What works?
According to Sales Gravy, there are many activities that in the long run will advance your career, sales skills and communication skills. Focus on the following:
- Reading. Reading professional literature, either about your field or about selling and business in general, will definitely help you move forward. In fact, any kind of reading helps you develop. Ideally read every day and you will be happier, calmer and more knowledgeable.
- Improving your expertise. Increase your expertise by taking an interest in new trends and novelties in your field. Be interested in your competition or in associations that connect companies similar to yours. Overall, try to be an active part of the community around your product or field.
- Role plays. Play games and act out scenes with colleagues, through which you will experience real-life situations. Someone might, for example, play a problematic customer and someone else will try to talk to them. Exercises like this will help you and if they also become regular practice for your whole team, so much the better.
What does not work?
Some practices, sadly very common among business people, do not work. Here are some things you should avoid at all costs:
- Unsuccessful salespeople often complain about a lack of leads, the state of the economy, the product they are selling, or management. The truth is, however, that the best salespeople can use any situation to their advantage and profit from it.
- Giving up seeking new methods. Every field and every business sector is constantly changing. The same applies to technologies and expectations of customers. This is why business people must keep trying new things and not just stick to methods that used to work in the past.
- Shutting oneself off from the world. A good business person must have good contacts and relations. That means with both colleagues and other people in the given field. Anyone who is unwilling to listen and not open to new ideas or what others think can never be successful in business.
-mm-