8 Most Valuable Techniques of Highly Successful Salespeople

Highly successful salespeople don't only pitch a product - they sell a solution, they add value, and they improve the lives of their customers. And these folks aren't just talking the talk - they're walking the walk. They show up every day with a purpose, a plan, and the mindset of a champion.

If you're not a highly successful salesperson yet, it's not too late to figure it out. Here are 8 incredibly valuable techniques that you can begin implementing right away, so that you can start  your sales game to the next level.

1) Get in the habit of communicating in so many words

It's not easy for most salespeople. Not every prospect is going to want to talk to a sales rep on the phone, or answer a voicemail or text message.

Some prospects are shy or introverted. Others don't want to be pressured. And some are just bored. Learn to recognize the pain points that your prospect is facing, and develop a strategy to meet those needs through one-on-one conversations.

Communication isn't just picking up the phone. You should get to know your clients and be aware of their birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, etc. Make a habit of sending corporate gifts to your clients, just to show that you're thinking of them. And plan follow-up outbound calls to give a sense of purpose to your sales conversations.

Being thoughtful and strategic in your communications is key to establishing a strong personal relationship with your clients. That gives you a leg up in negotiations when a client actually brings up the topic of sales. You also reinforce to your prospect that you're more than just a warm body making cold calls — you're someone that they know, someone that cares about their success.

2) Situate yourself in an agile sales model

This takes a high level of discipline and mindset. There is no quick fix, and you can't force sales to be agile. What you can do is be a continuous learner, and consistently adjust and iterate to the strengths of your prospects.

That means you will need to sell to the pain points your prospects face. Apart from that you'll make your own merch, you'll need to focus on value-added by having more than one product to sell. You'll need to be savvy with your time so you can present value that will meet your prospects' needs in a way that aligns with their growth and strategy.

An agile sales model enables marketing to closely collaborate with the product development team. It shifts marketing's task from trying to sell something, to defining value for the customer, which enables a product team to create something that customers will actually want.

3) Work on the art of persuasion

Learning to use persuasion is a must. We work in a highly competitive and effective environment. It's easy for a sales rep to quickly lose sight of this if they are having a bad day. Every rep wants to believe they're doing everything right, and that they are doing things that are making the sale go smoother and more effective.

Most sales reps are in a constant struggle to find the right balance of mastery and craftsmanship. That said, if you want to get to the next level, you'll need to develop some skills in persuasion. This can come in many forms, and it all starts with effective communication.

Habits of highly effective communicators include things like starting conversations, staying attentive to the prospect, identifying the prospect's biggest barriers, and asking follow-up questions. If your communication habits aren't effective, you will not be successful at selling.

Confidence is key, but so is believing in the product you're pitching. If you're not convinced that your product is the best one out there, it's unlikely that you'll be able to convince someone to buy it. It's not simply a matter of offering up a memorized sales pitch. When you believe in your own product and you're enthusiastic about how it will change the prospect's life, they're more likely to believe in you as well.

4) Consider the customer journey

A lot of salespeople have a picture in their heads of the ideal sales process. But that picture may be completely off - it’s also a symptom of not mapping out the customer journey.

For starters, not every prospect walks into the office to talk to a sales rep. Some prospects may require personal interactions on a one-on-one basis.

Traditionally, sales reps were taught to look for deals and to aggressively hit the deal pipeline. They weren't considered valuable sales reps until they could seal the deal, and no one would ever consider sales reps who were dead set on closing deals that weren't at the top of the pipeline. This can lead to a lot of missed opportunities, and sales reps won’t focus on fulfilling the needs of their prospects.

We are changing that trend. Sales reps are evolving into salespeople who are in the business of selling value-added services to the business. They are salespeople who are not looking for the next deal but looking for the next relationship.

5) Build trust with your customers

Sales is all about selling the value of the product or service you're offering, but how do you get the customer to trust you?

Building trust doesn't come automatically.

You have to give prospects an opportunity to see value in what you offer, and you have to get them to trust you enough to see your value. This is a gradual process, and it requires you to think about what you can do to earn trust.

When you develop trust with your prospects, you will get more calls, more opportunities, and stronger relationships.

6) Create demand around your products

A lot of salespeople are focused on what they need to do, and they forget to take into account what their customers need to do. Sales reps tend to focus on solving problems when in reality, the real problems have already been identified.

Your job as a sales rep is to get the customer to come to you and solve their problems. The product or service is just a tool. It's your job to find out what problem you're solving and to convince the customer to buy your product or service.

You can't win if your customers are in the market for a different solution.

7) Build your customer success team

Customer success is a team sport, and every successful salesperson needs someone on their team to develop relationships with prospects.

This can be the customer success manager, the product marketing manager, or someone from sales or engineering. It just depends on the size of your business.

The success of your sales team isn't dependent upon just the salesperson. The success of your sales team is dependent upon having the entire team working together and prioritizing building relationships.

As the old adage goes, if you want to do great business, you need great relationships - and your sales team are the frontline soldiers for forging these valuable relationships. If they're not willing to build relationships with customers, they're likely to fail in their mission. Your customer success team should be composed of role models who get this.

8) Adapt to the 80/20 principle, but keep your doors open

One of the biggest trends in sales is the 80/20 principle. However, a lot of salespeople can't figure out how to actually apply it. It's a really simple concept - 80% of your sales success should ideally come from 20% of your customers.

What a lot of salespeople interpret this to mean is that you should exclusively focus on your high-spender clients, and ditch your low-spender clients. This creates situations of lost opportunities.

An efficient approach is to be able to take time off from your high-spender clients when necessary. It also means that you should be able to maintain your relationships with your lower spenders.

You may choose to do this by sending follow-up messages, or by increasing your tracking of who your lower spenders are. Keep them in your orbit, so that you can continue to get value from them without neglecting your high spenders.

Conclusion

The most successful salespeople always have a few proven techniques up their sleeves. Most of them are crucial to their success, but some techniques are unique to the individual.

Think about this for a moment, why would you want to take the best strategy for another person, and copy that? Why not adapt and take advantage of your own market dynamics and learn from your mistakes? However, if you are not able to capitalize on these techniques, you can always outsource your sales outreach to a trained team that will reach out to your leads.

Always adapt your strategy to be the best it can possibly be, and take the lessons learned from your losses to build your company’s reputation as a high-performing sales machine.