expertise. I know a little bit more about real estate selling skills because most of my background is in that field, and I can tell that some of them wouldn't translate well to car sales, for example. The most important thing is to always experiment and to learn what helps you to make a sale in the market you're involved in.

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