Selling 101

We have all heard it said at least once in our lives that some people are born salesmen. Fortunately, this is only partly true: knowing the right qualities and characteristics that a professional should have enables us to study and improve our skills in this area.

First of all, it might seem elementary, but one of the reasons why a sales career often goes wrong is a lack of dedication. It takes time for a salesman to grow, because their skills increase as they broaden their knowledge of the field, of their products and services, and of the problems that clients and prospects encounter while using them; it is a question of experience. In addition, the work that the salesman has to do on himself is of great importance; to increase self-confidence, he must learn to study the right tone of voice and be able to maintain his enthusiasm for the product he is offering. If he doesn’t devote enough time to learning his profession and perfecting it, he is unlikely to do well.

As well as hard work and dedication, to be successful, a salesman’s career should be based on a set of fundamental moral characteristics, such as integrity, ethics and trust. To develop these skills, the salesman needs to train himself to listen and communicate and to be genuinely interested in other people. In particular, a good salesman must possess the following characteristics:

• he must be honest and credible, and ethics must underpin both his sales techniques and every aspect of his life. Even though it might seem quite the opposite at times, it is good to remember that ethics in sales always pays off in the long run, and it is key to building a career;
• he must build a trusting relationship with both clients and prospects (potential clients) because lack of trust is the most common reason for not making a sale. A successful salesman must help others to trust him and he can do so by being ethical, fair and irreproachable. Furthermore, he must carefully curate his interpersonal relationships and always keep his word;
• he should be a good listener and be able to show that he is interested in the person he is talking to: the ability to listen is one of a salesperson’s most important tools, because it makes clients and prospects feel important, and shines a light on their needs. Likewise, showing active interest triggers a reciprocal mechanism, which motivates people to listen more willingly and attentively to the salesperson’s pitch;
• he needs to be able to adjust the tone of his voice and the speed with which he speaks, to match that of the person he is talking to, because we enjoy listening to people that communicate in the same way us. The exception to this rule is when the other person uses more colourful language, expresses anger, or has any kind of speech impediment.