With so much advice out there, how do you know who is right and who is wrong?

Writing blogs involves a fair amount of research with a non-bias, but informative viewpoint. However when I trawl through sales websites, You Tube videos and blogs I find that there is a mountainous variety, some of which are useful, some of which are obvious and repetitive. So how do you know who is right?

If I was looking to get advice on how to sell and improve my techniques, how would I know who is right and who is wrong? The answer is they are all right, let me explain why and give you some simple tips on how to decide what will work for you.

Most sales professionals that have been in the business will already have perfected their sales techniques and will be confident that their way works. This is why there are so many videos and gurus out there selling you their idea – Because it works for them!

There is no wrong or right way to sell, but there are good and bad sales professionals. What you need to do is to discover what works for you.

What works for you

Firstly it depends on the nature of your sales objective, are you in telesales, B2B sales, B2C or retail? These sectors may require different techniques, some may not work for your area of business or product.

Secondly, some methods may require you to act a certain way, of which you may not feel comfortable doing and lets face it if you don’t feel comfortable in the way you sell, it will come across to the buyer and will appear as though you don’t believe in your product.

Thirdly, the light bulb technique. Many sales gurus are so good at what they do, that they can actually convince you of buying into their idea. How they explain their techniques and how they come across will make you sit up and listen, like a light bulb moment. This doesn’t mean that you have taken the bait, it may just be that particular guru and technique seems right for you.

Inspiration

Recently I was asked to look into writing a company statement, during my research I came across Robert Cialdins, author of Pre-Suasion – A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade. Which talks about presuasion as opposed to persuasion. Cialdins’ describes the technique of how using subtle turns of phrase, seemingly insignificant visual cues, and apparently unimportant details of location can prime people to say ‘yes’ even before they are asked.

As I watched his videos it seemed to make sense to me, Cialdins explains the process of moving people/candidates into the direction of your product, channeling them towards your business before they even know about you. As a result I was able to come up with a statement that could entice potential clients towards the product, some of whom may have otherwise bypassed it.

Research and experience

The psychology and analysis put in to these techniques are formed from years of experience, knowledge, success and studies of human behaviour and are backed up by years of research. It doesn’t hurt to look at many different videos or read books, all these methods have their place in the profession and have made many sales men and women very successful.

What Julian Haste, MD of Research Runner says

Julian Haste, MD of Research Runner says “Its best to be open-minded to different methods and techniques but they may not work for you. Always worth trying something new but also need to know if it doesn’t work for you – need to know yourself. There is no one way of doing anything. The best sales people can adapt to all situations and people at any time and this is always down to experience. Seek to understand the person and not throw up over them (verbally) and try not to direct them to what you want but rather look at building trust, opening up the prospect, understanding their desires etc and seeing if you can help them. This way the best relationships and best clients are formed as you are being true to them and to yourself. Always be a student and always keep learning. There are different ways to drive a car.”

You need to find what works for you and build on it. You may find that you can pull ideas from different sources and bring them together to come up with your own technique. After all the sales industry is continuously evolving and changing in line with consumer behaviours, so it is always a good idea to keep your selling methods current and effective.

Get in touch

If you or your company would like to improve your sales techniques in order to boost your pipelines, please contact Research Runner a global sales and new business lead generation consultancy on +44 (0)1279 260 031 or visit us at www.research-runner.com.