Are you aware that 90% business strategies fail because the execution of the strategy is poor?

Sales strategies have gained immense significance in the recent years because they help to take your business to the next level. New competition emerges in the blink of an eye.

This means you need to have flawless and unmatchable sales skills if you want to make your mark. Now, success in sales is based on doing a series of things right.

The real challenge is to figure out the skills you need to incorporate to turn your business into a lucrative venture.

To make things simple, I am here to share with you 4 simple exercises you can do to supercharge your sales skills.

Sales Skills Exercise 1: Develop your knowledge in your ideal clients

Do you know that about 42% startup businesses fail because the customers do not need what the start-up is selling?

In today’s world, selling is all about addressing your ideal client’s urgent pains!

The more you know about your prospects, the better you get at selling.

Start improving your sales skills by developing a better knowledge of your clients and know the exact pains and opportunities they face.

To identify your client needs you have to look beyond your actual business. It is vital to dig down your customer’s choices. Moreover, you also need to develop a sound understanding of your customer’s eco-system of the suppliers. This way you will be able to decipher your competitors and will be able to anticipate their moves with ease.

Tips from Melinda

Use LinkedIn or Twitter to build a watch list of your ideal clients.

Follow your ideal clients’ social media profiles and study what challenges or opportunities they are talking about.

Ask yourself, “how do I help them overcome their obstacles and capture opportunities?”

Here is some basic information you should know about your prospects.

– Who are your target prospects?

– What are their neck bleeding pains / urgent priorities?

– What languages do their use?

– Who are their competitors?

– What are the industry trends they are facing?

– How do you align your products features/benefits to their needs?

Sales Exercise 2: Preparation

Remember the quote “proper preparation prevents poor performance.”

Successful salespeople succeed by being prepared. Have you met someone who always knows what to say under different circumstances? There is nothing magical about this. It is simply called “preparation”.

Your sales team should always be prepared for the big client meetings. By preparation, it means that they should be able to anticipate the questions of the client. Your team should have a clear agenda on the table when they communicate with the client. It will also be a good idea to have all the brochures, contract papers, and materials ready before the meeting. This gives you client the impression that you mean business. Remember only a satisfied client will be a repeat client.

Tips from Melinda

Start writing down your sales process: lead generation, lead nurturing, meetings to closing the sales. Then, write down what you need to say to lead your prospects to the next stage of the sales. If you need some ideas, I would love to share my scripts to get more sales.

  • How to ask for a meeting without sounding pushy.
  • How to ask for a business introduction like a pro.
  • How to transition from friendship to business relationship.
  • How to ask for client’s pains during business meetings.

Click here if you want to download my word-for-word sales scripts to get more sales.

Sales Exercise 3: Start training your mind to stay motivated

If you want to be a sales winner, you need to learn how to stay motivated and positive. The first tip to staying motivated to recognize that hearing “no” is inevitable in sales. No is actually the stepping stones to your sales success.

You should try to embed one significant thought in your mind and that is motivation is something that you can control with ease regardless of what is happening in the market. Give yourself a daily challenge to keep your motivation levels sky high. Well, at times the internal critic within you might pull your energy levels down but there is a way to combat this issue.

Train your inner critic to be your inner sales coach. This way the persistent internal dialogue can take a positive turn.

Tips from Melinda

  • Learn to celebrate the “no” you hear.
  • Reward yourself whenever you hear a # of no. For example, tell yourself that if I hear 10 “no”s, I will treat myself a great meal. This will fundamentally shift your perceptions to no. After a few times, you will no longer fear hearing nos.

Sales Exercise 4: Stop thinking, start selling. 

Do you have a strong fear of selling? Do you have trouble breathing and stutter with words whenever you think of selling?

With 15 years of sales experience, nothing will help you overcome your fear of selling by simply doing it. So, encourage yourself to stop thinking and start selling. Start selling to small clients or strangers.

If you keep on pondering over your fears, then it will be a problem to take your next step and your confidence will shatter even before you have taken your first step.

Tips from Melinda

Join a few Facebook or LinkedIn groups where your target clients hang out. Identify a few active members who might be your ideal clients.

Reach out to them by saying:

“Hi John, I noticed your comments on a LinkedIn group. I have a few ideas that might help your business. Would you like to talk about it?”

After a few tries, you will notice that you will no longer feel nervous about approaching people to talk about your services.

You can do the same thing in local networking groups, such as meetup or Chamber of Commerce.

I am sure that by now you are quite eager to try out the give exercises. These 4 simple exercises give you a better knowledge of your clients, get prepared, stay motivated and put everything into actions.

Which one are you going to try first?

Let me know. I would love to hear your results.

Click here to download my word-for-word sales scripts to get more sales.