Sales before doing any sales

The word sell is a frightening word. Steve Harrison ones said that sell is a combination of words like sincerely, encourage, listening and loving. Other than that, what is selling? Briefly it is someone trying to sell something to a customer, something were the money moves. As humans we usually think that is something kind of door to door or business to customer, but in fact sales is small things as in when grocery shopping.

Often when people think that you have to a very quick-witted and an extroverted person to do selling. It is more of understanding the customer and finding out what the need without knowing what they need. How to figure out what they need is buy done by asking a lot of questions. Somehow one must get the customers attention which also requires a lot of determination.

Sales strategies are very important because it gives one reliability and plan if something goes in the not expected way. If one is new to do sales a strategy gives a lot of clarity and some sort of confidence to do sales and makes one understand the product better. Strategies is giving an insect to a long-term sale, however monthly, daily, and weekly are important to remember as well. Short-term are valuable because one can see the progress and when following the short-term strategies, it helps to achieve the long-term goals. Strategies I used during the sales days where warm calls, using family contacts that own businesses, and doing stand selling. The one that made most success for me was the B2B sales.

A salesperson has the power of being a good listener and understanding the needs, but also have the power of being loving. Steve Harrison some explained that selling is love instead of service. “Concentrate on loving people and you will end up serving them”. Selling is about understanding and how you meet people, it’s a lot of how you communicate with others. The more you put your heart into it the more it will bring back to you.

One common fear that people have about selling is that they don’t get any sales, or they can’t answer the questions the customer has. Especially in Finland doing B2C sales looks very hard, because Finns are very hard to talk into, and they are often it is hard to get eye contact with them. How to overcome the fears in sales? A lot of the time is that it is just stepping out the comfort zone and being comfortable in the uncomfortable. Know the product one is selling and find the target group, and don’t be afraid of failing because that can be taken as a good learning process. I believe the most important part is that don’t give up because at the end it will go as planned.

One thing that I realized is that the only way to develop my selling skill is be in the uncomfortable zone, and by that being in the field and talk to people. Also not getting upset with when no one buys, because talking with others it can lead to sales in other business. As well realizing that talking to people will give me a lot of strength and believe in myself.  As an entrepreneur selling is one of the most important skills to have, because buy selling you get the money.

To conclude, looking back at the sales days I believe that I did overcome myself and I can proudly say that I did my best. It was a very learning experience and very meaningful for our team.

References:

Harrison, (2018, January 25) How to Sell Without Selling Your Soul

University of Minnesota, Customers Relationships and Selling Strategies

Hylij, (2021, March 29) Sales Strategy and Importance of sales strategy