3 Ways To Become A More Skilled Salesperson

If you have a career in sales, be it a profession that you’ve chosen for yourself or a job that you fell into, there’s always rooms for improvement when it comes to connecting with people and closing a sale. And while years of experience can bring this to you, learning a bit more about people and the sales process can cut this learning curve down by quite a bit.

To help you in doing this, here are three ways to become a more skilled salesperson.

Think About Motivations

To connect with the people that you’re trying to sell to, you have to think outside of yourself and really put yourself in their position.

As a big part of doing this, Rebecca Knight, a contributor to the Harvard Business Review, recommends that you learn how to decipher people’s motivations above all else. Once you have a handle on what is motivating someone to do something associated with your sale, you’d better be able to speak with them in a way that makes sense to them and gives them the information and assurance they need to make a decision. Without this, it can be hard for a prospect to build any kind of trust with you or with the product or service you’re selling, which means you likely won’t close as many sales as you otherwise could.

Learn When Not To Waste Your Time

In your effort to make a sale, you might find yourself getting very excited about anyone who gives you the time of day. However, in your desperation, you may actually be wasting your time on people who are nice and friendly but aren’t actually interested in buying anything.

To help you determine if this is the type of person you’re dealing with, Wendy Connick, a contributor to The Balance Careers, suggests that you learn how to spot bad customers just as quickly as you can good customers. Generally, a bad customer can be pinpointed as someone who’s either rude to you as you’re trying to speak with them or someone who is especially needy but is having a hard time making a decision. If you come across someone like this, you may have more luck diverting your attention to another prospect.

Find A Way To Build Your Passion

The best salespeople are ones who are passionate about the thing that they’re selling. However, not every salesperson is lucky enough to find themselves in this situation.

If this is the case for you, Tim Parker, a contributor to BusinessKnowHow.com, shares that you can also build your passion about what you’re selling by learning everything you possibly can about it. Then, even if you’re not naturally passionate about what you’re selling, you’ll at least be an expert that can help those in need of a solid salesperson.

If you’re not living up to your potential as a salesperson, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you develop your skills in this area.