Getting into a career in sales is one of the most challenging and rewarding professions. Successful salespeople are constantly refining their skills, developing great relationships, and setting ambitious goals. It takes a certain amount of drive and determination. These steps can help support your ability to succeed in sales, whether you are considering a career in sales or already a salesperson looking to grow in your career:

1. Establish Goals and Achieve Them

Setting sales goals can help you build a pipeline, increase your close rate and advance your career. By setting specific daily and weekly goals, you can reach professional milestones that allow you to make your company proud. For example, setting daily or weekly sales goals will help you move up the ranks of your organization by demonstrating the value of your knowledge in specific areas.

Make it a point to use the SMART technique for progressing toward your desired goal:

• Specific – what must be achieved and how will it be done?
• Measurable – its progress must be quantified and measured frequently.
• Achievable – is it realistic and attainable?
• Relevant – why is it important and relevant to your objective?
• Time-bound – it must have a start date and target completion date.

It could take perseverance and determination to achieve your goals. Building a sales pipeline that enables you to surpass your quota or boost your close rate may be difficult in the early stages of your sales career. But as you develop relationships across the industry and build your pipeline, you’ll find it easier to exceed goals.

 2. Take the Initiative and Be Proactive

Taking the initiative and being proactive entails going above and beyond what is expected of you. When it comes to pursuing leads and turning them into customers, a sense of initiative can help you deliver results. A salesperson must advance from one step to another to make a sale. Make sure your company has a set number of sales to make, but aim to exceed that target by taking the initiative to seek opportunities, gain new clients, and advance your skills to add value to your company.

You can increase your sales and gain new clients by taking the initiative to research your industry, consumer trends, and opportunities in your area. By doing this, you can help your company advance its skill sets and set a standard for internal quality. By seeking opportunities to make more sales, you’re showing that you can add value to your company – making it easier for the management team to hire you!

 3. Determine and Analyze Your Target Market

When you understand your customers, it not only saves time and money; it also gives you the ability to identify emerging trends, which can help drive sales. Whether your goal is to promote new products or increase revenue from existing ones, understanding your target audience is critical when designing a marketing strategy for your business.

With a solid understanding of your target market, you can create marketing campaigns and content that resonate with them. By deciding what their needs are, who they are, and what they want to do with their free time, you’ll be able to identify how to best reach them.

4. Know When to Walk Away

Do you spend too much time on deals that just aren’t that into you? Use your average transaction length as a benchmark to determine how long is too long to spend on one deal. Understanding the duration of your average sales cycle allows you to maximize your time. One of the most important aspects of being an effective salesperson is managing your time. While it’s important to be persistent with leads, it’s also valuable to measure the time you dedicate to each sales lead, so you can use your time wisely. Measuring how much time you spend on each sales lead can help you decide when to focus your efforts and prevent waste in your daily tasks and commitments. 

Knowing which parts of your job take the longest and considering possible ways to become more efficient will help you make more sales, devote more time to moving your career forward, and free up time for other parts of your business.

5. Establish Interpersonal Connections

To effectively build rapport with the customer, one needs to possess the skills and traits required. A professional who merely acts likable is likely to have a much harder time and potentially lose business opportunities. However, this does not mean that you do not strive to become someone’s best friend. One should be honest, relatable, and self-confident while building rapport in order to win over customers’ trust. Authenticity is also key to making friends. A fake facade is often detected quite easily and could ruin a budding relationship of trust. Sales professionals who have likable traits are likely to have greater success in gaining business from their customers. When working towards sales skills training, your traits will be ingrained much better than any other training that has happened before.

6. Be Sincere

Being sincere also shows confidence and trust in your product or service by demonstrating a genuine interest in your customer’s concerns. A successful salesperson can put customers at ease with their honest approach and help them find the product or service that meets their needs. Showing sincerity can also help you build a customer-focused relationship, increasing the chances of repeat purchases or referrals.

Building a relationship with your clients is essential to the success of any business. You can improve this by becoming an expert on the products and services that your company sells, even if they’re not your responsibility. By connecting the customer to other teams, you can increase the odds of a sale and build a relationship with other teams, who might refer customers to you later.

7. Prepare Ahead of Time

Preparation is essential to performing at the top of your game. While being an excellent salesperson is certainly important, it takes careful preparation and research. Being great at your job also means having the right preparation. And being prepared means being able to quickly answer any questions an unsure customer might ask and being able to confidently explain the benefits of what you’re selling. It’s helpful to have prepared notes on the different features of a potential product or service before you go on a sales call. If you work for a company that sells multiple product lines, you might create a one-page guide for each line of products.

Consumer research will help you find out about potential customers in your industry. Once you have identified your target segment, it is important to learn about their needs and concerns so you can tailor your sales presentation to meet their expectations and improve the likelihood of a successful sale.

8. Diversify your Skill Set

Diversity and Inclusion are not only moral imperatives but also smart business strategies. One of the simplest strategies to avoid this risk while simultaneously generating long-term professional equity is to find ways to acquire micro-expertise while doing your job. This kind of diversity will hasten your professional development while offering you more security to pursue new opportunities.

As a professional, it’s more important than ever to develop diverse skills so that you can be prepared for your next career move. And the best way to do this is by finding ways to make small contributions every day while still being effective at your job.

9. Find Ways to Innovate

In uncertain times, it’s easy to feel safer sticking to your playbook. But don’t shy away from taking risks. Pivoting can be difficult but it is often an opportunity for you to troubleshoot and innovate especially when your business is facing a tough challenge. Pivoting when things aren’t going well is the mark of an entrepreneur who places their customers first and works hard to deliver on their promises. Learn how you can pivot when business is difficult and stay resilient while still pursuing innovation and progress.

When times are tough, you need the guts to pivot and innovate. You need to be the salesperson who sees a challenge as an opportunity for personal growth, rather than a hindrance.

10. Utilize the Expertise of your Peers.

If you work as part of a sales team and are looking to progress in your career, reaching out to other members of the organization to connect with valuable resources is a great way to help increase your success. Asking higher-level representatives or hiring a customer support rep can be beneficial as they have connections and experience in selling teams across the country. Personal interactions between teammates also contribute to positive relationships that can allow you to work more closely together on improving processes with customers.

Taking time out of your schedule to learn from someone who’s more experienced than you can improve your sales skills. You can also ask your manager to set up a shadowing opportunity for you. While you’re shadowing, listen carefully to identify closing techniques and phrases that work well for your teammate. Then, try adding these techniques to your sales strategy.

11. Welcome Feedback

Feedback is a valuable tool for improving your sales skills. Even if another department has your product or offers a similar service, that doesn’t mean they know how to sell it as well as you do. Building an effective relationship with the people who will help you close more deals faster starts by asking questions and listening carefully to the answers. It might help you improve your buyer persona, uncover new leads, or increase sales revenue.

One of the best ways to receive guidance and feedback on your sales technique is to find a mentor in your field. Candidates for a sales mentor might include a sales manager, supervisor or experienced team member who exceeds their sales quota regularly. Because your mentor may be able to offer career guidance, it’s important that you keep that person informed about your goals and current performance. This communication can be done through annual reviews or regular phone calls with feedback calls on a regular basis. Your mentor might listen to your calls, role play sales scenarios with you or give you advice on training programs or certifications that might help you achieve your goals.