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Sales isn’t a field that’s easily approachable; that much is for sure. From the perspective of the customers, most salespeople are pestering them so they can make a profit off of others’ naivety. How many of us slammed the phone the instant we were greeted from the other end of the line by a person who was claiming that they had some offer for us? Out of all forms of customer service, sales might just be the trickiest of them and one of those fields where you should expect the customers to hate you.
More than that, there is no way to achieve perfection. While in other areas, you might be able, through some wizardly forces, consistently perform well at work without faltering too much, part of being a salesperson implies that you need to accept failure. In a sense, the art of selling is nothing but the art of beating the odds of rejection. Not even someone with decades of experience donning their shoulders can seal a deal with every single possible customer they encounter.
In other words, failure is imminent. To ensure that you give your absolute best when trying to persuade a future customer, recruiter or investor, and that you’ll be able to quickly recover from rejection, you need just one main thing, namely perseverance, and a few outstanding sales and marketing tools.
Why You Can’t be a “Born” Salesperson
You can’t be talented in selling per se, but you can possess talents for things that contribute to the skill of sales. There are quite a few traits you need to possess if you want to genuinely excel on this path, some of which include communication and team player skills, openness, persuasion skills, and likeability. Sales represent a psychological form of art.
You can convince a person to join your side, or you can give a person something they want by aligning their goal with yours. Shortly put, being talented at sales only means possessing this necessary set of skills that can get you through everything. The tactical approaches are all learned in time, which ties us back in with the topic of the article – why perseverance is all that you need even if you’re “talentless.”
The Proven Benefits
Social studies have shown that perseverance has been the main reason for success of sales throughout history. But as easy as it may sound, it’s a blade with two sharp edges that you don’t want to mess with. Persisting in your attempts to sway a customer or even a hiring manager in your direction may end up in positive results, assuming you have a prepared plan beforehand.
Furthermore, if you were to look at it from the eyes of a job seeker, you would see that it’s a game of percentage and the more effort you put into it, the greater your chances will be. It doesn’t sum up to just knowing what does a marketing manager do, for example. Getting ahead in any job is challenging in today’s market, so commitment and perseverance will need to be at the top of your sales professional’s list.
Perseverance in Cold Calling
Most sales these days take place via phone conversations, which makes perfect sense given the advantages. You can ring up a large number of people in a short period. Likewise, the downside is the fact that it’s always more difficult to persuade someone without making eye contact. Let’s not mention that a ringing phone usually interrupts something. When you interrupt something, you get a cranky customer.
However, perseverance can make a huge difference between you and someone with a huge speech prepared in their head. Statistically, it takes roughly seven calls for salespeople until the desired person even picks up. Your key advantage can be the fact that you’re that sixth call, the one call that will be answered and negotiated over. It means nothing if you have a tongue wrapped in silk and all kinds of sales strategies if you never get to talk to the person.
But when they do pick up, you should make sure that you haven’t invested all your energy in making the call because nothing is worse than messing up right at the end. Don’t lose their interest after you’ve tried so hard to reach them.
Perseverance in Sales Cycle Management
Let’s refer for a moment to something called “frame thinking.” In sales, you may be standing in front of a potential customer, offering them to buy meat. But to your surprise, they’re vegan! What are you going to do next? You definitely shouldn’t try to turn them into meat lovers, but, rather, you should try to find ways to explain why they should buy it regardless. Alternatively, switch up your plan and offer something else.
The ability to cycle through alternatives, possibilities, and solutions is a very delicate one and it perfectly reflects the frame thinking process. If you insist on trying to convince the wrong customer to buy something, that will result in the form of negative perseverance. You need to figure out if you’re talking about the right thing to the right customer. And to do that, you need perseverance.
Until the day we’ll possess mind-reading abilities, all we can do is insist on discovering the person we’re talking to and on uncovering their goals. Keep switching up tools, offers and plans, keep them engaged, keep working collaboratively and strategically, and be pleased when we eventually hit the nail on the head.
In conclusion, you don’t need talent for the art of thinking; you need perseverance and perseverance comes with the right motivation, the right tools and the right time.
Don’t miss that call. Good luck!
