Being a good salesperson means being friendly, sincere and yourself. Make the pitch yours and try to actually help those you’re selling to.
I think Jerry Seinfeld had the right idea when a telemarketer wouldn’t leave him alone — so he turned the tables and made the telemarketer realize how his calls were completely inconveniencing Jerry. The problem that most people have with salespeople is that they feel a salesperson sees them as a bag of money.
Another problem is that, in my experience, many salespeople try to put on a front — I can tell that the “real them” is completely different than the person standing in front of me.
How to be an effective salesperson
One of CleanTelligent Software’s sales reps, Jordan Greene, gave some advice on how to avoid falling into the stereotypes I mentioned earlier. He said, “I’ve been in sales for awhile now, not only here at CleanTelligent, but other places as well, and if I could give my best piece of advice, it would be to be yourself!”
Make your sales pitch your own
Whatever the sales pitch is that you are giving or the techniques that you have been trained on for your specific market or product, you need to make it your own. If you only spit out a “proven sales pitch” without putting it into your own words and using your own feelings, it’s never going to work. Your voice will sound robotic and pushy like your only out to make a sale — which is what the salespeople we hate all sound like.
Be there to help them, not to make money off of them
While everyone knows that a salesperson is out to make a sale, if you speak as a friend to a friend with your own take on a pitch, people will feel the sincerity and originality in your voice and they will trust what you have to say to a much greater extent. If people feel like you are the messenger of a good deal or a better solution, looking for their benefit, they will like you, listen to you, and buy from you.
If they think you’re just in it to close another deal and you don’t really care about them, they won’t give you the time of day. You may get away with that every once in a while (a “laydown”), but don’t count on it.
Be yourself
If you can speak about your product as yourself with sincerity and an intent to help, then you have most of what it takes to be a good salesperson. The rest of it (things like being persistent without being annoying, using assumptive language for closing, etc.) can be learned and trained.
In conclusion, don’t be like the guy in the picture below: