Category Archives: Sales & Marketing

How to Handle your First Sales Job

The first question you will need to ask yourself is, Why do you want a career in Sales? Is it because you have heard how sales people earn a lot on their commission or you are more comfortable in client/customer facing role rather than sitting on a desk job. It may also be that you are fed up with your own job, and you’re considering sales as one of a number of possible career options.

Good News! You don’t need the experience to kick off a career in sales, it’s a profession that welcomes all types of level of work experience. You must be willing to handle the pressure on the job, have that passion & commitment for the role.

First of all you will need to find a mentor whom you can shadow and learn from. Once you find your mentor, ask them about what they have learned over the years. What are the best tactics to get hold of your prospects/customers. How to handle the pressure and though clients.

Before you reach out to any prospects/customers the first thing is you will need to convince yourself that the product/services you are selling will solve not only customer’s problem but also yours. If you don’t believe in your product/services, you won’t be able to passionately sell it to.

The beginning of sales career can end up with lot of frustration with the amount of rejections to handle, not able to find new customer and many other reason. This should not stop you in pursuing your sales career.

You have to be really passionate about your job, need to keep that patience. Remember even salespeople who have been in the business for a decade get rejected once in a while, so don’t let this stop you.

Pick Up the Phone and Start Dialing

If you ask any sales people what is that one hard obstacle you face while prospecting, most of the them will say picking up the phone and start cold calling. As in my experience as well beginning of my career picking up the phone and dialing was a fear thing for me. I always had that fear what would the person on the other end screams, humiliate or reject my offer if I talk over the phone.

It took me sometime to realize that most of the problem can be resolved with one simple behavior. Pick up the phone and stat dialing.

Email is a good form of communication however it doesn’t guarantee every time that your prospect will reply to email or talk about all their problem on long thread chain of email. When you speak some one directly you get to understand their needs, you can work together to solve their problems.

Use you email to reinforce what you had talk over the phone, and keep the process moving forward.

Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter are also great tool to stay connected with your prospects,customer,potential buyers. However make use of these platform to spread awareness, sharing news letter, latest updates. The real problem connections begin when you speak over the phone, face-to-face or even a video chat.

Make calling a habit:

  •  If your prospect is not responding to your email, pick up the phone and start dialing.
  • If you want to reach out to new potential buyers, pick up the phone and start dialing.

Sales people should always be motivated to cold calls, they should not mind being call an idiot, criticism for fed up prospects. At the end of the day “People will buy from People” not from some bots, Artificial Intelligence or speaking machine.

Start Calling.

How Well Do you Work Under Pressure

Everyone has to deal with pressure at some point of time in their life whether it is on the personal or professional lives. We tend to panic in this situations and likely make a wrong move or decision. This pressure often manifest itself in the form of tight deadlines, demands from your boss, and other obstacle that get in the way of you doing your job.

The question is how well do you work under pressure avoiding stress, how to channel and deal with it in a healthy, productive way.

For me, the first thing is to divide all your task in manageable pieces and then accomplish the pieces. When you start accomplishing these manageable pieces, you can more readily meet goals and feel a sense of accomplishment. Seeing yourself completing the task also builds confidence in yourself.

Ask yourself what needs to be done now, roll up your sleeves and focus on the most important task. Work harder and grind through it, use pressure as an opportunity to grow. The more you find yourself being pushed to the wall, the better you become at pushing back. It’s a natural human tendency! The more you push back, the more your energy expands.

Pressure usually comes because you procrastinate and failed to prioritize and act. Procrastination is simply a habit and it can be broken, ask yourself what you are resisting. Then see if you can give up your resistance and simply act. Interrupting the procrastination habit frequently will lead to a new and more empowering habit of execution.