5 tips for going from rookie to rockstar seller

20% of your sales effort will generate 80% of your sales leads and successful sales but the problem is that it might be hard to identify the profitable 20%. However, you can improve the odds of success for your overall sales and marketing program by making data-drive decisions to refine your sales process instead of leaving everything to chance.  In this article, I will provide five valuable tips that can help you improve your marketing game in order to increase the odds of successful sales.

1. Know your ideal buyer

The first (and probably most important) tip for becoming a successful salesperson or creating an effective sales program is to know your ideal buyer. If you don't know the ideal buyer of your product and services, you'll be wasting valuable time and resources creating and chasing the wrong leads and you won't sell anything – when you do sell, the buyers will most likely be dissatisfied in the understanding that they are not getting value for money.

To know your ideal buyer, you'll need to think from the perspective of the buyer to define your buyer persona. You should also explain your buyer persona to other members of the sales team and ensure that they don't waste time on people that don't fit the persona.

2. Preparation meets expectations

It is easy to be carried away by Hollywood glamorization of salesperson that can sell stuff at the drop of a hat and you'll often get the wrong impression that "winging it" with an off the cuff sales pitch can lead to success. However, to be successful when selling your products and services, you'll need to prepare before you place a call or set up a meeting with a prospective customer.

Your preparation should include knowing some things about the potential buyer in order to find common ground or at least find a reason they need your product/service. In your preparation, you should also create responses for possible questions and also have a contingency plan in case your sales pitch doesn’t go according to plan.

3. Know your product

You can sell what you don't know – some of the time, you'll get the door shut in your face most of the time. There's no point trying to develop a sales or marketing program if you don’t know EVERYTHING the potential buyer expects you to know about the product. Entrepreneurs need to understand the importance of investing time and resources in teaching the members of the sales team to know how the products work, the problems it can solve, its unique selling points, and to know why it is better than other products that competitors offer.

4. Believe in your product

You and members of your sales team won't be able to make a compelling case to make a sale if you don't believe in the product you are selling. If your product/service is not at least marginally better than rival offerings, you need to go back to product development instead of trying to create a sales and marketing program to help you sell your 'junk'. In addition, entrepreneurs need to understand the importance of teaching their sales team to have a first-hand experience of the product before letting them loose on potential buyers.

5. Master your emotions

The success of your sales effort and the efforts of your sales team depends on the ability of the people closing the deals to master their emotions. To start with, you need to be prepared for rejections and mentally embrace the "No" as an opportunity to refine your sales process.  You should also learn not to take a rejection of your product/service personally as a reflection of your self-worth. You also need to teach your sales team not to make unauthorized concessions such as discounts, freebies, or add-ons because they wanted to 'help' the buyer.