Selling skills to engage customers are a must for any salesperson who wants to be successful. In today’s tough economy, many sales reps lack these skills at a time when they are most needed. The global economy has forced many consumers to err on the side of caution when making any purchase decision. Here are four essential selling skills any salesperson can use to engage with customers and get the sale.

1. Build trust in your audience

The downfall of many sales presentations is due to the salesperson not facilitating a relationship with their potential customer first. Inherently, people do not like to be sold or presented with a product or service that they are not sure about. Sellers typically go into direct selling mode, which can drive customers back. As a salesperson, you need to be in sync with your potential prospects, and like any relationship, this can take time. The classic figure cited by many sales gurus is 7 touch points. The good news now is that it could include an email you could send or an engagement on LinkedIn generally involves introducing both parties combined with multiple points of contact over the phone, email, or in person for a defined period to build trust.

2. Ask them to find out what they want.

To sell effectively, you need to know what your sales lead wants, and to know what they want, you need to ask the right questions. Too many salespeople think they know what their customer wants and that is why they fail to make as many sales as they could. Trying to get someone to buy something they don’t want is infinitely more difficult than simply facilitating the buying process for someone who knows what they want and simply connect with them to deliver the product or service and collect the cash. The only way to find out what your customers want is to ask them smart questions that reveal what they really want and what they are willing to pay for.

3. Sell benefits, not features of products and services.

Sellers can often be confused on how to effectively sell to customers, and a common mistake they make is selling product features rather than benefits. A simple example is the vacuum market. A typical feature would be that perhaps less is packed, however the benefit is that the customer will save money by not having to replace the bag. A great salesperson will always sell the benefits of a product or service because ultimately that is what the consumer wants, the benefits.

By asking the questions early in the sales process, your sales people discover which benefit is relevant.

4. Your prospect’s commitment confirms the sale.

The goal of all sales techniques is to conclude with the commitment of your sales lead or sales lead to the purchase of a product or service. Now this could require more than one sales call. If you are selling a small, inexpensive item, chances are it will happen right away. If you are selling a higher value item, it may take more than 5 calls. However, a significant number of sales people forget this fundamental rule and do not even try to gain commitment. Commitment will move the process forward. This could be for him

Consumers are smart and with many products on the market competing for their attention, they are more pragmatic in their decision making. With a wide variety of services and products, the job of a seller is even more key to engaging and helping the buyer make a decision. This makes it imperative that any salesperson wishing to be successful must be fully trained in advanced sales skills to initiate a customer purchase.