CareerNews
			Consultative Sales Technique Fact finding Sales Technique Internal Sales External Sales Direct Mail Key Skills Qualifications Sale Role Profiles Profiles of people currently working in the industry

The 80's universal personification of a sales professional was either a 'wannabe stockbroker that can't hack it' red braced feline predator going in for the kill (the lion), or a 'down on their luck, can't quite cut the mustard anymore has been' dinosaur (the gazelle). Both were depicted in the movie "Glengarry Glen Ross" and both can now be seen as things of the past.

No longer do sales people linger in unsecured jobs, whose very existence depends on them outdoing their colleagues. They can finally break away from the shackles of this cutthroat world that is better suited to the Kalahari.

Companies now realise that in order to survive for the long term they need motivated staff who can grow with that company in a culture that breeds confidence and stability.

That is not to say that companies still don't look at the bottom line and won't replace staff who can't consistently reach targets. It's just that they are taking more time to recruit the best people and train staff to meet the requirements.

The term 'Sales', has, in many ways, become a generic term to describe literally hundreds of specialities, entailing both selling and sales management.

Job titles range from Customer Sales, Contracts manager/officer, Customer services manager, Financial services consultant, Sales account manager, Sales executive, Sales manager to Sales support executive. Each role defines a specific task, which ultimately, deals with the sale of a product or service.

There are two main techniques in approaching a sales lead. You will invariably find that both are required to become a successful sales person. These are as follows:

• Consultative
• Fact Finding

Consultative Sales Techniques
This approach, as the name suggests, is a soft sell technique, where, in most cases, the sales person will have a general idea of who the customer is. They may be bank customers, existing clients or those people who have purchased goods from a store.

As part of the customer service, a salesperson will try and identify the needs of the customer by studying the customers profile and asking probing questions.

For instance, a customer who rings their telebank to pay a bill may be offered other services that the operator feels might be appropriate to that particular person, towards the end of the call.

A customer may feel less pressured when the sale is offered as part of a service, making it different from a cold call, where the customer may not know who the company is and less confident about committing themselves to someone who calls out of the blue.

This role is more customer service orientated and can be a very effective tool for sales, as the customer is already familiar with the company and its services.

Fact Finding Sales Technique
This area of sales mostly applies to people making cold calls or direct sales. This is a much harder form of sales technique where a service provider is constantly looking to deliver new services to companies who may benefit.

The theory of a plane waiting to land on an airport is a good way of illustrating this. The plane is the sales person and the landing strip is the customer. Each time you progress in your dealing with the customer, the nearer you are getting to the airport.

If you have negotiated the procedure and environment well, then you may have a sale, which means you have landed safely. But there is a chance you still might crash and burn at any stage. This includes even when you're on the runway strip.

Remember, most accidents on a plane happen whilst you are still on the ground!

Fact finding selling involves making the initial contact with the company by cold calling. Whether it is over the telephone or face to face, the sales person may have done some initial research on the customer to understand their needs or none at all.

From the initial hello to the end of the call, the salesperson will try and find out more about the customer during any communication. This requires good listening skills and the ability to immediately start building a relationship with the customer.

During the conversation the sales person will delve further into the requirements of the customer to find out what services can be provided.

This might end in three different ways.

• The customer may not be interested from the word go.
• After listening to the sales pitch the customer will decline any offer of service, as they do not feel that the sales person has anything to offer.
• The customer may have been persuaded and is willing to either have more talks or will buy there and then.

The sales person now has a number of choices:

• Go to the next customer
• Go back after gaining a better understanding of the customer and their requirements. (This will help in tailoring a package to suit the needs of the customer).
• Or make the sale there and then.

Broadly speaking, a sales career falls into 3 main areas

• Internal Sales
• External Sales
• Direct Mail

Internal Sales
Typical roles include Telesales, Sales Consultants and Account Management. The aim of the internal sales person is to nurture new clients and develop the accounts of existing clients.
This role calls on people to use verbal sales techniques to attract customers.

External Sales
This role requires sales people to take a more proactive approach towards selling. Techniques include soft, hard and door knocking.

It's all about the numbers and is a technique usually used by young companies wishing to increase their market share and profile. This role can rely on both verbal and visual techniques to get the clients.

Direct Mail
This role is bordering into the area of marketing. It requires people to understand the market they are working in, to ensure they can target the sales approaches appropriately. The use of visual sales techniques is important to the success of direct mail.

The types of sales role and their associated techniques depend largely on the size of the client. Large blue chip companies may require a different sort of selling technique to a smaller player.

Whichever career role you wish to enter into, it is important to note that you will need both consultative and fact finding sales skills.

Key Skills
There used to be a time when all you needed to be a sales person was your ability to get out of bed and walk into any one of hundreds of tin pot companies selling their wares. This generally meant that the wrong person was in the wrong job.

A modern sales career is a professional option, which requires a professional attitude armed with professional skills.

To state that it is important to be confident and have A1 communication skills is obvious but nonetheless important to stress.

There are other less obvious but by way no less important skills, required to be an effective sales person. Sales can be a tough and demanding career but the rewards can be highly lucrative for the right person with the right attitude.

You must handle rejection positively and not take it personally when a customer refuses your product. Not even after you have invested a lot of your time and effort.

'No' now does not necessarily mean 'No' in the future, so it is useful to keep contact details and an eye on companies for the future. So maintaining and updating contacts is a valuable weapon in the sales world.

You should have a positive attitude and enthusiasm for the product you are selling. Organisational skills have to be top notch, as you could be dealing with many clients at the same time, and having to deal with complex requirements time after time.

But even then, this will only take you so far. In order to progress and become a truly professional sales person, you will also need to acquire the following defacto standards:

• Research Skills
• Product Knowledge
• Listening Skills
• Objection Handling
• Fact Finding
• Consultative Skills
• Closing sales Skills
• Account Management
• Presentation Skills
• Communication Skills
• Personal Skills

Qualifications
For people in the wrong job thinking they could make an easy buck, sales used to mean paying over the odds for some cheap home made perfume, going up to your friends and family and watch in amazement as they are put off by the smell of detergent wafting from the brittle glass bottles.

Products and services have come a long way since then and the type of people required to work in sales has progressed to another level altogether.

The advent of the Internet has meant that the customer base is now international, not only do they reside locally in your country but they could also be in another part of the world. For this reason, it is useful to command the use of another language, especially a European language.

Generally, your skills are more important than you're 'A' levels, but as the better sales jobs become more competitive, you have to try and stand out from the crowd.

Those who are beginning their career in the retail sector may find they need at least a minimum of English and Mathematics at GCSE Level with at least one A Level preferred.

Graduates in any discipline are being encouraged to take up a career in sales but there is also a growing demand for people with specialist subjects, such as statistics, management, economics and marketing.

There are also many companies who actively encourage people who have graduated in creative subjects, such as art, media and history, feeling that these people can offer a different slant on selling from the typical sales person and their techniques.

Sales Role Profiles

Retail sales
The retail sector is growing all the time with the potential to climb up the ladder rapidly for the right people.

Initial responsibilities usually start in a customer service role on the shop floor, to get an all round understanding of the business.

Whether it is food, clothing, records or electrical goods, the ability to communicate face to face and deal with customer queries at the drop of a hat is essential.

Telesales
This can cover consultative or fact finding sales roles. It is important to be clear and concise with good communication skills.

Within a customer service role you must be able to empathise, understand the customers needs and offer appropriate solutions to customers.

This means excellent communication skills and common sense are essential requirements. Within a fact-finding or direct sales role, you need to be confident and determined.

Wherever possible, research your potential customer thoroughly and never assume their requirements before going through the consultative process first.

Media Sales
This role entails exactly what its name suggests, namely selling advertising space on all forms of media, including TV, Radio, Newspaper and the Internet.

The name sounds glamorous and upwardly attractive, especially with job adverts in the press quoting three figure salaries, but media sales is an extremely competitive area to enter, even for high calibre graduates.

That is why it is not so much if you have a good degree but a strong personality that determines if you are offered a job. Important skills required to succeed are (obviously) communication, being articulate, presentation skills and being adaptable.

This role tends to attract young and highly motivated people who can negotiate confidently armed with a strong verbal skills.

Sales techniques include utilising both consultative and fact-finding techniques. The position provides people with the opportunity to deal with large blue chip clients.

Usual progression starts with classified advertising through to management level position, where you could be responsible for the running of a team.

Sales Manager
In order to reach a management position, you would normally have built up between 2 to 5 years of experience of working in an entry-level position.

The main responsibility is to manage the overall production, from setting and managing targets, identifying an individuals need for new skills and development, through to taking ultimate responsibility for customer care.

Their main role is to develop strong and lasting business partnerships with customers.

Door to Door
This is one of the oldest forms of selling and a classic example of direct sales. Most of the time it involves cold calling at company offices or people's homes to offer a service that you feel they will benefit from.

From the initial knock on the door to the first utterance of a word, the salesman knows he/she will have to get the main points across before the door shuts on them. When used solely on its own, this requires a lot of legwork for sometimes little return.

Freelance sales people or commission based sales professionals do the vast majority of this sort of work. As the name suggests, their income depends on the number of leads that are successfully completed.

Due to the nature of the work, there tends to be a high burnout and turnover of staff. But at the other end of the scale Corporate Sales people to have a more successful venture.

These agents often work with large corporate companies, where the commissions are larger, due to the sums involved. The high sums earned generally mean the agent doesn't have to flog his/her body around as much, therefore there is less pressure.

Salary
Salary can be greatly affected by the type of role you are employed in, and the geography of where you are.

Starting salaries can be quite high, even for trainees, who can easily start at about £25,000 including basic and commission rising up to over £100,000 for a Sales Manager working in Media Sales.

Internal Sales people, dealing mainly in a consultative environment, tend to only get a basic, as the primary function is to offer a customer service/support.

External Sales people tend to work on a commission only basis, where there is a high turnover of clients.

But some of the lowest rates of pay are in retail sales. Shop floor staff usually operate in what can best be described as a customer support role.

Profiles of People Currently Working in the Industry

Name: Mike Johnson

Age: 27

Born: UK

Job: Title: Advertising Agency Consultant

Day to day duties: Contacting and negotiating with ad agencies and educating them on how to use our services to maximum effect.

How you got into the job: I applied for an internal sales position and started in Direct Employers, then moved on to the newly formed Advertising Agency division, Good move!

What did you do before?: Employed by Wave Office Products in sales, selling office equipment to businesses.

Did you have other career options?: Yes, I also have worked in the Motor Industry at various levels and have also built sheds and fences!

Salary Range: £12,500 - £50,000+

Interview experience: In my interview for my last employer, the interviewer totally ripped my CV to shreds saying that it was useless….they offered me the position the next day.

Special Skills required for the job: Patience, persistence, and personality and a pleasant voice.

What's on your screensaver?: Company logo OF COURSE!

Are you on a contract or permanent?: Permanent.

Westlife or Hearsay? Hearsay for sure.( who's Westlife??)

Name: Peter Mausch

Age: 33

Born: Germany

Job Title: Account Manager

Day to day duties: account management, new business development, cold calling, fact finding

How you got into the job: Advert on Jobsite

What did you do before?: Textile Agent/Consultant

Did you have other career options?: Yes - Recruitment, Office Management

Salary range: £20-30K

Interview experience: Routine experience

Special Skills required for the job: Language, communication skills, empathy, listening skills, and enthusiasm.

What's on your screensaver?: None

Are you on a contract or permanent?: Permanent