10 things i learnt in sales
DESCRIPTION
This is a presentation is my attempt at consolidating what I have learnt while working for Software Product and Software Service enterprises of small to medium size (less than 500 employees). These are very fundamental, basic tenets that I have found to be true while working in New Business Development Teams in the past 12 years. Over the years I have conceptualized, implemented, executed various steps in the New Business Development process. This is original work. © Geetanjali Dighe.TRANSCRIPT
10 Things I Learnt In Sales
1. Knowledge Assimilation
• Over the years great sales people with varied industry backgrounds develop their own unique ways of assimilating knowledge quickly
• To be a great sales person is to adapt and evolve quickly; e.g. get on board social web to track customers or competition
2. Ownership
• A great sales person educates himself/ herself on the solution offered, the options available with the client and WEIGHS his/her solution with respect to them
• A great sales person JUDGES for himself/herself if the solution adds value to client and how much
3. Esprit De Corps
• Very few things are achieved by one single person acting alone
• A great sales person knows his teammates well. He/ she empathises with their work, life situation, struggles and values
• A great sales person is a custodian of their faith
4. Humility
• A sales person is fortunate to be in the face of repeated failures
• There is no quicker way and better place way to learn than from interaction with diverse multitude of clients/ prospects
5. Courageous
• It takes courage to face, analyze and take home key learning from each failure: what went wrong?
• A well adjusted sales person uses failures to – To improve himself / herself– Without anxiety / worry/ pressure and stress– Or self doubt / self worth issues
6. Discipline• You can’t expect to reap a crop unless you have done the sowing,
feeding, and watering in the right season
• You can’t expect sales without a disciplined and respectful approach to building and managing your pipeline or funnel
• A great sales person has a favorite formula of generating leads and has worked out his/her own discipline
• He / She has a respect for the “system” that he/she has created over time and will keep tweaking it, be it a CRM system, an email that has worked, a favorite “catch line” etc… and will share it
7. Visualization
“WHAT YOU CANNOT VISUALIZE YOU CANNOT ACHIEVE”
• A good sales person has the goal and its progress on his / her wall / desktop
• A great sales person visualizes winning
8. Honesty
• The honest sales person has the client’s benefit as the utmost priority. This is the only way to gain trust from a client
• If the sales person is not is not convinced of the value proposition it is very unlikely that the prospect will
• A great sales person always has an attitude of trying to genuinely help the client in his business
Is Honesty the best policy?
• Even with the best processes the sales team or development team can goof up– Either on the estimates– Or on the timelines– Or has delivered something other than what client expected– A hundred things go wrong sooner than later
• How honest should you be with the client? (contd on next slide)
9. Trust
• A great sales person’s first and foremost role is to build trust with the client
• An experienced Sales person will have developed the ability to judge– When to defend the client– When to defend his/her team
• It is a tightrope walk when one is honest with the client – But a good sales person’s role really is to enable the client to see
your abilities such that your eventual follies are overlooked
A sale is what you reap when you sow the right trust with the client.
“YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW”
10. Sale
Summary• Knowledge Assimilation helps keep sales people up to date
• Ownership makes sales people effective
• Humility and Courage will help sales people grow
• Discipline and Visualization are formula for success
• Honesty and Trust are non-negotiable values
