10 Essential Habits to Become a Better Salesperson

Becoming a salesperson is exciting and fulfilling, not just in tech but everywhere else. A sales career can offer high pay, professional development opportunities, personal satisfaction, and a flexible work environment.

However, you’ll need unique skills, experience, and intuition to be a better salesperson, The truth is, you don’t need to be born with these skills, most of them can be learned. Even shy or tongue-tied individuals can learn to be good salespeople and stay top in this profession.

This article will take you through the ten best habits to help you become a better salesperson.

Let’s get started!

Becoming a better salesperson

• Actively sell the solution and not the product

Let’s be honest: potential buyers don’t like to listen to salespeople rambling on and on about the product’s greatness and features. Instead, they want to know how the products will tackle their pain points or make their life easier.

Yes, your product might be the most reliable and affordable in the market, but no one will buy it unless they see how the product benefits them. You need to start selling the solutions to customers’ challenges to convince them to buy your product.

Let’s go through an example to make it clear for you:

Suppose you are selling HRM software to a company. Instead of saying it has more features than the competitor at half the price, you could tell the buyer that the software helps manage leave days, payroll, performance, and workflows.

The bottom line is: research your prospect’s problems and explain the benefits of your products, including how they will solve the problem!

• Sell to the right audience

Think about what kind of people will benefit from your product and how much money they’ll be able to spend on it. Being clear on what your ideal customer looks like, will help you spend your time wisely.

Don’t waste your time going after opportunities that will dilute your value proposition. By this, we mean that you should consciously invest time in speaking to the right people.

People from businesses that will benefit from using your product. Don’t chase revenue and sell to businesses that are not the best fit.

Speak to the decision makers, don’t invest time in speaking to stakeholders who won’t help you close the deal.

• Always listen to your buyer

Mark Roberge, former CRO of HubSpot’s Sales Division, believes that successful sales should feel more like a relationship between a doctor and a patient and less like a salesperson and a potential client.

By this, he means that effective sales reps should listen to their prospects’ problems, needs, and whatever else they say. Adopting this behaviour will help you earn the client’s trust and help you close sales.

As you listen, pick the prospects’ pain points and find how your products can help solve the problem. If you are listening more than you are talking, you are doing it right!

• Sharpen your soft skill

To become a better salesperson, you must first disregard the notion that selling is all about the product. It’s not. Selling is all about people.

In fact, most people wrongly think of selling as a technical skill that can all be learned by reading a book or taking a course. And while there are plenty of books and courses on selling, they tend to focus exclusively on the mechanics of closing deals and holding presentations — what we call “hard” skills. But if you want more success in your career, it’s essential that you develop “soft” skills as well — things like empathy, communication skills, and an understanding of human behaviour.

Soft skills help you deal with buyers. They enable you to delight customers and convince them to make a sale. They’re what makes a salesperson sell a fridge to Inuits! Even better, soft skills bring back customers— people go where they are treated well.

If your company offers training programs or seminars on soft skills, take advantage of them to improve your social interactions at work and beyond.

• Quality over quantity, any day

Ask any successful salesperson you know what their secret ingredient is, and almost every time, you’ll get the same answer: Quality over quantity. Yes, the numbers sometimes determine the game, but quality is everything – quality conversations, prospects, products, etc.

The best salespeople have strict qualification criteria and rarely waste their time and resources on low-level prospects or companies. Work hard to find this information early to avoid wasting your time and resources.

• Use a short and sweet but effective pitch

The most important thing when presenting yourself and your sales pitch is brevity. Get straight to the point and save any unnecessary details later in the conversation if a customer asks for them.

Make sure you’re using the right words and phrases in your pitch. You don’t want to use ambiguous or unclear language, but you also don’t want to use so much detail that you lose the listener.

Always remember, sales is about the person you speak to and not about you or your business. An effective pitch will give the prospect plenty of time to explain their pain points and what they are looking for. This will help you position your solution, so the buyer can see the real value.

• Leverage referrals

Yes, it’s the 21^st century, but word of mouth remains among the most effective and reliable sales and marketing tools ever – up there with the likes of email and social media. In fact, research shows that 84% of B2B buyers start a purchase with a referral, and peer recommendation influences 90% of all B2B buying decisions.

When your customers refer you to a prospect, they make a fast and trusting connection that isn’t easy to find. They are drawn to your products and trust them because it has already worked for someone they know.

Remember: the best time to ask your customers for a referral is immediately after a sale. This is the time they are more enthusiastic and excited about your products. Be direct and ask the customer for a referral in person, online, through emails, or at the bottom of the invoice.

• There’s power in social media

One of the most critical parts of the sales process is getting to know your potential customers and creating relationships with them. It turns out that social media can be the perfect tool to help you accomplish this easily and quickly. You can start engaging your customers through comments or likes to build rapport.

Social media can also help you better know your customer. The platforms allow you to see what your prospects say about their brand. And if you are keen enough, you can learn about their needs and pain points through the posts.

Lastly, you can use social media to generate leads. This one is easy, with many potential buyers already using social media. Get in touch with users that comment on your social media posts.

• Learn to manage your time properly

Everyone has 24 hours in a day, but the difference between a successful salesperson and your ordinary sales guy is in how they spend their time.

You want to use your time well and close sales. Don’t spend an entire day caught up in a conversation with someone who isn’t actually the decision-maker. Know when to cut to the chase and divert your attention to the right prospects.

Also, a good salesperson will have their day planned the night before. Create a schedule for the next day and stick to it. Some of the crucial things to consider to create a productive timeline include;

– Set goals and prioritise what needs to be done first

– Be realistic when setting goals

– Take breaks between tasks

– Be disciplined with your time

• Follow up

Most potential customers don’t agree to a sale the first time. They come into contact with your product and make a mental note to buy it later. The problem is that some of these prospects end up forgetting about you and your product after some time. To ensure you stay on their mind and improve your chances of closing this sale, follow up correctly with your prospects.

According to research, 80% of sales require up to five follow-ups to be closed. But, up to 44% of sales reps only make one follow-up before calling it quits, meaning most deals crumble due to a lack of follow-up when they would actually have succeeded. So put a little more follow-up effort!