10-ish Tips To Be A Better Salesperson In 2020
Salespeople constantly have to evolve and it’s usually in their nature to look for an edge wherever they can get it. Here are a few ideas — a mix of actionable tactics and personal strategies — that may help you up your game in the new decade. Like it or not, everybody is a salesperson and can benefit from improving their sales techniques, whether selling products/services or trading in ideas. Here goes!
Be Authentic
An ‘old but gold’ tip. The internet revolutionised the flow of information for transactions and has empowered customers with more information than ever about brands, products, and people. On the other side of the coin, it’s never been easier for salespeople to showcase proof of work online — think personal websites, social media, reviews/testimonials.
Modern salespeople build a brand for themselves and create leverage. This shift of brand equity from companies to individuals, and the radical transparency afforded by the internet, means authenticity is the currency of the modern-day salesperson.
Make a brand promise for yourself and deliver on it consistently. If you fail or make mistakes, share them.
Productise yourself
Make yourself part of the product, and sell customers the package. By productising yourself and leveraging your service levels, unique insight, or vast experience you create an extra dimension to differentiate your product and escape the competition.
Of course, this only works if your package truly is a good fit for prospective customers and you must be able to deliver on your brand promise consistently
Build An Audience
Much like a pension, you want to have built an audience long before you need it. It seems like a slog and perhaps counterproductive, but building a network by engaging little and often will reap benefits.
Join communities, tangential ones. Produce helpful content. Meet interesting people. The internet has made all of these immeasurably easier to do. Try to add value and help people wherever you operate. When you do have something important to say (and a product to sell) people will be ready to listen.
Sell Your Worldview
The best modern salespeople showcase the way they view the world (or the market they play in) should be, detail how their product makes progress towards that vision, and invite the customer along to join the movement. They paint a picture of a world with or without their product, interweaving stories of how using it will make the customer’s life better or easier.
Ditch The Business Card
Getting your first business cards is exciting. It feels important. After a while, they become a pain in the neck. Carrying them around, receiving them, sorting them, keeping them. These days, I don’t even bother. If I meet someone I want to stay in contact with I’ll do one of a few things depending on factors such as the nature of the interaction, cultural context, their age, the industry they’re in etc:
- Add them on LinkedIn there and then for industry connections
- Drop them a quick one-line email if we have a topic to follow up on
- Follow them on Twitter if they regularly post ideas there
- Follow them on Instagram if you have a strong personal relationship with them.
The last one might seem surprising and even unprofessional to some, but tying into the authenticity point above it gives each of you access to the real, authentic (or Insta-real) version of who you are as people, not just the professional personas you want to portray on LinkedIn.
Instagram is a great, under-utilised tool for fostering professional relationships.
Experiment With Video
This one I’ve been trialling recently myself, to positive impact. Sending a video message, versus an email, helps differentiate you from 99.9% of others who simply send cold written comms. It helps to humanise you and build a connection with prospects by tying the message to the person delivering it. this is particularly effective if you have never met the person face to face before.
A free service like Loom takes seconds to record and send a video to customers, or if you want to up your game consider Prezi Video which gives you access to graphic overlays — not unlike as if you were presenting on television!
Remove Friction
Sticking with tech, this one is so simple but frees up time for real work. Use digital tools that help automate tasks like settings meetings. I use a service like Calandly or you can book me to share your calendar with a lead to book themselves a sales meeting at a time that’s most convenient for them. It saves multiple back and forth emails, gives them a conference call link and makes booking meetings seamless.
Go Retro
Flying in the face of all the advice I’ve just offered about leveraging tech, the shallow nature of digital comms leaves the door wide open to stand out with snail mail and handwritten letters. Use sparingly at milestone moments. Take the time to send a handwritten note to a client to show your appreciation.
Emails get deleted, letters get read and kept.
Recommend A Competitor
This one may be controversial to some, but has dual long-term benefits. If your product genuinely isn’t a good fit and won’t help your prospect, then you can add value to them by recommending a product that can — even if it’s a competitor.
You’re providing value to the person sitting across from you, and consequently inspiring trust in your character. It’s also likely a competitor on the receiving end of your generosity will pay it back in the future too — if there’s a huge unaddressed market, it’s beneficial to have good relationships with competitors to help ‘grow the pie’ — that way everybody gets a bigger piece even if market share stays the same.
Show Respect
If you don’t get a response after emailing a lead and doing a follow-up, there’s usually a reason. I’ve found that a third email offering to respectfully close out the conversation, rather than persistently following up with the same message, resonates with the recipient and often leads to a response that can re-open the conversation.
I’ll usually state that the lack of response implies that the timing might not be right for them. If that’s the case, I ask them to let me know when would be best to get back in touch.
I also offer an absolute ‘easy out’ for them by asking for a one-liner if they’re genuinely not interested or we’re not a good fit for them. I tell them that I can make a note in our CMS and prevent distractions or further emails for them in the future.
It shows that you respect their time and wishes, and even if they don’t want to take the conversation further it closes the interaction positively.
Build Bridges
Modern salespeople appreciate that they’re not simply soldiers on the frontline that are handed a finished product to sell to any customer that will take it. They work closely with marketing and product to design products customers will love. They align their sales actions with wider strategic goals rather than opportunistic/tactical opportunities, to target the types of customers the business wants.
In essence, they leverage their insights to add value beyond their traditional sphere of influence.
Don’t Cold Call. Ever.
Much has been written about Millennials and Gen Z’s fear of the simple phone call. Despite being the first generation with ubiquitous access to smartphones, we hate people calling. Why? I’d argue it’s downright disrespectful to call someone and have immediate access to their time. It assumes that we’re free and implies that your time is more important than ours.
When was the last time you enjoyed an unsolicited phone call from someone you don’t know?
Final Thoughts
As always: listen to your customer, learn about them and their business, understand their problems, and help to solve them. Sales is about moving people from where they are before using your product, to who they can be after they use your product.
As always: listen to your customer, learn about them and their business, understand their problems, and help to solve them. Sales is about moving people from where they are before using your product, to who they can be after they use your product.