Superficially, it looks like selling is a breeze; but any experienced sales professional will tell you otherwise. However, mastery of the previously mentioned skills will afford you a profitable, fulfilling and rewarding sales career in any economy, if you are willing to do the required work.
Learning how to sell your ideas, to persuade others to your way of thinking, may be the most important interpersonal skill that one can develop. Many of our successes in life hinge upon our interactions with others. Those personal interactions depend upon the relationships we develop. Those relationships are built by trust and integrity expressed through effective communication between the people involved.
Effective communication hinges upon our ability to sell our ideas to others, to effectively convey our ideas in such a manner that gains critical acceptance from others, influencing their thinking and decision-making process. Are you effectively communicating to your market the benefits that only you provide?
The volatility of the present economic climate has left many professionals and businesses, including salespeople, in states of fear and uncertainty. We now have experienced the largest number lost jobs in five years as businesses are trimming people and shrinking their operations. How do you sell in this environment? You must learn to expertly and quickly qualify new prospects, seeking to offer the highest possible value both there and to your existing customers.
Selling is indeed a unique profession, combining one's personal chemistry with precise direction. Today's business climate demands greater focus and clarity from salespeople. We cannot afford to be congenial generalists as that mindset will not allow us access to key decision-makers. We must become the expert in our field, being perceived as a valuable resource, problem solvers and their go-to person. Salespeople must filter their offering of products and services, specializing with laser-like focus on one particular solution that will be of greatest interest and service to their marketplace.
Despite tighter credit, increasing unemployment, shrinking production and other economic woes, many businesses will remain a going-concern, requiring an ongoing influx of key products and services to operate effectively. Your focus must be at this level.
In the short term, selling almost anything will indeed be tougher. Prospects and customers are busier, perhaps doing the jobs of several people in prior times. It will become more difficult to reach decision-makers, as their ready availability declines. The "sales-men will be separated from the boys" as they say. Many salespeople may not weather the storm, yet wonderful opportunity remains for those willing to adjust their strategy and tactics in this ever-evolving economic situation.
Be strong. Be encouraged. Dig-in your heels and ride out this storm. Those that do will emerge in a superb position to prosper when the economy cycles back to growth mode. Will you be one of those salespeople?
