Starting a career in sales?
Today we are going to share ten beginner sales training tips that can help you succeed!
Sales psychology is a subject that has been extensively studied both by academic researchers using the scientific method and by salespeople learning through trial and error.
At this point, we know what works and what doesn’t when it comes to selling, so there’s no need to waste time reinventing the wheel.
Reading these three books can help you get up to speed with modern sales theory:
Simply learning sales theory won’t make you a great salesperson. You will need to put that knowledge into practice if you want to get better at selling. But at least you’ll know what you are supposed to do instead of just aimlessly fumbling around!
“Influence” is arguably the best book on the psychology of persuasion and is widely considered to be essential reading among salespeople.
Its author Robert Cialdini, who is currently a professor of psychology and marketing at the Arizona State University, is one of the world’s leading persuasion researchers.
He has spent three years “undercover” working in fundraising organizations, car dealerships, and telemarketing firms.
These experiences allowed him to observe how persuasion works in real life when money is at stake and served as a basis for “Influence”, which was published in 1984.
In the first edition of the book, Cialdini introduced his six principles of persuasion:
Then, almost four decades after publishing “Influence”, he added the seventh principle: unity.
Modern sales theory was significantly influenced by Cialdini’s work, to the point that today his six principles of persuasion are considered to be basic common sense by sales and marketing professionals.
We believe that this book should be the starting point for learning how to sell because understanding how persuasion works in general will help you understand the reasoning behind various sales strategies and tactics that you will encounter in sales training.
Make sure to get the new and expanded edition that was released in 2021 because it covers all seven principles and is more up-to-date when it comes to scientific research.
Brian Tracy is best known as a motivational speaker and a personal development author.
But he was also a master salesman and wrote several books on sales, including “The Psychology of Selling”.
In this book, Tracy discusses how salespeople can overcome limiting beliefs, self-sabotage, and fear of rejection.
He also explains why people buy and how to leverage the psychology behind it and provides practical advice that you can start implementing immediately.
This book, which was first published in 1985, is a great introduction to classic sales theory and provides an excellent overview of the timeless sales strategies and tactics that salespeople still use today.
Daniel H. Pink is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including the #1 New York Times bestseller “To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading, Convincing, and Influencing Others”.
In this book, Pink discusses how sellers used to have an advantage over buyers because they had all the information about their products and services while the buyers only had the information that the sellers chose to disclose.
However, this information asymmetry is now gone due to widespread Internet access. Buyers can read customer reviews, check out reviews by professional reviewers, see what people are saying on social media, etc.
Reading this book will help you understand modern sales theory, what works and what doesn’t work in the digital age, and why being honest is now a business necessity, not just the right thing to do from the ethical perspective.
Sales is a numbers game.
It’s best to accept this reality right from the start.
After all, when you are dealing with other people, you can never have complete control over the outcome, so it’s best to focus on the process instead.
Set daily, weekly, and monthly sales outreach goals and then focus on reaching those goals no matter what.
Say, if you set a goal to make 100 cold calls every day, then don’t let anything faze you.
Your first call of the day ended with the potential customer shouting at you, calling you names, and hanging up on you?
Take a moment to regain your composure, then pick up the phone and make the second call of the day. And then the third one. Don’t stop until you make your 100th call.
Of course, this is easier said than done. We understand that bad interactions with potential customers can really get you down, especially when you are new to this.
But this is one of those situations where the only way out is through. The more calls you make, the sooner you will desensitize yourself to rejection, and the faster you will improve your sales skills. So you might as well get on with it!
You should prioritize leads that are the most likely to convert into paying customers. Don’t waste time cold-calling random people!
Here are the five key lead qualification criteria that sales professionals use to qualify leads:
You want to learn as much as possible about each potential customer before making the cold call.
However, you probably won’t have access to all this information until you talk to them, possibly until the discovery call where you can ask deeper questions to better understand their situation.
That being said, businesses that have sales teams typically use specific lead qualification criteria that need to be met for someone to be considered a lead (e.g. say, B2B businesses often only target companies within a certain annual revenue range).
If your company doesn’t offer such guidelines, you will have to develop them for yourself, first based on your common sense and then based on your experience of who actually converts into paying customers.
Think about the objections to buying that potential customers might have.
Generally, the most common objections tend to revolve around:
Beyond these universal objections that you will likely encounter regardless of what you are selling, you will probably also have to deal with objections specific to your niche.
You want to be prepared to address all of these objections. Ideally, you should do it pre-emptively, without waiting for the potential customer to bring them up!
Let’s be real:
Cold calling can be terrifying!
That’s why it makes sense to use a cold-calling framework instead of just flying by the seat of your pants.
This is especially true when you are a complete beginner. It’s still going to be nerve-wracking, you will still have to improvise, and there will still be awkwardness. However having an outline that you can follow can help you feel more confident when talking to potential clients.
Patrick Dang is an international sales trainer who has helped over 70,000 students across 150+ countries improve their sales skills.
He recommends this 5-step framework for cold calling:
We highly recommend watching this video where Patrick explains this framework in detail and provides an example:
You also want to have a discovery call framework. How do you intend to close the sale?
Here’s a framework that we recommend:
We also want to emphasize that you should always put the potential customer’s interests first.
Ask yourself this: if they were a family member or a friend, would you recommend this product or service to them?
You might realize that your product or service isn’t the best solution in that particular situation. In that case, it’s best to be honest about it. You can even recommend a better alternative if you are aware of one.
Keep in mind that dishonesty creates future problems. If you close the sale by hyping up your product despite knowing that it’s not a good fit for that customer, they will quickly catch onto it and ask for a refund. And that’s the best-case scenario. Disgruntled customers might take it to social media and create a PR nightmare for your company.
Obviously, as a salesperson, you will be expected to close sales. But if your superiors are putting pressure on you to basically scam people, then it’s probably best to start looking for another sales job. Companies that do this inevitably blow up once all that dishonesty catches up with them so you might as well get out now!
While nothing can replace actually talking to potential customers, you can improve your sales skills by roleplaying cold calls and discovery calls with a friend or colleague.
If it’s a friend, you can ask them to play a potential customer, which will probably require some guidance from you. Explain to them how customers typically respond, what objections they might bring up, what questions they might ask, etc.
Meanwhile, if it’s a colleague, you can alternate between the roles. Playing a potential customer might also be beneficial because it allows you to observe a fellow salesperson’s behavior from the potential customer’s perspective.
It’s best to roleplay cold calls by actually calling the other person on the phone and to roleplay discovery calls by using the same software that you use for real discovery calls (e.g. if you are using Zoom for discovery calls, use it for discovery call roleplay as well).
Ideally, you want to record and analyze real cold calls and discovery calls, but that may not always be possible. Remember that recording a call without the other person’s consent is not only unethical but also potentially illegal depending on where you live.
Your next best option is to record and analyze your roleplay calls. This can help you identify problems that might otherwise go unnoticed such as vocal ticks, suboptimal cadence of speech, overall awkwardness, etc. Once you know what your weaknesses are, you can start working on them. Just be prepared to cringe a lot when you are listening to these recordings!
If you are working at a large company, the sales process will likely be streamlined already, so there probably won’t be much left to automate. Of course, there are always exceptions to this, so you might still discover automation opportunities.
Meanwhile, if you are working at a small company, you might find that the sales process hasn’t been streamlined yet, in which case you want to automate everything that can be automated.
At the very least, it makes sense to use customer relationship management (CRM) software to track what’s going on in your sales pipeline, set up automated appointment reminders, send automated follow-up emails, etc.
Of course, the extent to which you can implement this advice is going to depend on the degree of autonomy that you have in your sales role.
If you are a junior salesperson, then it’s probably best to just focus on doing your job well since your superiors are unlikely to be interested in unsolicited advice from a complete newbie. But even in that situation, you might be able to automate some things on your end that don’t affect anyone else on your team but help you be more productive!
Lead generation can be either completely or partially automated depending on the company’s business model.
You can do that by building a lead generation funnel:
Here’s what a lead magnet funnel looks like:
Then, once you have the potential customer’s email address, you can send them this automated welcome sequence over the course of six days:
Note that this welcome sequence can be used for both personal brands and company brands. In the latter case, instead of talking about yourself, talk about your company. Simple!
This is a much better approach to lead generation because instead of going to potential customers yourself, you get them to come to you, which sets up a completely different dynamic.
Moreover, while you need to sleep, eat, and have a life outside of work, your lead generation funnel doesn’t. It can generate leads 24/7/365. That allows you to scale lead generation way beyond what you could accomplish yourself as a single salesperson.
Again, your ability to implement this advice will depend on the degree of autonomy that you have in your sales role, but if building a lead generation funnel is at all possible, we highly recommend doing that. It will almost certainly help you generate more leads, book more appointments, and make more sales!
Let’s keep it real:
Building a lead generation funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.
That’s why we created our 5 Day Lead Challenge where Russell walks you through it step-by-step.
You will:
…and launch your funnel in just five days!
So don’t hesitate. Take action now. It can change your life!
Join Our 5 Day Lead Challenge Today!
P.S. This challenge is completely FREE!
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