KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Selling is the primary skill for an entrepreneur
- To become a good salesperson, one needs to figure out the requirements of customers and build a psychological bond with them
- The basic tactic of selling is knowing what your customer really wants
- Build a lasting profitable relationship with customers instead of a short-term exchange process
Being a good salesman is the primary skill for an entrepreneur, most people think entrepreneurship is all about ideas or finding a gap, but finding a gap and having an idea is just a first step and that’s not even a practical step, it’s just a wish. To fulfill that wish you need to work for a product or service you want to sell, but that isn’t difficult as well because everybody wants to sell and you want to buy, after that the most challenging part comes and that is “selling”. Yes, selling is the most challenging and fun part, the person who can sell is a successful entrepreneur. It is the skill I say everybody should learn because good selling skills not only help you to make money but on every step of life. Sometimes we sell our ideas, opinions, services, or goods and in daily life, we sell something from these mentioned things. To master the selling, one needs to understand the basic concept of selling. If anyone wants to prosper financially, they should know how to sell their ideas and products, both of these require upstanding convincing power, to convince someone and make them believe something some essential requisites must be considered and those are:
DETECT THE NEED:
Selling is a game of psychology more than just convincing. When you make someone buy your idea or product, they should figure out, if there is a need for that. The most common task given to students while teaching them selling is: “Sell me this pen”. Most of the students begin with the qualities of the “Pen”. But that’s where they slip on the first step. A good salesperson always looks for, if there is any Demand for a product. So, next time someone asks you: “sell me this pen”, you should reply “Do you want a pen”?
SELL THE EMOTIONS:
A good salesperson knows that people don’t buy the product or idea, they buy the emotions, even if there is a demand, you may lose customers if you can’t connect with them emotionally, some people try to sell by offering low prices and when the customer has been offered with even more discounted price, they move on, and there is always a very high probability of it. Some salespeople try to sell the product by presenting its features but the market is full of competition. Unless you have a monopoly, this tactic doesn’t work, some sell by doing competitive analysis which again is a short-term selling tactic because later or earlier a customer will figure out that there isn’t any significant difference in products. Then, the question is what you should sell? The answer is Emotions. Customer requires trust. Which is built while you understand their emotions. If the customer is confused, they need you as a good adviser, if they require convenience, they need you as a good service provider, if they need quality, they see how much confidence you have in your product. Once customers get emotionally satisfied with you, they won’t go anywhere else, even if someone offers them cheap prices because:
“CUSTOMER BUYS EMOTIONS NOT PRODUCTS”
OFFER THE BAIT:
Did you ever see someone try to catch a fish while using chocolate or chips instead of shrimp? No! because fish don’t like those things. So, while catching fish you need to use shrimp as bait. Similarly, to become a great salesperson you need to understand what your customer is looking for. Or what they want to hear from you to build trust. Some people do command sales and ignore the fact that they should treat customers according to their requirements, once the trust builds, then customers will buy what you recommend to them and that’s how the lasting profitable relationship is situated. To offer bait you need to figure out the little details of them individually nobody connects with you, or listens to your advice until they feel connected with you, that is why the most successful negotiators always try to connect with the party so that they’ll no what is the best bait they can give them, always create a bond with customer and offer them a bait they need.
“IF YOU WANT TO CATCH A FISH OFFER SHRIMP AS A BAIT”
CONCLUSION:
To become a selling master, your aim should be building a lasting relationship with the buyer, the short-term approach can make you profits for a while but later on, your business will decline. Apart from that understanding customers’ approaches and treating them accordingly will make them feel satisfied and it will lead to an unbreakable bond. The business begins and grows by focusing on customers, not profits. These tactics will lead you to become a good salesperson and once you learn to sell you can sell anything because you know what to, where, when to, and to whom you should sell.