What is Sales? Introduction to Sales Techniques

In this session, you will learn the fundamentals of selling and selling skills required.

What is selling?

When you were growing up, your parents must have guided you through the process of buying groceries; in the sell-purchase transaction, you were always on the purchasing side, i.e., the customer’s side. But now, you will be on the other side of the transaction, i.e., the salesperson’s end, where you will be selling products to people.

Hence, selling is any transaction in which money is given in exchange for products or services.

What are selling skills?

To complete a sales transaction one requires certain skills. These skills help the seller to convert a potential buyer to a customer. Given below are the must have selling skills required to excel in your sales career:

Now that you have understood the basics of selling skills, you will understand the five customer stages.

1. A list of names of people whom you contact for your sales or services refers to the list of suspects. Suspects are also referred to as leads whom a salesperson approaches to qualify them as prospects. 

2. Prospects are people from your list of suspects who are likely to give you an appointment as a result of some prospecting done earlier. A prospect does not necessarily give any signs that they will purchase from you; however, if you call them, there is a high probability that they will give you an appointment.

3. Potential customers are those prospects that have the money, eligibility, authority, and a need to buy the solution that your product offers and have shown some inclination to buy it from you.

4. A customer is a person who has bought the product at least once.

5. A client is a person who either has bought the product more than once or is ready to refer other prospects to the salesperson.

Selling is the process in which the salesperson tries to convince the prospect to first become a customer and then a client. A sale, on the other hand, is the end result of selling. This can be summarised as below:

Now that you have understood the customer stages, let's move to the next segment to understand the different stages in the sales process.