Sometimes it may seem like something that is out of your control or that you need luck when figuring out how to be an effective salesperson. There are clear and practical things that you can do to become consistently more effective and successful as a salesperson, not just necessarily by being in the right place at the right time, as is commonly believed.

The following are ten areas to look at when trying to improve results:

 

1. Put in the work

The fact that you have to put in the work and have high activity levels in order to be truly effective is a given. One misconception is that some salespeople assume that being in sales means you can have freedom and you don’t consistently have to work that hard. In reality, if you don’t get lucky with a ripe territory, you will need to work hard to be consistent and effective.

 

2. Continue to learn

Sales is a skill that consistently has room for growth and development so it is important to always be learning and developing your knowledge about sales tactics and techniques. Also, continuing to learn about your products and your industry will help you to become a deeper expert in your field.

 

3. Reflect back

It is important to focus on reflecting back on previous conversations and previous opportunities, and this is often an oversight of how to be an effective salesperson. Reflecting back on what could have been done to improve previous results can help with decision-making moving forward.

 

4. Ask good questions

Taking whatever information the prospect gives them is an average behavior for a salesperson. In order to be an effective salesperson, being strategic with the sales questions that are asked to extract not only more information but also the right information is key.

 

5. Manage customer information

What are you doing with the customer information you are collecting? Are you simply keeping your notes written on paper, or are you digitizing the information so it can be shared and easily accessible later?

 

6. Clearly find and diagnose pain

It is imperative to how to be an effective salesperson to be able to locate and diagnose the pain and challenges your prospect is experiencing. Not only will this help you to generate more leads, but it will also help you identify which prospects to spend your time with.

 

7. Thoroughly qualify the prospect

The key thing to remember where the last point left off is your time is very valuable. Thoroughly qualify your prospects by making sure you’re trying to sell to the prospects that are the best fit and have the highest probability of moving forward.

 

8. Build rapport

Having and building rapport with your prospect is important as not only do prospects buy from vendors that they like, but it will also make the prospect more open with information and more responsive to requests.

 

9. Build interest

You will need to be able to build interest with the prospect in order to master how to be an effective salesperson. To improve your ability to build interest, there are some simple and practical things you can do.

 

10. Control the sales cycle

Both are going with the flow with prospects and deals or trying to be strategic to improve your control over sales cycles. Deals can only move at a certain speed, but there are things you can do to manage the sales cycles and keep things moving forward.

SalesScripter provides sales consulting helping sales pros with how to be an effective salesperson.