"I don't care how many degrees you have, but if you don't know how to sell, you're probably going to starve." George Foreman

Having spent more than 25 years in sales in the food and services industry, you realize how many mistakes you have made that cost you a successful sale, a good collaboration. Great lesson your experiences always combined with trainings from specialists. I have singled out some of them and I’m sharing them with you.

Incomplete or no preparation

Getting started with the excitement of youth, the meeting is booked and you can’t wait to make it. But you don't prepare, you didn't sit down to look into some basic things about the company you will visit, nor for the executive you will meet. This makes it difficult for you, at the beginning of the conversation, to create a good atmosphere with your partner. You lose the advantage of referring to companies in the industry that you have a partnership with. Let's not forget that everyone likes to see that the path and achievements of their company are known.

Not asking questions

Our inexperience and fear prevent us from asking questions. Questions open for our partner to start talking about, questions that will help us identify his needs, his problems, the issues that concern him. We usually hear a statement from him and start presenting our product and its characteristics. We move on to the next one and then the next, giving him a lot of information that may not interest him and just make him feel tired. In a training I had participated, the teacher described this event as "shootings in the air and whatever it catches." How right he was... We ask and let our partner to speak, to hear his need in order to be able to offer him the solution with our products or services. Another characteristic quote in a training they presented to us was "the salesperson must have 2 big ears" and it showed the ears of a cute donkey.

We don’t attribute the true value of our product or service

Following the previous mistake, we display an inability to give value to the solution we propose to the potential client. Not knowing the importance of the problem that our partner has, we don’t present the real value and the benefits that will be gained by buying our solution. We very quickly receive the question "How much will it cost me?" and in the statement "It's expensive" we go into a negotiation of the price, with a disadvantage in fear of a lost sale. We judge whether a product or service is expensive or affordable depending on how important it is for us what it offers. I would suggest that we spend more time on the values of our service and the resulting benefits, rather than on its characteristics and price.

We don’t summarize and don’t plan our next communication

The time has gone by, you are already 45 minutes at the appointment, your partner looks at his watch and you feel that you must leave. The mistake we are making is to not summarize what we have agreed or have not agreed on. The summary is important, you must mention some statements made by you and the prospect client during the meeting. It should be the key phrases that will "commit" both of us to examine the issues that arose during the discussion. "We'll see it and let you know" is a phrase we all hear very often. How do we interpret it? What does it mean? It’s important that we arrange together our next communication. When we don't, we face the possibility of not reaching him on the phone, and when we do reach him, telling us "We haven't seen it yet," "I'll call you when we look at it internally," and many more. It’s useful to finalize when we’ll do the follow-up.

Salesperson = Good Consultant

Trust is the heart of the salesman. Customers want to have next to them a partner that they trust, to propose solutions according to their own advantages and not according to their goals. It’s very important that the salesperson builds trustful relationships. The customer to recognize him as an associate, to find out that he knows the products or services he provides well and to feel that he’s the person who will seek his opinion on other solutions. To know that he will stand by him in any issue that may arise, to feel that he’s doing everything he can to find a solution to the problem that arose in the collaboration and to be able to find him easily when he’s looking for him. In short, the credibility of the salesperson is one of the key features that every customer is looking for and at the same time keeps up the salesman’s name. If you have won the above, then it will be very easy to recommend you to more prospect clients.

I hope that the description of my experiences will help all colleagues in the sales industry, because it’s very useful to share your experiences. Up Hellas truly believes in internal communication between employees and that's why we created HR Squad, the unique internal communication platform that helps companies build happier and more united employees’ teams.

By Thodoris Siamos, Key Account Manager of our super team!