I was fortunate enough to be invited to a practical HubSpot bootcamp on Inbound Sales, and I must tell you that this revolutionized my mind about what I thought of myself as a salesperson, what sales are, and how I should sell one.
In this, I had the opportunity to live with sales people from various parts of the world, people that even I would consider to be in the big leagues … I can tell you, I felt dreamed, I could not believe that I had been invited and I will always be eternally grateful for the opportunity.
During 8 weeks of intense work, I learned that I am a better saleswoman than I thought, that I can be at the level of any of my colleagues in the bootcamp, and the best: that anyone can develop the skills. Today I will tell you several of the secrets I learned during this process to be able to sell more.
Background
For anyone who is involved in the world of sales, the simple idea of having to contact someone to buy you can become mental torture (as absurd and illogical as this may sound); think about it, how many people do you know who say that they like it and know how to sell? … they are few!
I hear the phrase «I do not how to sell» … and I must confess that I was not the exception, I was also here once. But everything changed when I understood that in order to sell, you should not focus on sales as such. Now I explain more about that, but before there are some points that you must understand:
Why I can’t sell?
However trite it sounds, the first obstacle is your mental barriers: if you do not have a reason to sell, you will not have the courage or the will to do it.
It is important that you think about your motivation to achieve your commercial goals, and I do not mean only professionally such as bonuses and promotions, but the roots of why you want to achieve those professional goals:
- Maybe you want to start a new family and get married or have children (depending on the stage you are in)
- Maybe you’re thinking about buying a new house or a new car
- Or maybe you want to finally know those magical corners of the world with which you already have a moment dreaming
No matter what your motivation is: reason it and put it on paper. I recommend that you put it in your work area so that you always have it in mind and encourage you when you have low spirits or gray days.
Likewise, it is good that they have a motivation as a sales team, such as special bonuses, meals or social gatherings or any activity that encourages everyone to move forward and join them as a team.
Plant your roots well to sell
Understand what you sell, why you sell it and to whom you sell it. It does not matter if you sell to the industry, if you are B2B or if you sell to the final customer, this is something that you must understand 100%. And although it sounds very logical, in practice there are few companies that take it seriously.
Nothing less today I witnessed how a person lost 3 clients in less than 10 minutes, and all because he did not know his products well and had such a great apathy with life, that you could almost feel it … with telling you that one of the clients was even ready to pay but did not attend it! .. and this is much more common than you think (although sometimes not at this level, but it is presented). And for that you should consider the following:
1. Establish your business process well
To be able to do this you must know:
- what you want to achieve, that is, what is your business goal
- who are you selling, that is, what is the profile of your ideal client: what do they want, why, what are their problems, desires, concerns, motivations … know him as if he were your friend, because only then can you understand and communicate with him effectively. And believe me, almost no company knows this with certainty.
If you do not know who you sell to, you do not know how to buy and you will not be able to establish an effective and efficient commercial process. Also, remember that you are dealing with people, you can not leave that human feeling aside. - finally, you must know why you sell, why did you start your business, what is it that you want to help change in a certain industry or in certain people?
2. Train your team
In order for your business process to work, your team must know it and know how it works … well yes, it sounds logical, does not it?
You would be surprised to know how many companies neglect this aspect. Statistically, Mexico has always invested little in personnel training, almost half of what is normally invested in Latin America and, according to data from the Encuesta Nacional sobre Productividad y Competitividad de las Micro, Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas (ENAPROCE) 2015, only 12.6% of respondents invested in training.
How can we expect our team to deliver good results if we do not give them all the tools?
Make sure everyone knows what their role is in the process, what they should achieve, how they are going to be measured and how they can contribute to this process.
3. Measure intelligently
Once you know what you should do and why you should do it, it is easier to establish KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in order to measure your funnel. If you do not measure it, it will be very difficult to know why or why you are not reaching your goals, and your investments could begin to become expenses.
The basic funnel would be:
- number of prospects (people who meet the profile.
- number of opportunities (prospects that are interested, are at the right time to buy and have the resources to do so)
- number of clients (opportunities that did buy)
To sell, do not focus on sales
One of the main problems of sellers is to focus on having to sell. If you just push, you may stumble, because it will not be the solution or the right time.
Focus on understanding the person you are talking to, and your company, to be able to understand, not only why you buy your solution, but why you should be talking to yourself in the first place, understand your purchase process.
Always think about how you could help that person in the most immediate way possible, and you will always be winning 🙂
Just think about it, how many sellers have marked you to share some useful and practical advice, but above all, RELEVANT? .. I can not think of any …
Changing your way of selling, by a way of helping, will help you stand out from the competition and capture the attention of your prospect. It does not matter if they do not buy at that moment, be sure they will remember you when they need your solution.
So, are you ready to change your way of selling to achieve your sales? Tell me how is it that you do it today and casually talk about how we could improve together;)
