How to Be a Better Salesperson in 7 Steps

Be sure to register for my free training on, "Why Prospects Push Back on Price, Give 'Think-It-Overs,' and Ghost in Sales Until They Meet a Sales Superstar Who Is Following These 7 Simple Keys" https://salesinsightslab.com/training/

1. They can’t hurt you.

This mindset is crucial if you want to learn how to be a better salesperson. You must always remember that prospects can’t actually physically harm you.

Especially in today’s selling world, where most sales are virtual anyway, prospects truly can’t hurt you. If you're making a prospecting call and the prospect gets mad, that's okay. If you're on a Zoom and the prospect gets annoyed, that’s fine.

The worst that can happen is the conversation doesn't go well.

Take the pressure off of yourself. Get rid of your nerves. If you’re selling while nervous, you’re in big trouble. Once you realize they can’t hurt you, you free yourself up to dramatically improve and become a far better salesperson.

2. Take them off the pedestal.

Many salespeople put their prospects on a pedestal. They look up at prospects like they’re magical beings. But guess what? Your prospects—even your high-level prospects—are just people.

They have good days. They have bad days. They might have certain qualities that seem impressive, but I guarantee you they also have weird, pathetic, gross qualities, too—because they're only human. And humans are just humans.

So take them off that pedestal and see them as peers, as opposed to special people who are somehow above you. This is a really important distinction if you want to learn how to be a better salesperson. If you think that your prospect is inherently superior to you, you’re going to be selling from a place of massive weakness.

3. It’s 100% about them.

Salespeople often have the inclination to talk about their company or themselves. But the reality is that your prospects don’t care about any of that. All they care about is themselves.

The more you gear the sales conversation toward the prospect, their organization, and their challenges, the more likely they are to see value in the conversation.

Make the conversation 100% about them.

4. Get them talking ASAP.

Salespeople tend to go on and on and on...giving a lengthy sales pitch at the start of the sales conversation. They try to persuade the prospect to buy their offering right out the gate. But your prospects don’t want to be pitched, and they definitely don't want to sit and listen to your pitch for 15, 20, 30 minutes. What they want to do is talk.

Believe it or not, prospects actually want to share what's going on in their world. They want to share what's most important to them. So the more you can get them talking, early on, the better off you’re going to be.

5. Arm yourself with research.

The more insight you have into your prospect’s world, the better off you are. If your opening sales conversation is turnkey and cookie-cutter, prospects may go with it from time to time, but ultimately it's not as powerful. Instead, start your conversations by demonstrating that you understand specific things about them and their organization.

Even in a business-to-consumer selling situation, understanding prospects and what might be going on in their lives is immensely powerful. Arm yourself with research—don't use research as a crutch, but try to understand as much as you possibly can about prospects and their organization before you reach out to them.

6. Dig deeply into what they most care about.

This might sound obvious, but I find that it’s the single biggest distinction between average reps and top-performing reps.

Average reps ask some questions and they find out what's going on to a degree, but they don't go as deeply as they could.

However, top-performing reps dig deeply to get prospects to slowly unpack their challenges, and that's where the real value is.

To become a better salesperson, you must consistently dig deeply into what prospects most care about. Be willing to stick to one topic for a while and ask questions like, "Well, why do you say that?" Or, "Help me understand that." Or, "Why do you think that is?"

7. Next steps over closing.

There's so much pressure in sales to go for the close. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard a sales manager, a VP of sales, or the president of a company say, "You’ve got to go for the close. You've got to be closing more. My people aren’t closing enough." But the problem isn't closing—it's actually about next steps.

There are certainly some specific situations where there might be a “one-call close” scenario, but for the most part, selling situations are a multi-step process. Whatever your sales process is, don't worry about the close so much as having established clear next steps every single time you end a conversation with a prospect.