This 2019 Overcome 4 Unseen Hurdles in your Sales Career Path

The curtains are closing on 2018, but with 2019 just around the corner, professionals and graduates have a brand-new platform to showcase their talents. A new year is a new dawn, and there's no better time for knowledge seekers to start afresh and take up interesting professional challenges.

Speaking about challenges, irrespective of whether one is a veteran or a rookie, a sales career will challenge you to test your skills and determination throughout your career. For a beginner, the challenges may come as building business connections, understanding the market and the competition or mastering different selling techniques etc. For a veteran, it could be adjusting to the shifting market trends, securing his or her market share and learning new technologies like new CRM software etc. 

While some challenges can be specific to the product/service that you are selling, we have seen that almost every sales professional at some point of his/her career has faced varied challenges. 

The important question now is “can sales professionals keep themselves prepared beforehand to face diverse challenges?” We’d say the answer is a definite Yes!

With assertiveness and a strategic approach every sales professional can overcome the unseen hurdles in their career path. 

Let’s begin by looking at the four unseen hurdles in a sales career path - 

1) Lack of skills related to finding best leads

Many sales professionals complain about not having enough leads at the beginning of their career. Though they can find leads but often they miss quality leads that can be converted into a sale. The problem may lie in their approach and how they choose their target customers. 

It is important to first understand your prospect customers. Expert salesmen profile their customers on different parameters like income, price sensitivity, risk appetite and buying behaviour etc. Having in depth knowledge about your prospect customer helps you begin your lead generation with the right knowledge of what they really need. 

2) Dealing with customer objections

Sales students gain theoretical knowledge at college level which focuses on subject specific knowledge. However, soft skills and good communication are mostly required than having bookish knowledge.

Evidently, bad interpersonal skills become a hurdle for many sales professionals during the beginning of their career. They are not able to engage their customers well or deal with their objections to pursue them to a point of purchase.

Many sales related classroom training program teach students the art of persuasion. A salesperson can master soft skills by including these key elements in his sales pitch. 

1) Solving customer’s problem – not selling a product
2) Rehearsing sales pitch and preparing for arguments
3) Keeping it short and sweet 
4) Treating customer objections as an opportunity, not a challenge
5) Being persistent
6) Taking names and quoting examples 

3) Lack of product knowledge 

“Sales is selling a refrigerator to an Eskimo.” The validity of this expression holds true only if the salesman knows the product inside out. Often sales professionals stumble upon inadequate product knowledge and cannot create the true value of the product they are selling. 

If this is the case, it’s helpful to take a step back and gather full information about the product. Expert salesmen also gather the prevailing public sentiment and opinion about the product you want to sell.

Invest your time into phrasing the product’s features as essential and timely value to customer’s life. One can also demonstrate the product functions and the benefits it can provide.

4) Winning the client’s long-term trust 

Often sales professionals are not able to grow in their career or perform better because they lack a strong relationship with their clients. The prime reason for this is not following up. 

Expert salesmen try to create long term relationships with their clients. This way, they can tap into a sales opportunity every time it is created by that client. Word of mouth, referral and personal recommendations also help them build new client base.  

Gradually, for winning a client’s trust and loyalty, the salesman must devote time by following up, solving client’s problems and displaying good work ethics.

Finishing strong 

By crossing these four hurdles in your sales career, you need to make a new beginning and put your career on the fast track. 

Today, sales jobs are evolving in a fast-changing industry landscape. Freshers must have excellent soft skills as well as good knowledge of the industry/product they are working with. Companies prefer candidates who have such skills and are job ready from day one. 

Manipal School of Jobs offers professional boot camp trainings that are industry specific and offer intensive training by experienced industry experts and faculty. These hands-on training sessions include concept training with case studies, real-life examples and role plays to make students industry ready.