How to Succeed in Sales

What are the top traits you need to be successful in sales? If you conduct an online search for the five qualities of a great salesperson, you’ll get a wide array of answers, ranging from great communication skills to the ability to empathize with how a customer is feeling. Some lists emphasize things like patience and perseverance, while others lean toward drive, determination, and the ability to “always be on.”

These are all admirable qualities, and most sales representatives will have all of them to one degree or another. But if you really want to know how to succeed in sales, there’s one quality that stands above all the others: the ability to guide your customers through a sales process that’s constantly changing.

In the digital age, customers don’t engage with sales reps in the same way. When they realize that they need to purchase an important piece of software to help them run their business, they don’t reach out to suppliers first. They begin with their own independent research. According to a report by Gartner, buyers spend 27% of their time with online research. They spend another 18% with offline research. Meeting with potential suppliers only occupies about 17% of their time. That doesn’t give sales reps much time to get their foot in the door.

Here’s the tough thing for many people in the industry to hear: About 43% of B2B buyers would prefer not to interact with a sales rep at all. That’s especially true for younger buyers. As more and more buyers are digital natives, they like having the ability to make purchases through online channels. And the amount they are willing to spend has gotten considerably higher. About 20% of B2B buyers are willing to make a purchase of $500,000 or more through an online channel.

But there’s one stat that should give sales reps hope: Those buyers who don’t go through a sales rep report experiencing 23% higher regret for their purchase compared to those who did. “B2B customers in an all-digital world are unwittingly pursuing buying behavior deeply contrary to confidence creation, as buying — or even deciding — in a digitally dominant context is uniquely well-designed to undermine customer confidence,” said Gartner Distinguished Vice President Brent Adamson. Put more simply, that means B2B buyers who make purchases online are less confident that they are making the right decision.

Here’s what successful sales reps understand about the marketplace today:

Nobody likes a hard sell. Most customers don’t want to feel rushed into making a purchase. They want transactions to happen at their own pace. Because at home they have become so comfortable with making purchases without dealing with a salesperson, they want the option of that same experience when they are at work.

Buyer’s remorse is rising. Just because they can make a major purchase online doesn’t mean they feel confident about it. When they are spending their company’s money, buyers want to feel secure that they are making the right decision. No amount of online research can accomplish that.

Customers want to be reassured. Although they might know they need a certain type of software, customers probably don’t know all the options that are available. Sales reps should strive to come across as trusted advisors by helping the customer find the best way to solve their problems.

So when we talk about the habits of successful sales professionals, perhaps the most important is being less of a salesperson and more of an advisor. Understand the situation a company finds itself in, figure out what their pain points are, and help them come to a conclusion about what the best solution might be. That way you don’t just make a sale, you’ve developed what is hopefully a long-term relationship.

Sales Tips and Tricks

Looking for the most successful sales techniques? According to research from McKinsey & Company, customers care most about the kind of service they receive. Although they think they make important decisions based on product and price, they actually are more focused on service and support. When making a major purchase, 31% of companies say that the most important differentiator is the customer experience. That’s a much higher result than product features (19%), price ($18), or reliability (17%).

When you search online for the “top five sales tips” or the “top seven sales techniques,” it’s no surprise that the results tend to focus on how to give the best possible customer service and support. To do this effectively, you and your team have to provide a seamless customer journey. That means there should be no friction when you’re passing a customer from marketing to sales or from sales to customer service. The best way to accomplish this isn’t by using sales tips and tricks — it’s by making sure your entire revenue team is speaking the same language and employing the same methodology. 

Winning by Design, the leader in accelerating and optimizing recurring revenue for B2B organizations, helps you use your sales superpowers by providing you with the right tools. Offered through our highly regarded Revenue Academy, our online sales courses are all built on the same methodology. That means that your entire revenue team —including Sales Development, Business Development, Sales, and Customer Success — speaks the same language. Participants can start off with classes that give them the basics of management, then work their way up to more advanced strategies for getting the most from their teams. And because your managers are trained in the same methodology, they can learn how to do more than just track their team’s progress. They can be coaches helping them reach their goals.

Sales Tips for Beginners

According to Harvard Business Review, more than half of all college graduates are going to work in sales at some point in their career. And yet almost none of them have training in sales. At the country’s more than 500 business schools, there are fewer than 300 courses that focus on the sales process. You can take plenty of courses in finance, marketing, and management, but chances are you won’t find more than a class or two that covers the basics of sales.

Most companies are well aware of this fact, so they provide as much training as they can during the onboarding process. But offering a few daily sales tips during an employee’s first few days isn’t a substitute for teaching them the fundamentals of the sales process. That’s why so many of the most successful companies are investing in sales training courses designed for beginners. 

Where do you find sales courses that go beyond the usual tips for success? At Winning by Design, our open courses are tiered for sales professionals of every level. Courses like Selling for Impact prepare new account executives with all the skills they need on day one. Once they have mastered these skills, they can move on to more advanced courses like Selling into Enterprise Accounts. There are similar tracks designed for your business development and customer success teams as well. No matter the class, we offer more than sales tips and inspirational quotes. These are skills that they can take back to the office and begin using on day one.

Instead of googling “sales tips and tricks for beginners,” consider turning to Winning by Design. All of our courses are backed by a proven track record going back more than a decade. More than 600 companies, including some of the biggest names in the business, train their revenue teams with Winning by Design’s innovative sales training techniques.

5 Keys To Sales Success

When it comes to the “5 keys to sales success” (or the “30 can’t-miss sales tips for success,” or the “100 top sales tips for beginners”), what works for one person might not work for the next. A sales strategy that helps one team exceed their goals might hold another team back. The real key to success in sales is to find what works for our team and keep doing it. The same goes for the daily routine of successful salespeople. If you’re reaching your goals, that’s great. If not, you’ve got to shake things up.

But like they say, it’s hard to fix the plane while you’re flying it. Sometimes you need help from an expert, which is where Winning by Design comes in. Our open courses ensure that your team members understand how to sell in today’s market. Private classes have curriculums tailored to your company’s individual needs, while coaching

sessions reinforce the strategies that your team has learned along the way. We also have best-in-class frameworks and detailed blueprints to keep all this information at your fingertips. And we back everything up with our industry-recognized certification. 

At a higher level, we offer a Revenue Architecture course geared toward the leaders of your revenue team. Your executives learn the principles of recurring revenue in B2B companies, including the recurring revenue model and how it impacts the sales cycle. They learn the key stages of growth and how to optimize your operations to take advantage of them. It’s one of our most popular offers, and is now available in English, German, and Spanish.

If we were to give you any sales tips for 2022, we would say you shouldn’t be afraid of taking the next step. Institute a playbook, put together a sales strategy, and detail the best practices that everyone can follow. That’s the way to really be successful in sales.

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