Introduction to Sales

Company executives are often very confident about their products, and will sometimes say that a product is so good, it sells itself. While the product in question may be good, as a rule, all products need a sales workforce to sell them.

Companies rely on sales to generate income. Whether the product is tangible, like a laptop computer, or intangible, like an insurance policy, it needs to be sold. Sales is linked to marketing. It is the Marketing Department's responsibility to create the image and identify the market for the product.

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Answer the questions to compare and contrast the roles of marketing and sales in your own organization with the roles outlined in the topic.

The sales environment encompasses many different roles. These roles can vary in complexity and in the range of responsibilities that go with them. Successful salespeople must solve problems and provide the right solutions for customers.

The complex and often pressurized sales environment can be a harsh place for employees. However, there are certain key competencies that, if mastered, can prove to be very beneficial for a career in sales.

Professional selling is a discipline that's constantly changing. New theories and techniques are briefly heralded as the next great advancement in sales management. But all too often, they're quickly dismissed as obsolete, as newer trends emerge and require salespeople to adapt and update their skills and attitudes to remain competitive.

The buyer-seller relationship is finely balanced and subject to constant change. This is because buyers have become more knowledgeable, and their expectations have grown as a result. They expect salespeople to be as well informed as they are about products.

Key competencies for sales synoptic table

In all professions, there are some people who are good at their jobs and others who aren't. In sales, it's easy to tell the two apart. Good salespeople are patient, understanding, and knowledgeable about the products they're selling. They take a genuine interest in the needs of the buyer and will try to provide solutions to satisfy the buyer's needs.

Sales professionals use various models of consumer behavior to learn what makes consumers buy products and services. This topic uses the buying decision process as a model. Each step in the process is subject to the influence of internal and external factors that ultimately impact the buying decision.

In addition to examining the buying decision process, salespeople must consider the actual buyers themselves. There are two categories of buyer, consumer and organizational. Consumers are often referred to as the final customer by sales professionals, and their purchases are for personal, family, or household use. Organizational buyers include producers, resellers, governments, and institutions.

Though there are different versions of the process, several common elements remain the same. The approach covered in this topic has five stages:

1. finding potential buyers
2. qualifying
3. presentation
4. closing the sale
5. asking for referrals

The first stage of the sales process is finding potential buyers. This is also called prospecting. By taking the proper approach to this stage, sales professionals can save time and achieve greater market penetration.

The third stage of the sales process is presentation. This is when the seller tells the prospective buyer about the product's merits. To achieve success at this stage, a seller needs to know the product and the customer. The more information a seller has on each, the better the presentation will be.

Stress the importance of sales for any business, review learning objectives and wrap up course

You think knowing stuff changes the game? You think sitting in a library, stacking up facts like you’re building a Jenga tower, is gonna make you a winner? Man, that’s cute. But life ain't a trivia night. Information alone? It’s worthless. It’s like having a Lamborghini in your garage but you never learned how to drive. You just sit in it, making engine noises. Vroom vroom. People walk by, they see the car, but they also see you ain't going nowhere. You got all this knowledge, all these textbooks, but when life throws a punch, you’re still looking up the definition of "duck." It’s what you *do* with that information that actually matters. Don't be the person with the shiny car and no keys.