Most people don’t know it, but they are guaranteed success. How so? It’s by embracing the idea that you are a salesperson. You have been and will always be a salesperson. Yes, it really is that easy! Think about your job.
- Are you a freelance writer or designer? You deal with sales.
- Have you become an entrepreneur? You deal with sales.
- Are you a creative artist? You deal with sales.
No matter what job you have, you have to sell yourself and work to ensure you have a job. There’s no escape from sales. However, you have to learn how to be an influential salesperson so that you can’t fail at your task. Why?
It’s because sales is all about the numbers.
That’s the big secret folks! The way you make sales is to wade through the “No’s” until someone finally says, “Yes.” It doesn’t matter what kind of product you have – good or bad – and you may not even pitch it right; someone is going to say, “Yes.”
Of course, you may be justified in your fears. Your product may be subpar, and your pitch isn’t what it should. Even if you’re right, you’re still going to get some “Nos” and then a “Yes”. It happens because sales are there, and sales is just a numbers game.
Once you understand that concept, you rise above others who have yet to accept it. The only thing you need to do now is boost your sales by increasing the amount of “Yeses” you get.
How do you do this?
5 Ways You Can Improve Your Sales Numbers
Sell Things You Have Faith In or Have Faith In Your Products
It may sound like motivational mumbo jumbo, but when you sell something you actually believe in, it will start to sell. When you don’t have faith in your offer, it’s much harder to have someone else to have faith in it. When you have optimism about your product, show it to the people you’re pitching the product to.
This is known as mood contagion – and it happens when a person’s emotional expression increases their listener’s corresponding mood state.
Revise The Material To Fit What You Need
Bear in mind that nothing is purchased without some kind of framework behind it. For instance, Robert is a small business owner who wants to purchase a small business accounting software. Right now, he’s keeping up with the accounting himself, but not doing well with the current setup. He has to keep current with the payroll and expenses while he’s carrying out his management duties.
He can’t afford to outsource the accounting duties.
There’s context, but it doesn’t always mean it’s in your favor. Since you’re a salesperson, you need to revise the context to meet your terms.
Traditional sales note this as being creating a need. Using the strategy, you can look for reasons your customers need your product – to solve problems they have. And, if you’re unable to do this, you can create one.
You can see this kind of tactic on infomercials – the actor will “act” like he/she is unable to use a regular knife to cut a pineapple. This creates the illusion for a need of a single-use pineapple cutter the company is offering to sell.
Of course, you need to implement a less extreme version of it, which is to revise the context to make your business’ ability to solve problems importantly. For instance, you have a hotel with smaller rooms you want to sell. Rather using the words, “small, inexpensive rooms, you should “gotcha” words like comfortable and simple room for budget-concise travelers.
If you have a $500 product, you may think that’s a lot of money, but if you’re selling a $5,000 product for $500 that’s a purchase opportunity you can’t miss out on.
Since you’re a salesperson, you need to concern yourself with context. Revise the context to increase the interest in your product.
Allow Prospects To Sell For Themselves
What you should already have an understanding about is that people don’t care about your company or you. They don’t care about the service, the offer or experience. What they do care about is meeting their goals.
In order to connect your product/service with this idea in mind, you allow the customers to sell things for themselves.
You know that email segmentation will help boost the open and click-through rates. In-person sales is something you shouldn’t overlook. How so?
People have a tendency to like talking about themselves. They love to talk about the things on their mind and about how their passion projects are going. With that in mind, you can ask them questions about things they’re working on. They’ll give you a pitch about it.
Once they let you know what problems they have and the challenges they’re contending with, you can revise the context to put focus on ways you can address their issues and assist them to achieve their goals.
You can also talk about your product/service along with their business, talk about a feature and ask them how it could help their business or what features they’d feel would be useful to them.
You want prospects to sell themselves, but you still need to ask questions.
Ask Flexible Questions
Here’s a question for you: Does your website need copywriting done? Chances are you’ll say “Yes.” And, when this happens, writers will automatically add you to their Hot Lead category where they’ll work to attain your business. If you say “No” or “Not right now,” then writers will stop their sales pitches – it closes the doors on any questions.
How you ask these “Yes/No” questions can either help your business or hinder it. Here are some examples of good and bad questions:
Bad – Do you work in marketing?
Good – What role do you play in your company?
Bad – Is this something you like?
Good – What is your feeling about this?
Bad – Would this be a feature you’d use?
Good – How can this feature assist your company?
The more your prospect talks, the better off you’re going to be. Why? Their answers are going to be quite telling, and you can easily develop an offer they can’t refuse.
You Will Still Need TO Close On The Deal
The biggest problem new salespeople and newbie entrepreneurs have is failing to follow through on the closing. They’re fine to talk about the product, talking about the product and connecting with the prospect. However, they’re scared to turn the conversation to the buying phase.
This is often due to a fear of rejection, and you have to understand right now that sales is only a numbers game. And, there’s no way to improve your sales numbers if you don’t try for it.
While this can be a psychological hurdle, it’s one that you have to overcome. However, there are several methods that will help make things easier for you while boosting your chance to close the deal…successfully.
Use the flexible questions to come up with your closing process. If you want to sell a product, don’t ask your prospect if it’s something they’d buy. Rather, ask them if they’d want a small or big package.
Statements can also generate sales. Rather than asking them if you should draft the paperwork, tell them you’re going to write it up and if they’d like anything to drink while they wait for you to finish it.
Why should you close in this manner?
- It gets rid of the awkwardness of the yes/no closing question.
- The assumption is that the sale is made – it gives buyers’ a psychological expectation. If they don’t want your service/product, they’re going to object to it. If they have the normal buyer’s hesitancy, it helps push them to the finish line.
- ·You will maintain the pitch flow and reassures them that they’re on the path of doing the right thing for themselves and their company.
- When you bring your prospects to the close, you need to still resonate with their goals. Help them to envision how the product/service will help them to attain their goals.
You already know how important it is to have testimonials on e-commerce checkout pages, but you also need to remind people why they are visiting you. It’s not about paying for something that you’re offering. Instead, it’s to help them to attain their dreams and goals – to get past the blocks that are keeping them from being successful.
And, in order for you to do this, you need to be successful. It’s not as bad as your head is making you think it is.
One Last Thing…
You have to understand that no matter what business you are in, you are a salesperson. If you’re a writer, you must sell your business to attain clients. If you have a product, you need to sell that product to earn cash. Sales can be applied to nearly any region your heart desires. Make sure you hold onto the thought of the numbers game. Make sure you do everything you can to better the pitch so that your “Nos” become “Yeses” more often than not.
Use the above five practical sales techniques to better the conversion rate and sell yourself and product regularly.
