What Makes an Ideal Salesman!

A salesman has always been labelled and generalised as Con Man, and dishonest. This is because of a few dishonest men in this very noble profession who have tarnished it. It is one of the noblest professions in the world because a salesman helps you taking the right decision for yourself. He is actually your friend in need! He helps you in going through your needs and wants and then helps you to choose the product or service which will suit your requirements and budget.

A salesman job is the most difficult. He has to go out there and sell the company’s products and /or services and get revenue for his organisation. Sales the department which actually, physically converts all the effort of an organisation which has conceived, produced, packaged and marketed the product.

Hence, the salesperson becomes a very important person in the entire chain of the organisation.

He has to have a following traits/ qualities in order to become a successful salesperson.

1-         Self Confident

A sales person must be a confident of himself. This means that he must know his product/ service thoroughly. He must be knowledgeable of his competition and the strengths and weaknesses of his own product/ service as well as his competitors’. He must know his target audience or his customer profile. If he is not aware of who, his prospective customers are, he will never be able to sell effectively. For example, If the prospect, he has approached does not have need for the product/ service or if the product /service is as per his needs or wants, but he does not have the required wherewithal (disposable income) to pay, the efforts will be in vain and the sale will not happen.

2-         Empathy

A sales person must always be empathetic towards the clients’ moods and emotion. He must try to think from the clients’ perspective and react.

Suppose during a sales call, a client gets news that some calamity has occurred in his office or premises, it would be help if the sales person understands the situation and asks the customer whether it would be better to stop the discussion there and then if the situation warrants it or does he want to continue. If the customer says that it will be handled by his staff (HR/ Admin dept) and that they can continue, only then he should go further. It will help in strengthening his customer relationship and help him later to close the deal effectively.

3-         Problem Solver

Every salesperson must be a solution provider to the prospective client. He must help the client in visualising how his product or service will help increase the productivity of his firm by saving, time, energy, money, manpower or all of them in some form or the other. 

4-         ‘Never say Die!’ Attitude

An effective and successful sales person has a ‘Never say Die!’ attitude at all times. He is eternally optimistic in nature.

He must be able to take a 99 “No’s” and finally get that 100^th yes and clinch the deal. Every sales call is different because every prospect is different and therefore the next call will also be different than the previous one. Even if the earlier calls have not been converted successfully, he should say to himself, one more call, and I will close this one. Try and try until you succeed.

Try different ways and means, think laterally, and tread the path which others haven’t tried before. There is always a better way, a different way to close the deal.

Be Successful, Be different, Keep Trying! That’s the Mantra!

If you have any queries or would like to communicate with me then you may write in to me at welling1161@gmail.com.

Visit my website www.prashantwelling.com

Build Customer Loyalty!

In today’s tough times, it is extremely critical for any business/ Brand to have a loyal customer base, which helps it to secure its market share.

So, how do you build and maintain customer loyalty?

Firstly you have to know your own product/service thoroughly. The customer depends upon you to take the decision on whether she/ he will want to purchase your product/ service. If you give the prospective customer an impeccable service from the very moment you meet with him, then you are well on your way to gaining customer loyalty.

But, remember this is only the beginning. You must maintain the same quality and level of service right through the entire sales process which will cement your brand in the mind of the customer. The order, when placed based on the pre-sales process you had undergone must be followed up with the execution as per the commitment made when you secured the order.

The level of service must be maintained consistently during the execution of the order. Special care must be taken after sales as this is the crucial time when most business falter and end up undoing all the good work done earlier.

The after sales follow-up will finally determine whether you will have the customer’s loyalty for life or it will be another casualty. Impeccable after sales service is the corner stone of securing ultimate customer loyalty. Take utmost care to ensure that all existing customers’ queries, complaints are attended to immediately and respond to them each and every time they contact you.

I would like to add here that you will score highly in the mind of the customer if you put in place a customer loyalty program, where you gather all the customers’ details like, birth dates, anniversary dates, etc and send them a greeting on the occasion without fail. A planned periodic visit to the customer’s premises will ensure cementing the loyalty as well as the TRUST factor and also help you in not only getting repeat business but also get you a good amount of referral business from this loyal customer base.

Wishing you a loyal Customer database!

If you have any queries or would like to communicate with me then you may write in to me at welling1161@gmail.com.

Visit my website www.prashantwelling.com