Sales is a vast field, with a lot to learn. This article will give you a solid overview, and link to more in-depth resources to complete your understanding.
What is sales?
Sales, or selling, is the facilitated exchange of value for money between two parties. It’s a popular function within companies, and it’s an important part of a company’s market strategies, culture, and bottom line. The essence of sales is to assist in achieving sales targets.
The different types of selling are inside sales, outside sales, inbound sales, and outbound sales. They all serve a purpose in
What are the types of sales?
There are different types of sales depending on the product or service a company offers. The types are outside sales, inside sales, outbound sales, inbound sales, high ticket sales, low ticket sales, business to business (B2B), and business to consumer (B2C). Outside sales are where a sales rep physically visits a prospect to try to sell it in person.
Inside sales are done strictly using digital tools, like phone calls, video conferencing, and email. Outbound sales is any activities that salespeople take to directly get in contact with cold leads and attempt to sell to them. Inbound sales is when a lead engages with and willingly leaves contact information to the company, and a salesperson reaches out to them. High ticket sales are products or services priced expensively, where low ticket sales are products or services priced inexpensively. Business to business (B2B) sales are exchanges of value for money between two businesses. Alternatively, business to consumer (B2C) sales are exchanges of value for money between a business and end consumer.
What are the roles in sales?
The roles in sales are Sales Development Rep (SDR), Account Executive (AE), Account Manager (AM), Vice President (VP), Field Sales Representative (FSR), Sales Manager (SM), Senior Sales Manager (SSM), Director of Sales (DM), Territory Manager (TM). Each sales role serves a different function, and is important for differently sized businesses.
What is the benefit of sales?
The benefit of sales is that it helps individuals and companies predictably increase revenue, as well as optimize for profit margins over time. Sales is such a powerful tool because it helps provide both qualitative and quantitative data for a company to improve its sales, marketing, operations, and products.
An example of the quantitative data gained would be the volume of certain sales actions and the effectiveness of those actions. Specifically, if a sales rep asks 400 people for a sale and 40 say yes, it would mean that the conversation to close rate is 10%. You can use that rate to predict how much revenue will come from a certain number of conversations.
An example of qualitative data would be the common objections or product feedback that leads provide. This can help with marketing language, as well as insight to your product or fulfillment team to make certain improvements.
What is sales principle?
Sales principle is a guiding framework that individuals and sales teams follow. The core is understanding what the customer wants and offering the best product that the customer needs. Typically, people are guided by more than one principle and they are interwoven with performance and ethics. The benefit of sales principle is maintaining consistency over time and fighting off temptation as an individual or team. This can also lower the risk of fraudulent or bad faith transactions.
Examples of sales principles are the following:
- Believe in what you sell
- Focus on the prospect
- Go above and beyond do deliver value
- Keep a growth mindset – improve yourself
- Be curious and don’t take statements at face value
- Don’t take objections or rejection personally
What are the factors of sales?
Factors of sales are what affect the sale of a single unit of a product or service. These factors include price, perceived value, promotion, distribution, and the skills of your sales team.
What are the sales methodologies?
Sales methodology is the guiding framework and principles for sales teams as they go through their sales process and scale their team. There are several sales methodologies, which are better suited for different organizations.
Here are the common sales methodologies:
- Pod sales
- Agile sales
- SPIN Selling
- Challenger Sales
- Consultative Selling
- MEDDIC
- NEAT selling
- Solution Selling
- Conceptual Selling
- SNAP Selling
- Value Selling
What is sales mindset?
Sales mindset is a way of thinking and approach to work that focuses on achieving sales goals and building relationships with potential customers. It involves understanding the needs and wants of customers, identifying potential opportunities for sales, and using effective communication and negotiation skills to close deals. People with a sales mindset are typically proactive, grittyt, focused, confident, and adaptable. They are also able to build strong relationships with customers, understand their needs and preferences, and tailor their sales pitch and approach to each individual customer. A sales mindset is essential for success in sales roles, and it can also be helpful in other careers that involve persuading and influencing others.
What is the history of sales?
The history of sales is something that dates back to when humans were just learning to exchange value. Such behaviour (trading and bartering) has even been recorded in primates, indicating that it’s a wired function of our ancestry. While trade and exchange of stored value (currency) has been around since as early as 5000 yeards ago.
The more popular form of sales that we see today emerged around 1750 with the rise of industrialization and trade. It developed more through the 1920s with Dale Carnegie and E.K. Strong, and SPIN selling emerged as the first popular sales system in the late 1980s. From 2015 onward, sales software and automation has been increasingly prevalent.
What is sales operations?
Sales operations is the process, framework, and activities of supporting, enabling, and driving sales teams to operational excellence. It includes the identification of customer needs and how meeting those needs within a business’s process and flow will provide future revenues. It also supports the delivery of the final customer value before, during, and after the sale cycle. Sales Operation integrates with several other functions such as production, marketing, and information systems.
What is sales process?
Sales process is a clearly defined set of actions for a salesperson to take through a sales cycle. Having a sales process is important because it gives sales people reliable steps for making a sale. This is especially important when scaling a sales team because the steps are repeatable for each new hire.
The factors of a sales process depends on the market, and necessary steps to close a new sale. For example, high-ticket (expensive) sales typically take longer and require more steps to build trust and perceived value. With low-ticket (inexpensive) sales, the process is typically going to be shorter.
What is sales strategy?
Sales strategy is a plan of action for the sales team to achieve an objective. In most cases that will be a certain volume of units sold for a company. The strategy also encompasses all tactics, scripts, team management, and collaboration with other teams within the business.
What is sales funnel?
A sales funnel is a model for understanding buyer awareness and behavior. There are many types of sales funnels, but they all have certain elements in common. The identification, evaluation, acquisition, and retention phases are common to most sales funnels and represent distinct psychological and behavioral stages of a buyer’s journey towards becoming a customer.
What is sales operations?
Sales operations is all operational work for the sales department. It can include coordinating with marketing, measuring results, analysis of data, and reducing operational overhead to achieve results. The benefit of sales operations is saving time, costs, and increasing sales efficiency. For example, an operations expert could find and implement a tool that automates a step for the team. Effectively, the automation would eliminate work and save the team time and effort moving forward.
What is sales tactics?
Sales tactics are the specific actions or plays that a sales team uses to close more deals. It is important to optimize your sales tactics to increase your number of profitable sales to close more deals.
What is sales cycle?
Sales cycle (or lifecycle) is the series of stages and processes of selling a product or service over a certain period of time. Recognizing the different stages of the sales cycle is the key to making better decisions. The sales cycle usually includes a research, lead generation, sales presentation, pre-sales, sales negotiations, post-sales support, and close. Sales cycle length depends on a number of factors such as complexity of your product, which market segment you serve, etc.
Here are approximate sales cycle lengths by market segment:
- Startups: Transactional; 1-2 months.
- SMB: Transactional; 1-3 months.
- Mid-Market: Semi-complex; 3-6 months.
- Enterprise: Complex; 7+ months.
What is sales pipeline?
Sales pipeline is an outline of the steps in a sales process and how many leads are at each step. The purpose of the pipeline is to accurately track and visualize the flow of leads through a sales process. Tracking is important because it helps give leaders the information they need to make good decisions. For example, if a lot of leads get lost at a certain step in the process, teams can investigate why and come up with solutions. Effectively organizing you or your teams’ Pipeline is called “sales pipeline management.” Managing a sales pipeline results in a salesperson’s “sales pipeline health.”
What are the sales stages?
Sales stages are a representation of where a prospect or lead is at in their buying process. Each stage is designed to better understand a customer’s needs, and move them to the next stage if they are qualified.
The sales stages are as follows:
- Prospecting
- Qualification
- Discovery
- Proposal
- Objection handling
- Negotiation
- Closing
- Follow-up
What is sales prospecting?
Sales prospecting is a structured process encompassing the early stages of the sales cycle. Sales prospecting is a way to find a specific prospects (potential customers) that will likely be a good fit for a company’s products or services. The goal of prospecting is to efficiently contact as many targeted prospects as possible in order to set meetings and close deals. The methods of prospecting are cold calling, emailing, social outreach, video outreach, direct visit, or direct mailing.
What is sales qualification?
Sales qualification is the process of evaluating prospects to determine if they are a good fit for a product or service. Qualification is important because it saves the sales team time by removing unfit prospects. Prospects will fit into two categories: Qualified, or disqualified.
Qualified prospects means that they are a good fit for the product or service and have the ability to pay for it. Disqualified prospects, on the other hand either aren’t a good fit, don’t have the ability to pay for the product or service, or both. To qualify a prospect, a salesperson can either research the prospect, or ask them qualifying questions.
What is sales discovery?
Sales discovery is the process of understanding a prospect’s buying motivation, ability to buy or needs, and likelihood of buying. Discovery helps determine which customers to pursue and which need to be moved to another pipeline to be considered a prospect.
To discover the needs and possible solutions that apply to a prospect, a salesperson should ask open-ended questions and use follow-up questions on interesting points.
What is sales proposal?
Sales proposal is designed to define the customer’s needs, sell the product, and outline the delivery of the service. This document should give the customer the a detailed overview of the project, what the customer will get in return, and who is responsible for fulfilling the promise.
What is sales objection handling?
Sales objection handling is an essential sales skill that help to to take care of any objections raised against their sales proposal. This skill will help sales professionals mitigate objections, close more sales, and improve overall sales pipeline.
What is sales negotiation?
Sales negotiation is a process of negotiation between a company and a customer, where the customer and the company work to reach a mutual agreement. It occurs after there are no restrictive objections, and the potential client is willing to get into the specifics of a deal. It’s an important step because it helps establish deal terms and clear expectations for moving forward.
What is sales closing?
Sales closing is the final point in the sales process. At this point, the salesperson and the prospect finalize the total amount owing, the start date, the terms, and signing the contract. This is an important step because it’s when a company concludes a deal and an agreement to get new revenue has been made.
It’s also the step at which a salesperson can mark “deal won” in their CRM, and expect a commission in the next pay period.
What is sales follow-up?
Sales follow-up is the act of communicating with a customer in a way that gets their attention or reminds them to take action. Follow-up is important because it can help increase the number of people that make it through each stage in the sales process. That’s beneficial because the more people that go through each step, the more that will ultimately get closed as well.
What is lead response in sales?
Lead response in sales is how a salesperson responds to a new lead and the time in which they do it. In general, a lead controller tries to divert a lead away from a potential customer and back into a salesperson in a lead response period. Lead response in sales can be in a period of minutes, hours, or days.
According to a study by Dr. James Oldroyd, the lead response time that results in the highest contact and qualifying rates is within 5 minutes of a lead submitting their information.
What is sales commission?
Sales commission is an incentive commission paid to the salesperson, when the salesperson sells a product or service. It’s important to have commission in sales because it aligns the goals of the business with the salesperson. The more a salesperson sells, the more both the company and the salesperson made.
Commission rates vary depending on the company. For example, some salespeople work strictly on commission, while others have a combination of base pay and commission on top. Companies also commonly incentivize salespeople with performance bonuses.
What are the sales tools?
There are many tools to assist sales teams with achieving results over time. Their purpose is to help sales teams get more done in less time without sacrificing quality of work. Some examples of common tools are:
- Customer relationship management (CRM) tools
- Dialer tools
- Email tools
- Physical tools (i.e. planners, notebooks, pens, etc)
What is customer relationship management?
Customer relationship management is the process of using information about customers obtained through sales and marketing activities to create customer value, improve customer loyalty, improve profit, and reduce customer acquisition costs. The process includes the identification of customer needs, finding out what features or benefits can meet those needs, creating the right mix of product, service, and price for the customer, and building relationships with customers.
What is sales software?
Sales software is software that assists individuals in the sales process. It’s important to use the software as an extension of the steps a team normally takes. Sales software helps teams see their potential customer’s needs, remember important information, automate repetitive sales tasks, and reliably track results over time. The most useful tool for sales teams is CRM software.
What is sales system?
Sales system is different from the sales pipeline. The sales system refers to the entire process of turning prospects into customers, including marketing, sales, software, and support teams. The sales system is important for preventing potential problems with the sale, which means the entire process must be simplified and organized. Clear objectives and strategies will help to minimize the chances of errors and allow for better customer service.
What is sales automation?
Sales automation is the process of automating repetitive tasks in sales. This is accomplished by using tools and software that can address specific parts of your business development process. For example, a repetitive task could be reminding prospects about a meeting to increase the show-up rate. Manually sending a text or email takes time, and it’s easy for salespeople to forget when they are busy with other tasks.
Software can automatically trigger a reminder based on the time of the meeting. This can be applied to most steps in the sales process, and it’s beneficial for a number of reasons. Some of those reasons include increased productivity, higher conversion rates at each step, more consistent work, better data analytics, and a more granular ability to improve overall sales.
What is CRM software?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a software system that allows sales teams to manage their whole sales pipeline from first contact to deal won or lost.
According to Grandview Research, more than 91% of companies with greater than 10 employees are using CRM software. Most CRM systems are online, allowing for synchronized collaborations between sales teams.
What is sales playbook?
A sales playbook is an evolving document that details all important sales functions, methods, scripts, and processes. According to Salesforce, only 60% of B2B companies are currently using sales playbooks. They are, however, important to use because they can help streamline important sales activities and measurements, while maintaining consistent quality at scale. The benefits of using a sales playbooks are listed below.
- Faster sales onboarding and training
- Consistent quality at scale
- A foundation to improve sales processes
- Clear expectations
- Fewer mistakes
What is a sales script?
A sales script is a written document that helps salespeople to provide a consistent, better, and more professional experience at key stages in the buying process. Sales scripts are important because they make it easier for sales people to be consistent at scale. Ideally, a sales script will closely mirror a persons natural approach.
After the script has been used enough times, salespeople and their managers can get an idea as to how the script is performing, and if it’s being used properly. This is a foundational part of improving the scripts over time and maintaining a high quality level of sales engagement at scale.
What are the selling skills?
Sales skills directly affect the outcome of a salesperson’s efforts to sell something. It’s important to improve selling skills because it will have a direct impact on the total number of units a salesperson can sell.
Here is a list of sales skills:
- Time management skills
- Active listening
- Project management
- Initiative
- Verbal communication
- Negotiation
- Problem-solving
- Empathy
- Storytelling
- Objection handling
- Organizational and project management skills
How to learn sales
Learning sales can be challenging, however, with the right knowledge and skills, understanding and carrying out the principles of direct sales can help to increase your chances for success in this field. To start learning sales, you should first learn about the core skills in sales. This can be done through certification programs, sales training programs, online resources, or courses. Then, you need to practice, and the best way is by getting an entry-level sales job. Typically, there will be a manager or leader that can help you to develop the skills you need.
What is sales training?
Sales training is a set of structured, managed activities designed to help sales-persons become more effective at their job, meeting sales goals, and deliver superior service to customers. Because today’s sales-persons must be highly skilled, sales training can be a significant driver to the success of a sales function.
The factors to consider when choosing a program are the following:
- The role you are training for
- Training budget
- Skill priorities
- Institutional support
- Prerequisites that are required for entry
What are the sales certifications?
Sales certifications are documents verifying the skill development of a salesperson. This is important for salespeople working is specialized fields, or trying to stand out against a pool of candidates.
The sales certifications are: Certified Professional Salesperson, Registered Professional Salesperson, Professional Sales Trainer, and Sales Enablement Consultant.
What are the sales courses?
Sales courses are designed to help you learn the necessary stills to excel in a sales role. The common sales courses are listed below:
- Strategic Selling Done Virtually Workshop – Revenue Storm
- Value Based Sales Training Course – ValueBased
- Close Deals Faster – asher
- Sales Excellence Suite – Chart
- Sales Coaching – Janek
- Baseline Selling – Kurlan
- Outbound Sales Training – ASLAN
- Presentation Training for Sales Professionals – TURPIN
- Inbound Sales – HubSpot
- Introduction to Sales – GoSkills
- The Art of Sales – Sales Engine
How to sell
There are clear steps for selling. Firstly, find the problems that your (or your company’s) solutions solve. Next, find the prospects that have these problems. Engage with those prospects and follow the steps in your sales process. Finally, offer your services when you know you can help them, and they are sufficiently interested.
You should also be clear on how much you want to charge for this service. You should then engage in meaningful conversation that eventually leads you to a sale.
How are sales and marketing related?
Sales and marketing are related in that sales drives the revenue of a business, and marketing is a multiplier for the number of chances a business has to make a sale. Furthermore, both serve the goal of helping prospects through a buyer journey. An example of sales and marketing working in conjunction is when you generate leads with marketing, and it’s up to the sales team to convert them into paying customers. Ideally, the marketing will have built the awareness and education for a new lead, so it’s easier for sales to close a deal.
What is a sales prospect?
A sales prospect is someone who might buy your product, sign up for your service, or sponsor your campaign. It’s important to define your ideal prospect, so they are easy to identify, and easier to find. The factors of a sales prospect are their budget, their needs, accessibility, and awareness of their problems.
What is a sales lead?
A sales lead is a qualified prospect who is prepared to be interested in purchasing a product or service offered by the company.
What is sales ethics?
Sales ethics is the best effort attempt in following a set of moral principles to guide and conduct sales activities. Keeping moral principles in mind will help a sales staff to appreciate ethical decisions and the opportunities they present. It also gives them the impetus to be more ethical in the day-to-day conduct of their work.
What is a salesperson?
A salesperson is the person who sells the company’s products, services, or ideas to customers. This can happen via direct efforts like outbound sales, or by making use of inbound channels the company has in place. The types of salesperson are usually split into sales development reps (SDR), Account Executives (AE), and Account Managers (AM).
What is sales recruitment?
Sales recruitment is the process of finding sales talent to fill an open role in your company. The importance of sales recruitment is that it can result in the success or failure of your acquisition strategy. Finding and recruiting the best people for your sales roles means that they will be able to ramp up into the role faster, raise the bar, and start producing faster. Alternatively, recruiting someone that isn’t a good fit for the role or your company can have a highly negative effect on your team and bottom line.
What is sales projection?
Sales projection is the estimation of the amount of sales that you can potentially achieve in a given month, quarter or year. It is a useful metric in sales management which helps sales managers to set sales goals. The sales projections also help sales managers to determine future job opportunities with larger companies and the amount of budget they need to achieve their goals.
What is sales goal?
Sales goal is an objective that sales people aim to achieve in a specific timeframe. The sales goals could range from market share gains to reducing average order value. Sales goals are an important guiding framework for sales teams and managers so they can tell if they’re on the right track.
What is sales target?
Sales target is the number of customers that a marketer or company wants to reach in a specific time period, usually measured in terms of number of units sold, revenue generated, income earned, etc. Sales targets are an important part of reaching sales goals because they make it more manageable for teams to visualize and accomplish over shorter time frames. For example, Instead of following a yearly target of one million dollars in new revenue, a quarterly target of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in new revenue is easier to manage.
What is sales quota?
A sales quota is the number of units of a certain quantity of a product that a company wants to sell in a particular period of time. Sales quotas are important because they break a target down into more manageable, granular pieces. Sales quotas can also be applied across different time periods. Sales quotas are typically set in order to monitor team and individual performance, and to achieve targets.
What is sales project management?
Sales project management is the task or process of managing, organizing, scheduling, and tracking various aspects of a sales project. The factors of sales project management include budget estimation, progress reporting, user journey mapping, lead management, workflow management, and issue management. It is important to manage projects, especially as sales operations grow, to reduce project timelines, increase efficiency, and accurately deliver the outcomes of the projects to the desired stakeholders.
What is sales gamification?
Sales gamification is the use of game design elements and mechanics such as points, badges, leaderboards, and competitions to increase engagement and motivation in sales activities. It is a way to make the sales process more fun and interactive, encouraging sales reps to engage in more selling activities, setting and achieving goals, and learning new skills. By using game-like elements, sales gamification can increase sales productivity and performance, and improve overall team morale and motivation.
What is cold calling?
Cold calling is the process of contacting potential customers or clients who have not expressed prior interest or have no prior relationship with the caller. It is typically done by salespeople over the phone, but can also be done via email or in person. The goal of cold calling is to generate new leads and potential sales for a business.
What is cold emailing?
Cold email is a form of direct marketing where an individual or a company sends an unsolicited email to a potential customer or client with the goal of generating new leads or sales. The email is sent to a person or a company that has not expressed prior interest or has no prior relationship with the sender. Cold emailing is often used by salespeople or marketers to reach out to potential customers or clients who may be interested in the products or services they are offering.
What is social selling?
Social selling is the process of using social media platforms to interact with potential customers, build relationships, and ultimately drive sales. This can include activities such as engaging with prospects on social media, sharing relevant content, and leveraging one’s personal and professional networks to generate leads and close deals. Social selling can also involve using social listening tools to identify potential customers and target them with personalized messages. The goal of social selling is to build trust and establish oneself as a thought leader in one’s industry, which in turn can lead to more sales opportunities.
What is door to door selling?
Door-to-door selling is a method of direct sales where a salesperson visits potential customers at their homes or workplaces in order to promote and sell products or services. It is also known as “canvassing” or “street selling.” This type of sales approach can be used for a wide variety of products, including home appliances, household goods, magazines, and insurance products. The door-to-door salesperson typically carries a sample of the product and provides demonstration or information on it, and may also ask to see if the customer is interested in buying it or setting up an appointment for further discussion. This method of sales is less common in today’s age due to the rise of online sales and the preference of customers to shop online.
What is kiosk sales?
Kiosk sales is the practice of selling products or services through a kiosk, which is a small desk or stand that salespeople can operate from. Kiosks are typically found in high-traffic areas such as malls, airports, and other public places, and can be used for a variety of purposes, including retail sales, ticketing, and information dispensing. They can also be used for digital signage, or interactive digital kiosk for product demos, and virtual try-ons.
What is booth sales?
Booth sales refer to the practice of selling products or services through a temporary or semi-permanent structure known as a booth. These booths are typically set up at events such as trade shows, fairs, festivals, and other public gatherings. They can be used by businesses to promote and sell their products or services, or by non-profit organizations to raise awareness about their cause.
What is event networking for sales?
Event networking for sales refers to the practice of using events as an opportunity to network and connect with potential customers, clients, and other businesses in order to generate sales leads and opportunities. Events such as trade shows, conferences, and networking events provide a platform for businesses to showcase their products and services, and to connect with potential customers and clients in a face-to-face setting. Event networking can also be a great way to build relationships with other businesses in your industry, which can lead to new partnerships and collaborations.