Want to know two things that never go together when it comes to salespeople?
Low confidence and high sales results.
Seriously, have you ever seen a sales rep who sulks in the corner all day, talks about how tough it is to make sales, lacks overall self-esteem but simultaneously still manages to be the top performer in the company?
Suffice to say that’s a rhetorical question. It simply doesn’t happen.
Methods and strategies are great, but are you focusing enough on your sales team’s confidence level?
Let me provide you with a few steps to establish some (perhaps much needed) confidence in your reps.
1. Ensure Preparedness
Preparedness is a key pillar of confidence, this applies to all areas of life.
Do your sales reps make their calls on a whim without any prior preparation or insights?
They need to be using call planning and think about the call before making the call. They should be prepared for any and all objections and should be able to anticipate any and all questions. They should be prepared both for the buyer wanting to move forward as well as the buyer wanting to put on the brakes.
When your sales team is prepared for as many possible scenarios as possible that can happen in a call, they’re more likely to succeed, be confident and avoid being caught off-guard like a deer in the headlights!
2. Internalize!
Anybody can read off a sales sheet.
This issue is, when someone reads from a script, it’s easy to tell, and it doesn’t exactly scream out confidence either.
If your sales team is in robot mode and simply reciting what’s in front of them, it’s easy to get frazzled, thrown off and ultimately, to lose the sale.
Your team should be able to show up and deliver their material without the aid of sheets, slides, and scripts.
They need to understand and internalize (not memorize) their presentations if they want to be able to deliver them with absolute confidence.
3. Know Your Questions
Let’s face it, sometimes, no matter how seasoned or prepared a sales rep is, a buyer can ask a question or make a statement that catches them completely off-guard.
The response to this shouldn’t be a series of stutters accompanied by a beet red face.
Ensure your sales team is equipped with “why” and “how” questions for subjective statements a buyer might make.
It’s okay not to understand or have an answer for every single statement a buyer makes, but questions allow a seller to dig deeper into a statement while still remaining composed and confident.
What’s one other way you instill confidence in your sales team?