17 Best Sales Tips And Techniques For Success

Sales Tips– A lot of people do not realize the importance of art called “sales”.

Yes, it is important and yes, it is an ART. The beauty of sales lies in its very basic concept of “to deliver a product or service to people who need it”.

Before we had the concept of money, we had a barter system. In a barter system, people would pay for the thing they required by trading off things they had access to. In some way, our ancestors were concluding two sales in a single transaction or you could say that the barter system was a primitive B2B sales concept.

Top Sales Tips

Tip 1 – Do Not Miss-Sell In Sales

This is a very common mistake that inexperienced salespeople make.
While they are trying to convert a prospect, they tend to convey a quality that the product or service does not possess.

This gimmick hardly works in the internet age. Brands face a lot of heat, online as well as offline, from dissatisfied customers. Thus, the basic sales tip is to show the reality of the product rather than developing its foundation on pile of lies.

Tip 2 – Research

Before you sit down with the prospect, you need to know how your product/service will impact his or her everyday life.

Your research will make it easier to tackle difficult prospects and their questions, ultimately increasing conversion rates by this sales tip.

Knowing all the intricacies of the product and the market is the hidden sales trick to exponentially increase your business. The extra knowledge that you gain might help you while pitching your product/service.

For example, if you are selling a security solution to a business, remote access to CCTV footage in and around their office could be a USP that makes all the difference for them.

Tip 3 – Changeups

Changeups can be effective when used properly, especially during lengthy PowerPoint presentations.

Changing pitch, asking questions, engaging activity, or some humor (when appropriate) will keep prospects attentive and interested in your pitch. Don’t make your presentation monotonic. This sales trick will always work and can impress your client too! It brings a feeling of belief and trust in the client.

My Biology teacher used Changeups very effectively. She would always speak at a reduced volume while talking about important things and surprisingly it always worked.

If you notice I slipped in a personal story above as a changeup :p.

Changeups can be subtle but are one of the most effective sales tips you will ever encounter.

Tip 4 – Over-Deliver In Your Sales

Go the extra mile, this proverb is nothing less than a magic spell taken out of a Harry Potter movie and you can even use this as a sales tips

Providing the prospect with some value proposition over and above the terms of the contract will earn you a customer that is faithful to your brand. A happy customer will not only come back later with the additional business but also promote your brand. This sales trick instils a feeling of uniqueness in the customer.

Faithful customers have made Apple Inc, Microsoft Inc and Amazon.com some of most recognizable brands over the years.

Apple takes user privacy seriously. Microsoft windows continuously bring in additional features, bug fixes to enhance the customer experience.

Tip 5 – Understand Your Sales Product

Gong analyzed 519,000 recorded discovery calls and the outcomes showed that asking questions about your customers’ pain points and goals are more likely to lead to sale success.

A good salesman should know about their product than anyone else.

Salespeople should have immense belief in their product and its usefulness. Whenever possible, use your product in daily life.

Possessing knowledge about the product will give you an edge over the competition while aiding you in getting more conversions.

Prospective customers can ask difficult questions, but you will always be prepared to answer them satisfactorily.

Also, these sales tips prevent that awkward moment when a prospect knows a tiny piece of information which you did not know beforehand. This sales tip forms the basis of foundation of marketing. Having full details of the working of your product/service and market, profits/loss, everything should at be on your tips.

Tip 6 – Know Your Competitors Selling Product

Imagine the number of persons trying to convince the same decision-makers to buy what they are selling.

It is completely possible that the person you are meeting had just met your competitor. Moreover, the possibility of him meeting another person as soon as you leave is quite high.

How would deal with such a situation?

Firstly, try to read as much as you can about your competitors.

Now make a list of positive and negative differentiators.

Positive differentiators are the advantages you have over them whereas negative differentiators will feature your product lacks.

Armed with this knowledge you can push. Never underestimate your competitor is one of the oldest sales-tip. Always strive to give a unique touch to your product/service in order to lure your customers.

Tip 7 – Don’t Rush the Sales Pitch

Sales teams are always under tremendous pressure to complete their targets.

We all want to squeeze a greater number of buyers in the shortest possible time, this results in a rushed up sales pitch.

This leads to a prospect trying to make random excuses or assuming that they are being sold a product they do not want to use.

Prospects are put off by this aggressive behaviour and will have a negative association with the product and your brand.

We have all heard the proverb: Slow and steady wins the race. This is one of the B2B sales tips that a lot of people need to learn. Make your customer comfortable with your pitch and then see the sales boost up! No one will inform you about this sales trick because it comes from experience.

Tip 8 – Making a Difference 

Your product should have to make a significant difference in your prospect’s organisation.

People will not even notice what your product/service has to offer unless they are made aware of tangible benefits.

In fact, research by Hub Spot also states that buyers want to know about how the product works in their first sales meeting.

Jill Konrath proves this with an example stating that if she approaches a VP of Sales mentioning that she sells sales training, she would immediately get thumbs down.

But if she changed her focus to the tangible benefits that they’d procure from her sales training, opportunities just lined up for her since they were interested in “shortening their sales cycle, reducing the ramp-up time for new hire sales reps and driving revenue growth.

Thus, the process of showing the extra benefits coming along with the product/service always catches the attention of the customer. This sales trick must be used properly as it doesn’t mean to give away freebies every time.

Tip 9 – Practice Empathy

sales tip

Before you meet a prospect, put yourself in their shoes.

Try to emulate their thinking process. When you put yourself in their shoes and think like them, you would be in a position to argue with yourself. This will drastically improve your arguments and make your pitch even more convincing.

Empathising with prospects will ensure that you have a dynamic approach to sales as opposed to having a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Try to answer all the genuine questions that can come to your mind as a customer. This sales trick will boost your confidence while handling with the customers.

Tip 10 – Use Social Proof As a Sales Tip

By using this sales tip, you make your customers as product promoters.

Conversion of a prospect into a customer is a significant event, it not only means that you had a product that works for the customer but also symbolizes the success of your sales strategy.

Utilizing social proof as your strategy ensures that your efforts are multiplied by the number of customers. This will lead to more sales which will start a positive cycle growth for your company. Social Media marketing is the biggest sales tool nowadays.

Showcase and advertise your product continuously on various social media platforms. This sales tip will increase more customers from in and around the world.

Neal Taparia, who runs free gaming platform Solitaired, recommends getting news coverage to drive social proof. “When we were mentioned in well-known publications like Business Insider through our PR efforts, we used this in our outreach to build custom solitaire games for website publishers. This materially increased the number of conversations and opportunities for us.”

Tip 11 – Use a Story

David Ogilvy said “the worst fault a salesman can commit is to be a bore.’

We all find stories to be interesting. In India there is a collection of stories called “Panchatantra ki kahaniya” these were stories based on anthropomorphic animals that try to impart moral values to the reader and also make them aware of human virtues and vices.

An interesting story will have a good recall value for the prospect, they will remember you and your product for a long time after the meeting. If nothing more, this story will earn you another meeting with them or even their superior.

And at this meeting, you might finally close the deal. This sales trick of reciting a story will work only If you present the things as if they are. Don’t exaggerate too much. The story must be related to your product or end up convincing the customers. The story should create a need for your product.

Tip 12 – Start Sales With a Bang

A particular study wanted to figure out a technique that increases the room service tips for waiters in hotels.

They figured out that all the waiter had to do was to start with a positive comment. When guests were attended to, all the waiters had to do was say “good morning” followed by a positive forecast for the day which resulted in a 27% increase in their tips.

The same concept of this sale tips can be implemented in sales calls. Try to avoid starting your sales calls by talking about bad weather, traffic or your busy day.

Always begin with a positive comment or even a compliment. Think great weather, fun, favourite sports team winning, rainbows and marshmallows! Think positive, be positive.

Kick-off your sales calls on the right foot and maintain that positivity.

Tip 13 – Zero In on an Outreach

Choosing the right medium to contact your clients plays on closing deals.

Try to find a mutual contact who could introduce you to your prospect. This mutual contact could be a friend, a former colleague, or a distant LinkedIn contact. After getting acquainted you can set

Tip 14 – Follow Up with Offer

People who have bought from you once are more likely to do business with you again. In addition, people are more receptive to offers immediately after purchase.

Offering another product or service relating to the immediate purchase turns out to be the correct way to up-sell or cross-sell your products or services and then it is the best to refer a friend program.

Acceptance of such an offer by the customer produces an easy sale for you.

A great example of this follow-up technique would be the McDonalds’ hitting you with the “do you want fries with that?” during purchase.

This is a simple yet effective technique for upping revenue. You can apply this tip to your business by thinking of ways to relate your products and services to each other.

A study by Harvard Business Review shows that a 5% increase in customer retention rates can lead up to 25% to 95% profit.

Tip 15 – Stress on Key Benefits

The 80/20 rule holds from the customer’s standpoint as well.

It is said that 80% of the buying decision is made based on 20% of the product information. This means that the key benefits are your key selling points.

Every brand, generally, has a key feature(s) that appeals the most to the prospect. This requires you to do some homework about the prospect and also stay attentive.

If the prospect seems to be interested in a particular benefit during your pitch, make sure to keep touching on that point. Remember that you are selling to the prospect so sell to the prospect!

These sales tips have proved to be a top closing technique in maximizing the odds of making a sale.

Tip 16 – Offer fewer choices

Many businesses disregard this concept and look at this to be impractical. Yes, having more things on offer is a great way to increase sales but not necessarily as in many cases, offering variety has lead to indecision on the customer’s part which has led to lost sales.

If you do have a heavy offering, structuring it in a way that offers fewer choices is suggested. This reduces the loss in sales and helps the customer decide better. This structuring can be done by having your products come under narrow categories or providing greater emphasis on fewer products.

They take away from this sales tip is that the more choices you offer, the more likely a customer is to bounce and go elsewhere. Don’t make your customer confused by offering so much, is the basic sales trick. Just focus on selling on single product/service and then pitch further for others.

Tip 17 – Focus on Targeted sales

Sales Prospecting has become an essential part of the sales cycle. This does take up a lot of resources and often times many businesses end up burning up their resources in this process. Salespeople often cast a wide net while prospecting with the intention of catching anything that comes their way.

Marc Wayshak recently published their sales study which stated that at least 50% of your prospects are not a good fit for what you sell.

Instead of cold calling a hundred companies trying to get the right business, running a targeted lead generation campaign will help save time and effort. You need to understand your ideal customer which can be done by studying your existing customers.

A simplified way to tackle this would be using advanced lead generation tools that help you generate qualified leads that best suit your target audience.

You can also opt for lead generation services that can offer you a list of qualified prospects generated within 48hours as per your requirements. Thus, a modern sales tip would be to use lead generation tools to optimize your marketing.

Conclusion:

To frame an effective sales tips strategy, you need to understand your business and audience first. And through great storytelling and social proof, you can make your customer remember your product/services.

So, which of the above tips and techniques you like the most or have helped you achieve a customer. Let me know your views in the comment section below.