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Build Sales on Trust Your potential employers want to see that you’re honest, truthful, and open. Why? Because that’s who customers need to perceive you as a Salesperson. It would help if you were likable, easy to trust, and impressionable to make and continue to make sales. An excellent way to represent
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your trustworthiness is to open up, maybe discuss your weaknesses or perhaps even tell a story about a time when you failed – it’ll show integrity, which will definitely land you a sales job with no experience. Benefits Sell – Features Don’t In sales, you sell the benefits, not the features. Do the same in your interview. Don’t focus on the skills you have, focus on
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the benefits you bring to the company. How’re you going to make your boss’s life easier? What can you help them with? What can you improve? Fix? Optimize? It would help if you sold the benefits of hiring you to your prospect manager. While sure, there’s some use in explaining what you’re great at, the deciding factor will come down to: What can you do for the company?
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Persistence is Key Sales Representatives have to be persistent by nature; following up, checking in, and making constant contact with prospects is the name of the game. So if you can immediately follow-up after your interview, you’ll show your ideal employers that you understand the fundamental idea that persistence is key to land a sales job with no experience.
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Listen to the Customer To succeed in sales, you need to be a good listener. What does that mean? That means listening more than you talk. A good ratio to follow is the 80/20 rule. Let your customer do 80% of the talking. Listen to what their needs are and what are their desired outcomes. Once you understand these, you can then use the remaining 20% to ask questions and sell your product.
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Be Ethical Do ethics and sales go together? They should, but dishonest salespeople have given us a bad name. So we need to change that. By being honest and trustworthy, you build confidence in your customers that you are the right person to buy from. If you don’t know the answer to something, don’t make it up, find out.
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Overcome Objections Don’t be caught off guard when a customer says the product or service is too expensive. The price objection is a common objection that doesn’t need to be answered with lowering the price. Instead, listen to how your peers overcome price objections. Do they explain the reason for why the product or service
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costs more? Do they show the customer how the product or service reduces their costs? The key is to write down your most common objections and your answers to how to overcome them.
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There is a wealth of information about sales, and one of the easiest ways to learn about sales is by picking up a few classic books. Check out To Sell is Human by Daniel H. Pink, Sell or be Sold by Grant Cardone, and The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon. My book ‘The SOHO Solution: 21 Selling Strategies for Growing Your Small Business” is also my book. Yes, I couldn’t help but include my own book.
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Impress your future employer, and show up already trained on the art of selling. You can take several great sales workshops, both in-person and online, including our online sales course Soco Academy. Not only are sales courses a fantastic way to deepen your knowledge on sales, but they’re also a great way to network (particularly with in-person
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courses) and show potential employers that you are serious about the sales field.
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When you’re applying and interviewing, don’t be afraid to tout transferable skills you may have from other non-sales jobs. If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant—or any customer-facing job—you’ve developed skills such as identifying needs, problem-solving, and basic customer service. These skills are directly applicable to sales and are very attractive to employers.
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If you’re looking to land a sales job in retail, go shopping! When you’re interacting with salespeople, please take note of the traits you like in them. How do you feel about the way they approached you and spoke to you? What did they say or do that swayed (or didn’t sway) you? If possible, visit the store or location of where you will be
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applying to get an idea of how their salespeople operate. If you’re applying for a role as a business-to-business sales professional, you might not be able to visit their location, so instead, skip to #5 and do your research. Shadow your company’s top sales professional and take note of what they do differently from everyone else. Watch
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how they talk, how they dress, how they present themselves. What is their work ethic like, how do they approach customers? By learning from your industry leaders, you can quickly master the art of selling your product or service.
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Do your research before interviewing. The first thing you need to know when starting a career in sales is that you need to be a product expert. Read all of your company’s literature, brochures and visit your company’s website. Do your own research as a customer would by searching online and reading reviews. Don’t be caught off guard by
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a prospect mentioning information they’ve found on the web. Use the product yourself. By being a customer of your own product, you’ll better understand what you’re selling and become a better spokesperson. Who wants to buy a Honda from someone that drives a Toyota? These efforts can go a long way in
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showing your initiative. You can also show your enthusiasm for the products; if possible, become a customer.
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To drastically increase your chances of getting a sales job with no experience, show your sales skills in the application process. First, follow up after you send in your resume. If they ask you to come in for an interview, call the person in charge and confirm the meeting the day before. Follow up after the interview, as well. These are skills they are looking for in a
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salesperson, so if you can demonstrate them during the interview, you are more likely to get the job.
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The sales industry is full of its own language, terminology, and jargon. Don’t get caught not knowing common sales terms or the distinction between different sales positions. Looking for an Inside Sales role selling B2B with a long sales cycle? No problems!
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One of the most important skills of any sales job is quickly building rapport and trust. During the interview, be friendly and outgoing. Ask the interviewer something about themselves and try to find out what you both share in common. Have a confident posture. Sit up, don’t avoid eye contact. Listen, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Also, don’t forget to laugh and have a good time!
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If you have no experience in sales, there’s a good chance you’ll start at the bottom. No retail experience? Getting a retail job is probably the best starting place for anyone looking to get a job in sales with no experience. That could include starting as a ‘sales assist’ where you help the main sales professionals with their deals, or you could
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start by qualifying new leads that come in. Other times, starting at the bottom in sales means selling some of the company’s cheaper products or being assigned lower quality leads.