Do you believe sales people are born, or made? If you think they are born, why is it so many companies pay a great deal of money on sales training? Lets kill a few myths good, professional sellers are not necessarily extroverts or the life and soul of the party, they are not cavalier in their attitudes, they are not hard-nosed closers, nor do they have to be driven by money.

Most people can be successful as sellers once understand what they need to do to be effective. Beginning with the basics, dictionary definitions will tell you that to sell includes to convince of value and salesmanship includes persuading purchasers to buy. Taking these as a starting point provides some good clues for becoming more successful at selling. (It also explains why many industries become media fodder through their mis-selling approaches which should have died out decades ago!)

1. Identify the right target market and prospects for your product or service. Be clear who you want to sell to, get your message to them and then qualify whether they have the budget and need or when will they?

2. Build rapport with the prospect, ie get in tune with the way they want to interact with you. Remember, people buy people. They do not have to like you, however it is important that they do not dislike you!! Starting to build the relationship will move you to a position where they will tell you about their business, themselves and their needs.

3. Focus on their challenges or issues, what they want to change, remove or improve. They know what is going on, so let them tell you. Help this along by being curious, ask questions and listen to the answers! If you want to persuade them to buy, and be convinced of value you have to find out what it will be for them. Find their shopping list and write down what they tell you. Check that you understand what is on their list. Anything which is vague or can be misinterpreted needs to be clarified. Remember, telling is not selling!

4. Let them know what you have to offer which matches the items on their list. Learn to sell the benefits people will buy your product or service for what it does for them, not for what it is. Remember, prospects are asking themselves, Whats in it for me? or How will that help me?

5. Ask for commitment. You can be committing prospects throughout the meeting(s) with asking for small levels of decision or bits of information. When you feel that you have covered the key points of what they want, and have dealt with any questions, ask them if they want to go ahead.

Selling is like learning any other skill, there is a basic level you can acquire and then you can develop your expertise with on-going training and practice.

Remember that selling is simple:

• Find the right types of prospects
• Find what they are looking for
• Show them how you can provide it
• They will be happy to buy from you!!

Graham Yemm

Graham is one of the founding directors of Solutions 4 Training Ltd. He has 20 years experience as a consultant and partner in training companies, developing and delivering training solutions both internationally and in the UK.

He has worked with a variety of major companies in the UK, the Middle East, mainland Europe and Russia and USA, training a range of Sales, People and Management Skills. He spends a considerable amount of his time working in the Middle East region. He has worked with many different organisations conducting both training and consultancy assignments- ranging from petrochemical to pharmaceutical, from financial institutions to computer manufacturers and dealerships. Additionally, he uses an OD approach to work with organisations to evaluate their culture and whether it is appropriate for their strategic aims. If not, he will assist them in designing and implementing the suitable actions to correct this situation.

Other projects have ranged from: ?modelling? top performers to enable recruitment, development and specific training to be tailored to what is done by the successful staff, designing performance appraisal systems, creating and training a graduate mentoring programme involving the Directors and senior managers of a major corporation, project managing a the design and development product sales programme to be delivered by a combination of methods from traditional face to face workshops, virtual classrooms and intranet and CD ? for roll-out to over 6,000 people. He has also presented at various conferences about using NLP in business, improving people management and other areas.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management. Also, a Master Practitioner of NLP and was involved with setting up and running ?The Business Group?, which promotes uses of NLP in organisations. He is an accredited trainer for the LAB (Language and Behaviour) profile programme - ?Words that Change Minds?. Apart from working with his own clients within Solutions he has also led courses for organisations such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, MCE (Management Centre Europe) and Middle East Management Centre. He writes for various magazines and also contributed to ?NLP ? Business Masterclass? by David Molden.