Essential qualities and skills of successful salespeople

Reading: 23357 Managing the Community

12 years ago, I quit my job as a university teacher and became the sales representative of Yikang Chemical Co., Ltd., a disinfection products chemical company specializing in the production and sales of clean hotels, institutions and food and beverage industries. Its global annual sales are as high as $2 billion. Before I joined the company, I kept thinking: How could a professional chemical company in the top 500 in the United States hire a master of engineering who has no sales experience and is not a chemical major as a sales representative? After years of training and tempering, I gradually realized that a company with a history of 78 years can succeed in such fierce competition and such a narrow market space because it has a complete and systematic talent recruitment and training mechanism. The company's business purpose: to provide customers with the best cleaning and disinfection effect. In order to achieve this goal, the company develops and produces products (all kinds of detergents, disinfectants and distributors) that best meet the needs of customers. Provide customers with the best service (emergency service, regular routine service, irregular customer training, etc.). ) to ensure the best use of the product. The company is strict with business personnel, and its responsibilities include: sales work plan, sales visit, customer service, new customer establishment and regional management. Business personnel are familiar with the company's business purpose, company products, customer problems and customer needs; Can provide targeted expert services to customers; Have professional sales skills to develop new customers. A professional sales team is the most powerful force for the company to participate in market competition. In order to establish and cultivate a professional sales team, the company has a complete training plan for business personnel. All business personnel must go through 6-9 months of training and pass the test before they can formally accept the sales area. Training forms include: classroom learning training, on-site service training, and on-site customer visit training for sales managers. The training content mainly includes three parts: (1) technical ability training: product knowledge and product application skills training; Familiar with the specific use of the product; Have the ability of installation, debugging, inspection and maintenance of some professional washing equipment and computer dealers, and can provide on-site guidance and training to customers. (2) Work attitude training: sincerely care about customers and provide them with the best service; Emphasize teamwork spirit and implement the company's business purpose. (3) Professional sales skill training: basic sales skill training; Professional service skills training. Years of practice have proved that this is an effective sales training mechanism. Trained and established an excellent sales team. Professional sales skills training is the most important part of the whole training course. Here is a brief introduction to this part of the training content for your reference. First of all, what is sales? It can be summarized as follows: salespeople and customers are in a position of helping each other; Artificially convey their own way to each other; Provide customers with what they need, but not necessarily what they want; Promote business innovation activities by estimating customer needs; Coordinate product resources, goods delivery and service activities; And use personal charm to persuade customers to do things they didn't want to do. In short, the job of sales is to meet the needs of customers and artistically let customers recognize and accept our work. To do this successfully, salespeople must fully understand their products and services and have excellent sales skills. In the past twenty years, the position of sales has changed greatly. As an excellent professional salesman, we must fully realize how to be excellent, make a correct and objective analysis and evaluation of our performance, and constantly improve ourselves to face the increasingly competitive market. Sales work is different from any other work. To succeed in sales and become a professional sales master, you must have the following key qualities. 1) Positive attitude 2) Self-confidence 3) Self-initiative, patience 4) Diligence, clear tasks, setting goals 5) Believing in the importance of role-playing 6) Establishing a good first impression If salespeople with the above basic qualities can skillfully use some sales skills and add corresponding products and services, it is possible to ensure the success of sales. Let's analyze the basic sales steps and methods and apply these methods to our own products and services. Each step has its own specific purpose. They have been listed in the most understandable order, but we should also realize that in real life, we may be involved in any specific sales stage at any time, so we should use these sales steps flexibly and never copy them mechanically. Only in this way can we achieve our goal to the maximum in this customer visit.

Common Professional Sales Skills (2)

Time: 07: 00 on September 26th, 2004 Reading: 16900 Managing the Community

Sales model (referred to as seven-step sales method): (1) Introduction: Your self-introduction must indicate the following points: Who are you? Which company do you represent? What's your purpose? Why do they take the time to listen to you? Example: "Mr. Chen, we once asked a company similar to yours to reduce their product procurement by 15%, and they didn't pay extra labor. I believe we can do the same for you-I want to ask you a few questions in order to thoroughly understand your situation ... (2) Your greetings should be friendly and brief, and your image and smile should be conducive to creating a friendly atmosphere. Pay close attention to your future customers. The feeling of buying and not buying is usually obvious. It tells you which step to take in the sales model. You may have made a deal. On the other hand, customers may not be interested at all. He/she may either have a very bad attitude or not listen to what you are saying at all. Every time we visit new and old customers, we will find ourselves facing one of the following three possible buying atmospheres. Positive buying atmosphere: customers are actively inclined to buy. You don't need to do any promotion lobbying, just close the deal. Neutral buying atmosphere: customers neither actively buy nor treat negatively. You must start to discover his needs. If you use your sales skills properly and have enough product knowledge, then customers are likely to buy. Negative buying atmosphere: the customer adopts a closed mind, he is not interested at all, and sometimes he may say something extremely negative. In this case, they can't make any purchase decisions. Then we need to lead customers to the neutral zone at least in a short time, otherwise you have no chance to do business at all. When visiting new customers for the first time, the main challenge that may arise is how to guide customers from negative areas to neutral areas, so that they are psychologically and emotionally prepared to accept new content. Many knowledgeable sales professionals believe that you usually have less than 25 seconds to win customers' interest, including greetings. At the same time, more and more salespeople insist that it is useless to strengthen the promotion of negative and indifferent buying attitudes. (3) Pay attention to publicity, arouse interest and win the interest of customers, which is the first challenge we encounter in sales. If we agree that it is useless to increase the promotion, then we have only one choice: we must find ways to reduce the resistance of customers. In order to attract customers' interest, many successful salespeople use a technique similar to newspaper headlines to attract readers to read, so that you can buy his newspaper or read that article. It turns out that the same technique is very effective in sales. For sales, this title is to ask a general question or an explanation, and its only purpose is to stimulate customers' interest. Example: Have you heard? Our industry has launched a new and exciting service. Will your company be interested in skills to improve productivity? To achieve good results, what is used to attract people should arouse people's interest and not be too specific. When we introduce our products, it is very dangerous to talk about too many details now, because we don't know the needs of our customers yet. Prepare at least three topics that you feel comfortable with, and try them on your peers, family and friends first to see if you have effectively aroused their interest. When preparing these topics, you can follow the following principles: general but not specific. Don't involve yourself, your company and your products. When introducing the situation, don't say anything that you can't justify yourself. You must choose carefully when using these topics. A considerable number of customers will get bored with overly dramatic content. Please use them only when necessary. After listening to these headlines, your future customers are now ready to listen to your detailed introduction. But because you haven't found the customer's needs, you don't have the conditions to make a detailed introduction. We need customers to participate in this discovery. A common way for people to find customer needs is: "Before we discuss, can I ask you some questions?" Few customers will refuse the above requirements. This key question can reduce nervousness, get customers ready to participate (before we discuss it), and postpone your detailed introduction until you have collected enough information. It enables you to involve customers in problems to be solved.

Common Professional Sales Skills (3)

Time: September 23, 2004117 Reading: 734 1 Management Community.

(4) Discovering customer needs The process of discovering needs is to let us reveal the specific needs of customers, which is a business for us to understand his/her personal and corporate needs. Whether we can succeed in this respect depends largely on whether we can directly and continuously involve our customers in this process. The basis of this process is effective inquiry and listening. At this point, questions to all customers should be open-ended. Closed question: refers to a question that only needs to be answered with "yes" or "no". Open-ended questions refer to questions that need to provide relevant information. The open-ended questions we ask generally fall into two categories: 1. Discover the fact: 1) Relax the customer; 2) Collect valuable information; 2. Solicit opinions: solicit the opinions and attitudes of customers. Usually, the first 2-3 questions are related facts, which are generally easy to answer and unlikely to cause customers' nervousness. In the process of talking with customers, customers (including sales staff) are most likely to feel nervous at the beginning and end of the meeting. The degree of tension plays a great role in the success of your visit. Nervousness: At a low level-your customer is more likely to find a solution to the problem-at a high level-your customer is more likely to try to get rid of the source of his/her nervousness-you! 1, the purpose of understanding facts with facts is to open a topic and help reduce tension. 2. Feelings/opinions After asking the first 2-3 questions, you can begin to understand the relevant opinions and feelings of customers. Questions can include future plans (such as expansion plans, future needs, etc.). ). Here, we can not only know the specific facts about the past, but also ask customers their views or feelings about many possibilities in the future. It is risky to ask a future or old customer about similar products he/she is currently using. The risks encountered include: it is tantamount to criticizing the buyer's previous purchase decision-the buyer will insist that he is not wrong and become less cooperative. Unexpected intensified competition-we must face up to this, because buyers expect you to say that your products and services are better than those your competitors are using. It aggravates the buyer's nervousness and makes him/her not want to discuss with you any more. One way to increase the possibility of obtaining these important information and reduce the risk of alienating customers is: Part I: "What's your favorite product you are currently using?" The customer's answer can help you clearly understand what benefits customers can get is the most important to them. So in the next product introduction, you can provide more benefits to customers in these aspects. At this time, your response to the information you get can be: "Yes, I'm glad you can get these benefits". Part II: "What do you dislike about them the least?" Although you don't ask customers what they don't like, this is often what you hear. By carefully phrasing the second question "What do you dislike the most", you make it easier for customers to discuss with you what they don't like, instead of forcing them to admit that they made a mistake in their last purchase. Methods: "Observe"+"Ask"+"Listen" to explore the needs of customers. Asking and listening are conducive to creating a relaxed and informal discussion atmosphere, thus making it possible to collect information. One problem that puzzles most salespeople and makes their work in this important field not quite in place is that they are afraid of "losing control" when introducing products. After all, sometimes customers may talk most of the time. Just because an experienced salesperson knows how to control the situation doesn't mean you have to speak. Actually, it's just the opposite. The higher the participation of customers, the more likely we are to understand their needs and take actions according to their needs, and the more capable we are to take actions according to their needs. The more credit and trust the two sides can build, the more credit and trust they have, the more we can control the situation, and the more likely we are to achieve our overall goal during this visit.

Common Professional Sales Skills (4)

Time: September 23rd, 2004 1 1: 17 Number of readers: 5452 Management Community.

(5) Introduce product features and provide solutions to problems: In the process of inquiry and listening that has already started, we try to reveal some customers' needs or problems that need to be solved. At the same time, we are also learning how to meet the needs of customers. By knowing that customers' needs have been met, we can decide whether it is necessary to meet their needs, instead of getting more from the competitive products or services we are currently using. Professional salespeople will propose solutions to problems or meet these needs only after unanimously confirming the nature of the needs and the importance of these needs relative to customers. The above sentence shows that the sales staff are concerned about the needs of customers rather than the products or services of the company. Note: people don't buy our products or services. They buy the satisfaction of their needs and the solutions to their problems from those who they think can understand their needs. What we sell is not our products or services, but the benefits brought by our products or services, and these benefits can meet the needs of customers. Key points of successful product introduction: 1. Keep it short and to the point We should express our ideas as clearly and concisely as possible. Try to avoid using some technical terms and a series of words consisting of initials. These terms and expressions are usually understood only by ourselves and our companions, but they are meaningless to most other people. Buyers are not always as familiar with the terms of those industries as we are, and even if they don't understand what we are talking about, they usually don't tell us. The main risk we face at this time is that people usually don't buy products they don't understand. Whether we can use these terms depends on the buyer. Otherwise, leave them in your office, solve one problem at a time, and keep getting customer feedback. Only in this way can you greatly increase the possibility of being understood, and then increase the possibility of getting an order. Note: gushing is not sales, we should communicate with customers in the most concise, clear and easy-to-understand language. 2. Visual means The use of visual means helps us to clearly display our products and services, and helps our customers vividly understand the benefits he/she can get. If you put these visual materials in a binder, you must be familiar with their order, so that you can quickly find the information you need from the customers you visit. Product samples and trial methods are very helpful to help customers know whether their needs can be met. But don't leave too much time between the trial sale and the order. The longer you wait, the greater the risk that you won't get the order. 3. Using third-party examples The so-called third-party examples refer to the examples of people who successfully use our products or services to meet their needs. These examples can not only make our introduction more vivid, but also help our customers understand the benefits that our products or services can bring to them. Besides, it can also help us build up our credibility. When introducing examples of third parties, we can use the common pronoun "others" or the names of specific companies and individuals to show that their needs like customers have been met through our products or services. These examples can also help avoid the embarrassment of salespeople, because if the customer disagrees with the salesperson's point of view, he just disagrees with the third party's practice. Either he agrees, then he generally agrees with the salesman. When quoting a third-party example, if you want to use a specific company or individual name, you should tell the customer that you can quote the example. If you don't do this, your customers will be sure that you will tell everyone. No one wants to do business with people who don't respect information belonging to others. Therefore, don't quote any specific examples of third parties without permission. In this way, when you use this powerful sales tool, you can greatly reduce the risks you may encounter. 4. Explain Features-Functions-Another extremely important tool that professional salespeople can use is to introduce features, functions and uses (of products/services) to customers. This is a skill that is at least understood by customers and therefore used by salespeople. We start with the needs of specific customers. Features-what is introduced is what products customers need. Function-Introduce the function of the product. Purpose-what needs can it meet? The main problem of most salespeople is that they don't know how to distinguish between function and use. Unless we can learn how to do it, we will only focus on introducing what our products or services can do, ignoring that they can meet customers' needs or solve customers' problems. The so-called use is to meet the needs of customers. After introducing the main points, we must spend some time to confirm whether the customers agree with our introduction. This kind of feedback tells us whether the customer will "buy our solution to the problem" and whether he is confident that our products or services can solve his problems or meet his needs. Without this kind of feedback, we will find that the problem we want to solve is not the customer's greatest concern. At this time, our most common skill is to ask some closed questions, such as: "saving time is very important to you, isn't it?" "Its quality is very important, isn't it?" The customer's approval shows that you have aimed at the direction and given you a chance to achieve your goal. Solicit orders, book preliminary orders, bid according to specifications, arrange product exhibitions and submit plans. The best time to identify buying signal's soliciting orders should be that customers have accepted our products and services ideologically. If we can correctly position our products and services as the satisfaction of customers' needs, customers can foresee that their needs will be met and send us corresponding signals. To identify "buying signal", we must be able to focus on our customers. Unless we are very familiar with our products and processes, we will find ourselves always paying attention to what we should say instead of listening to what customers tell us. Simply put, buying a signal means that you are satisfied with your body and voice. In other words, every word and deed of the customer tells you that he/she has made a purchase decision. In most cases, the appearance of buying signal is quite sudden. Sometimes, customers will even interrupt your speech with some kind of buying signal. Please be vigilant. 1, the language signal "sounds interesting ..." "I think ..." "What are the sales conditions in your?" "Can it be used ...? ""How much is it? " 2. Body signal buying signal is sometimes nonverbal and subtle. Please pay attention to observe whether the customer suddenly becomes relaxed. Turn to the person next to you and say, "What do you think?" Suddenly sigh, suddenly let go of your hands crossed on your chest (crossing your hands on your chest means no, when you put them down, the obstacle is eliminated. Lean forward or backward and become relaxed. Loosen the clenched fist. Reach out and touch the product or pick up the product manual. When any of the above happens, you can ask for an order because you have observed the correct buying signal. 3. Show a friendly attitude. Sometimes customers will suddenly show a friendly and polite attitude towards you. "Would you like a cup of coffee?" Would you like something to drink? "Would you like to stay for lunch?" "You are really a good salesman." "You are really familiar with your product." Please pay close attention to everything your customers say and do. Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to getting an order is that the salesman himself is too talkative, thus ignoring the customer's buying signal. Any time you think you hear or see some kind of buying signal, you can ask for an order. If you don't get the order at this time, it's your turn: you will hear a different opinion that has never been mentioned before.

Common Professional Sales Skills (5)

Time: September 23rd, 2004 1 1: 17 Number of readers: 4872 Management Community.

How to handle customer objections? Why would anyone object? Mainly because: 1) I don't understand your explanation; 2) customers don't need to be understood; 3) They are afraid of being "betrayed"; 4) They are not convinced; 5) The main purchase motives are not satisfied; Experienced salespeople like to have objections. Because they know that if they can meet the real needs of a customer, they will take another step towards completing this business. 80% of the objections come from the following basic categories: 1. Price 2. Quality 3. Service 4. Game 5. Application 6. Delivery 7. Experience 8. Reputation When customers raise objections, they don't argue, don't fight back and provide more convincing information. Objection handling steps 1. The first step in listening to objections is to listen to people's objections and see if this is a real problem or an imaginary problem. If it is a real problem, it should be dealt with immediately. If it's just an imaginary problem, it still needs to be dealt with. Only when introducing products can we postpone it until we find a suitable place to deal with it. 2. Understanding means understanding the customer's objection, not agreeing or sympathizing. For example, the buyer: "Mr. Li, I'm afraid your price is too high." Salesman: "I understand why you feel this way." The purpose of this understanding is to admit the buyer's anxiety about the price, but it does not show approval or defense consciousness. Never use such turning words as "but" or "however" when answering other people's objections. Using these two words is like immediately denying the sentence in front of them, thus erecting an obstacle between the salesperson and the buyer. If you must use conjunctions, please use "then". Wrong statement: "Yes, it seems a little expensive, but …" Correct statement: "Teacher Chen, I understand your point of view, let's talk about this problem." In this way, the two sides have established a cooperative relationship, rather than a feeling of conflict. 3. Let the customer prepare for your rebuttal. At this moment, our goal is to reduce customers' nervousness, thus reducing the possibility of conflict. 4. Provide new evidence. Now that the objections have cooled down, we can refute them. According to the type of objection, determine the most specific, logical and accurate answers, then remember them and use them again and again until you feel it sounds natural. 5. The last step of soliciting objections to order processing is to solicit orders. After giving the best answer, you can ask the customer if he agrees to buy. When dealing with objections, our goal is to eliminate different opinions and not let customers lose face. 1. Turn it into a problem. Almost all objections raised by buyers can be turned into problems. If the buyer agrees to treat it as a problem, he/she will never treat it as an objection again. At this time, the buyer is waiting for the answer to this question. After your reply, he can only make two choices (1) "Yes, this is indeed a problem" or (2) "No …" If the buyer says "No", you can collect more information. Buyer: "No, this is not a problem." Shop assistant: "Oh, really! Then please tell me what your main problem is? " Buyer: "Well, what I want is …" Look, he's going to tell the real problem. This first one is really not a problem. If you can meet his second question, both sides have the possibility of doing business. 2. I feel-others feel-discover this "I feel-others feel-finally discover …" method can effectively guide customers to accept our terms, while avoiding potential conflict risks. Below we can analyze this method and insert our own objections into this method to simulate the exercise. Feel for yourself-"I understand how you feel ..." Purpose: to show understanding and sympathy. Other people's feelings-"Other people feel the same way ..." Purpose: This can help customers lose face. Found-"... they found ..." Purpose: 1. Relieve the pressure faced by sales staff. 2. Make customers ready to accept new evidence. If there are differences between the two parties, the problem lies with the third party. But who do you think will benefit if an agreement is reached? You! We should have the mentality of "expecting objections" to face customers' objections. This shows that customers are interested in us and can make us have a happy ending. So far, in the process of visiting customers, we have achieved the following goals: arousing his/her interest, discovering his/her needs, proposing solutions to his/her problems, and handling his/her initial objections. Even if we do everything, we may not get it if we don't ask for an order. Although we both believe that our products/services can meet customers' needs, the decision-making process may still cause customers' nervousness to a great extent, so that it is impossible to make a decision at once. At this time, our role is to help customers overcome this dilemma. The question now is not whether the customer is willing to buy our products/services, but how can we help him/her complete this decision-making process. Only by making the customer's decision as simple as possible can we both get the maximum benefit.

Common Professional Sales Skills (6)

Time: September 23, 200411:18 Reading: 6072 Management Community

(VI) Skills for obtaining contracts/orders (decision-making) Professional salespeople should know how to make decisions. Here are some common clapping techniques. Now that you have reached an agreement with the customer, the products you provide can meet his/her needs, and you have noticed those signals that you think are buying, you should seize every opportunity to reach a deal and get an order. The following are some commonly used and effective methods: 1, consultation method Sometimes we are not sure whether we should ask the customer for an order, and we are not sure whether we have correctly observed the customer's buying signal. In these cases, it is best to ask for advice. "Mr Chen, do you think this service can solve your delivery difficulties?" "Do you think this is good for your company?" "If we can solve the problem of this pigment, Mr. Chen, do you think it will solve your company's problems?" This method allows you to detect the "water depth" in a stress-free environment and solicit orders from customers. Of course, if you can get a positive answer, then you can fill in the order. You don't have to nag about how to make a deal. As in any other field of sales, the more you talk, the more likely you are to lose your order. 2. Starting with a smaller question and ending the negotiation is to ask your customers to make a smaller decision, instead of making any important decision immediately, such as asking them to answer "Are you ready to order?" Questions like this. The question should be: "What day do you think is the best for delivery?" "What color did you like in the first batch?" "Where do you want to assemble it?" 3. Choice Method Give your customer a choice by asking the following questions-no matter which question indicates that he/she agrees to buy your product or service. "Do you think it is better to deliver the goods on Thursday or Friday?" "Is it cash or credit card?" "Shall we start with 20,000 or 50,000?" "Do you want the red one or the yellow one?" 4. Summative By summing up, the main purpose is to summarize the services that customers will receive, instead of ending the conversation by asking a smaller question or multiple-choice question. "Mr. Chen, we both agree to use large packaging. Do you think it is better to send 20 cases first or 50 cases first?