I am a salesman myself. I recently read some related posts in this section. I feel good about the popular "How to be a regional sales manager" in Wan Li, and I also see many XDJM who have not graduated long ago timidly asking how to do a good job in sales. I think it seems too far away for these XDJM to be regional sales managers, and it seems more practical to do their first job well. Think that you have been doing sales for eight years, and you are not very successful and satisfied, and you have more or less relevant experience. If there are friends who have just entered the business or are about to enter the business, and are willing to learn more about this industry from the perspective of an experienced person, I am willing to share the code word with you slowly.
First of all, introduce myself briefly. I graduated from college for eight years and have been working as a sales engineer. I spent two years in state-owned enterprises, four years in private enterprises and two years in foreign enterprises. I am a field instrument of industrial enterprises. As for the income problem that all friends in this forum are concerned about, you know that the income of sales business varies greatly, which has a great relationship with the performance you complete every year. Take last year as an example. Wages, bonuses, subsidies and so on add up, I don't know exactly how much. Anyway, in addition to normal household use, I also have a car with a displacement of 3.0, and the annual account increases by nearly 6.5438+0.2 million. I know that in Shanghai, this income is not high, but I already feel very satisfied because I have no ambition. I hope my eldest brothers who earn tens of thousands of dollars a month don't despise me, hehe. As for the suspicion of "showing off" that may exist in the eyes of some friends, I want to explain:
1. I think, for many XDJM, this is an income enough to support their families. You can let them know that to be a salesman, you don't have to rely on the abduction of Miss Karaoke to serve you. Without these, you can do that job stably and live a well-fed life.
When I get married, I don't have to show off my income to get married.
In recent years, education has been industrialized and universities have expanded their enrollment. Of course, college students are as worthless as cabbage. Watching TV news, a job fair was crowded, and many college students were glad that they could hand in their resumes to HR and were not returned on the spot. In Shanghai, I know that some college students are looking for internship opportunities when they are about to graduate, even without asking for salary, just to leave a good impression on those employers who work hard and leave more opportunities after the internship. Undergraduate students still feel that they are cabbage, and junior college students and below are even more insecure and have no way out.
In this harsh climate, some XDJM have to settle for the second best after failing to apply for their favorite positions many times, because many people think that individuals can do sales without any professional knowledge and skills. There are also some young men, probably watching too many TV dramas, who think that sales is to accompany customers to miss karaoke and the scenery is relaxed. It seems that there are more sales friends around me than other positions, so I am longing for this position. For these reasons and other friends who don't know much about sales, I want to throw a cold water on them first.
For many occupations, adequate IQ is a prerequisite and often a sufficient condition. For example, if the IQ is less than 120, I think it is best not to be a programmer; Anyone with an IQ over 120 who has received professional training should have the foundation of being a programmer-of course, the number 120 is a wild guess, which may not be accurate. However, for sales, adequate IQ is a prerequisite, but not a sufficient condition. If you want to eat this bowl of rice, you must have an emotional intelligence higher than the average level of the crowd, or you should change your job quickly, or you should be prepared to continue this job for several years.
How can I know if I have the emotional intelligence to do sales? I don't have a test paper. I think of a few questions for the time being. You can ask yourself:
1. Do you think you have the ability to make a good first impression on most people who are prepared?
2. When you are talking to a stranger, can you relax yourself in 30 seconds and let the other person relax and talk to you with a smile in 5 minutes? As long as he didn't quarrel with his wife last night or just got scolded by his boss _)
Do you think you have the confidence to be "neither humble nor supercilious", because when you do the second item, your goal may be factory operators, engineers in technical groups, workshop directors, or even factory directors with an annual output of several billion.
4. When the other person's psychology is undergoing subtle changes, such as from vigilance to relaxation, from identification to doubt, from concentration to absent-mindedness, can you be keenly aware of it in time?
5. For something that everyone expects you to do well, but you know that your ability must reach 120%, and you have to spend a lot of private time communicating with people you don't like, can you ask yourself to keep doing it?
6. For someone who doesn't like you and you don't like him, can you always smile at him when he is indifferent to you, tolerate him from the heart, and finally turn him into your friend?
7. Do you have the psychological quality to walk into the customer's office with a smile after being rejected 10 times?
………………
If you answer yes to more than 90% of these questions, I suggest you don't do sales. But we should be thankful that EQ can be cultivated the day after tomorrow. If you are willing to bear hardships, you can still do this job well, but you have to work much harder than others.
Well, if half of XDJM people are scared away by my question, I want to talk to my remaining friends about the following question-which industry should we sell _
2. Which industry should I engage in sales?
After working in a state-owned enterprise for two years, I am faced with the choice of finding a job, just like many XDJM today. At that time, my biggest dissatisfaction with my original job was that the salary of state-owned enterprises was too low, and there was no house, car and wife in Shanghai at that time, and there was no one in the whole 13 place. So as soon as I opened the recruitment website, I searched in the order of salary, no matter what his business, as long as his salary is high, hehe. I remember seeing a recruitment for insurance in Hong Zhong, and the monthly salary of sales staff filled in the form was 65,438+0,000 yuan to 990,000 yuan. I couldn't help but feel heartache, and 990,000 ~ ~ ~ sent a resume email as soon as possible. In any case, there is no cost in sending e-mail. At that time, I would send it as long as I felt a little. If the other party responds, I will investigate and think again. That's what I thought ―― Why do you know your employer so well? You know people. Do they value you? Can you understand so many enterprises? It's more time-saving to get to know people after they have a preliminary impression on you. Of course, looking for a job now is not that mentality.
Two weeks later, someone from Hong Zhong Insurance Company called me and asked me to go for an interview. At this time, I began to seriously consider whether this job is suitable for me. XDJM, I don't know if I don't think, and I'm shocked if I think.
In fact, because I have no training, I don't know what kind of quality I need to do insurance sales today, but according to my experience in selling insurance in recent years, I felt not bad at that time, just asking for high emotional intelligence. If you have a strong desire for success, good interpersonal skills, energy and good health, it is estimated that there are few unsuccessful insurances. I have all these, but, but it seems that many people have these characteristics. What advantages do I have compared with them? This is a big problem. XDJM, if you don't have the advantage of less than 30% of all employees in an enterprise, you will get twice the result with half the effort, and vice versa. Although I knew very little at that time, fortunately, I did it. In other words, if you are engaged in insurance, just be smart. But I am not only a smart person, but also a smart person who 16 graduated from a prestigious engineering school with formal education. Do people who do insurance sales spend so much effort to learn some professional knowledge? Very few, I'm afraid. Then why should I abandon what I have learned and compete with others for some jobs that 16 can do without studying? Isn't that too bad? In that case, I don't think I have a chance to get a monthly salary of 990 thousand, and the maximum monthly salary is about 5 thousand. However, if I do the same job in an industry that can give full play to my existing advantages, maybe my monthly salary will be 10k. People should go where they can get more work, shouldn't they? In this way, I turned down this promising job of 990,000/month. Of course, I am not saying that Hong Zhong Insurance Company is not good, but that it is not suitable for me. In fact, my wife bought Hong Zhong insurance for our family two years ago and successfully sold it to a little girl from the "elite class" in Hong Zhong. I have a crush on her. This elite claims to have a bachelor's degree or above, but I don't think they will suffer because they are basically liberal arts students-and science students will suffer too much because you have many other more favorable choices. _ In fact, I have a good impression on some companies in the insurance industry, such as AIA. They have been with me for six years, but they have not made it. In this case, there is no other essential difference between their failure and Hong Zhong's success. In fact, their professional quality is also very high. Unfortunately, they made a fatal mistake, that is, they didn't find the right person to take charge of the project. In our family, my wife is in charge of such small things as buying insurance, and I don't ask. I am only in charge of major events, that is, all the friends who can go to the first three news broadcasts at that level have found me and are doomed to failure; Hong Zhong found my wife and was destined to succeed. We can talk about the skills of finding decision makers in the future.
By denying the process of insurance, I found that I should give full play to my advantages, that is, return to my familiar instrument industry. I have studied for four years and worked in the industry for two years. If I don't find a job from you, why should I give up the easy and ask for the difficult? For the next six years, I will continue to work in this industry that I am familiar with, and today I feel like a duck to water. XDJM, I'm not saying never change industries. In reality, there are indeed many people who are very successful in changing industries. But if you want to succeed more easily and support your family more quickly, you are much more likely to succeed in an industry where you have received professional training than in a strange industry-if the monthly income difference between the two options before you is not more than 2k, you must be the familiar one. This is my suggestion.
3. Relationship sales and technology sales
In my opinion, there are basically two kinds of people who succeed in sales in China. One can be called relationship sales and the other can be called technical sales. Of course, this division is relatively simple, but it is basically applicable to XDJM over 90% of Tianya. If you sell a set of tens of millions of equipment, this is beyond my discussion. I think it is difficult to do that kind of sales without a hard background. The background cannot be created by your efforts. I just want to talk about what we can change.
If what you sell basically has no technical content that needs personnel to explain, of course, there is no technical sales, and this field can only be entered by relationship sales. Sometimes it doesn't even work. The market share of products basically depends on the ratio of performance to price, and the role that salespeople can play is greatly reduced. For example, the current property market, let's buy a building. Before the sales girl spoke, after comparing dozens of buildings and greening traffic, we basically decided the building you want to buy in our hearts. The role of the sales girl is mainly to answer questions and answer small questions you care about, such as specific bus and subway lines. So most salesgirls basically don't need any professional skills, and they seem to be fired quickly. According to my wild guess, steel, cement, electric fans and pig feed are probably of this type. I'm not familiar with sales in this industry, so I won't talk about it.
If the product has a little technical content, its users can understand the difference between different brands without manual work or even daily experience. Because of the complex performance, the cost performance ratio can not be easily distinguished by people without professional training. At this time, the value of sales staff began to be reflected. Excellent salespeople can build a bridge between products and users by virtue of their professional knowledge and communication skills, so that users can understand and master their company's products more easily and accurately, thus obtaining satisfactory services. You know, users seem to buy products, but in essence they want to buy services. For example, on the surface you want to buy an air conditioner, but in essence you want to buy a service that can cool and heat at any time. If there is no sales staff with rich professional knowledge, you can recommend a model with appropriate power and good cost performance according to the size, room type and population income of your room. Aren't you a big head in the mall? You also hope that he can read your mind and briefly explain to you the advanced functions you are most likely to use in this air conditioner in five minutes, so that you don't have to go through thick instructions. If a beautiful air conditioner is equipped with an excellent salesperson, its sales volume will definitely be more than double that of an air conditioner equipped with a salesperson casually next to it, right? Therefore, on the one hand, the responsibility of sales staff is to help users get satisfactory service, on the other hand, it is to greatly enhance users' desire to buy, thus improving the company's market share and achieving a win-win effect for customers and companies.
Therefore, a salesperson should walk on two legs, understand technology and be good at interacting with people. However, at present in China, many industrial products are sold by Miss Karaoke. If you have a technical knowledge and are amiable, if you can't share the same bad taste with others, you may not win the contract. Therefore, successful salespeople in some companies are also successful as long as they can get customers, even if they don't know anything technically-only the company must provide him with strong technical support. This kind of sales is called relationship sales for the time being. And a person who doesn't like this set can do well with technical knowledge and interpersonal skills. Accordingly, I call it technical sales. In fact, technical sales also need strong interpersonal skills, just walk on two legs. Personally, I don't like relationship selling. I think this is not what we "scholars" should pursue. So what I'm going to discuss later is the problems faced by technology sales.
So, what kind of person can become a qualified technical salesperson? Someone with enough technical background, of course. If we think it's a pity to have a technical foundation for sales, then there will only be greasy and disgusting relationship sales in this market. If you are a buyer, are you willing to deal with these guys? Of course not. Everyone thinks alike. You know, many of our customers also want people who know how to cooperate with them. So, XDJM students who study science and engineering and like to deal with people, our opportunity has come. Roll up your sleeves.
4. Will salespeople be out of touch with technology?
Brother Eagle 7 said before that "it has been sold for two years, and the technical deficiency is more difficult to make up". Personally, I don't think it's completely right. You can discuss it.
First of all, I want to correct some misunderstandings about DDMM, and think that sales and technology are easily decoupled. In fact, they don't understand that sales is a career of continuous learning. In fact, there is no end to your learning technology, especially in the IT industry where knowledge explodes. You think that studying for two years can make your foundation more solid, but when you start selling cutting-edge products, you will find that this thing has surpassed your study in many ways. But fortunately, even if you don't study for those two years, as long as you are good at continuous charging, your basic knowledge is enough to help you keep up with the development of industry technology. For example, our company is one of the top 500 enterprises in America. There are always dozens of days of sales staff training every year, and technical questions are answered online. If we can't answer them, the salary adjustment at the end of the year will be affected. Can we not study hard? Is it easy for me?
Then why can we have the time and energy to learn technology while selling? Don't think that what you learn in this way is "half a bottle of vinegar", which is not as good as the knowledge of technicians. You see, technicians deal with technology all day. If they are occasionally asked to introduce products to users, users will not yawn. _ The key here is that most technicians are most concerned about their own technology and products, and they don't really understand what users care about. In fact, salespeople just don't need to pay special attention to the core of technology and the realization of products. They just need to know what users care about, master this knowledge and introduce it to them in a way that users can understand best. For example, when a technician makes a product introduction, he will introduce how advanced his product technology is, what cutting-edge technology is used to achieve this performance, what is the current test data, and how much we will improve in the near future ... He thinks it is very clever, but users are fighting with their eyelids. And an excellent salesperson should first talk to users to find out what problems users have in using similar products and what problems they are most worried about, hoping to solve them as soon as possible, and then tell users with joy that our new products are designed to solve your problems and have been successfully applied in your familiar colleague XX Company, ensuring users' eyes wide open and spirit hundred times.
Similarly, if you sell software, I think you should be more concerned about the technical details of this software. It should be what kind of company you are going to visit tomorrow, what is its profit model, what are the obstacles to its current development, why it is interested in such products, and how your products can help it improve its competitiveness in profit model. And these problems, you can't learn in the technical department of the company, you can only learn from users.
Constantly visiting customers is a continuous learning process. In this process, it will never be out of touch with technology, but will become more and more aware of the technical details that users really care about.
5. Responsibility and importance of sales staff
In the eyes of some XDJM, sales seem to be made by people with poor reading and skills. I can only say that this is a big misunderstanding. If you don't even have the IQ to read good books and learn technology well, selling is just making a living. I don't think it is possible to do it well. Looking back on why I am in sales, I was also a first-class scholarship winner when I graduated from one of the best universities in Shanghai. But I don't think I am interested in technical research. I think it is only suitable for students who are immersed in it and are not bored but have fun. And it takes talent, brothers, and it can't be cultivated. So I won't take the postgraduate entrance examination. "Research"-what a sacred word, let's not defile it. After all, I am also a top student, monitor. You can't say that I have no hope of studying, can you go into sales? Ha ha. Moreover, in my current company, the sales position and salary are the best among all positions. Other colleagues will always sigh that you are still selling well, but someone has bought a car or something. In fact, in almost all companies, the salaries of salespeople who normally complete tasks are higher than those of other departments, and the company's various policies will also tilt toward sales.
The reason for this result is nothing more than the boasting of our sales staff, which is determined by the nature of the company under the market economy. Students, what is the purpose of the company? Win the maximum profit. How did the profit come from? Sales revenue minus all costs. Without sales revenue, where can we get profits? Without sales staff, where can we get sales revenue? I have seen a funny post posted by an angry little brother in this section, to the effect that sales don't create value, and why technicians work so hard but don't make much money. I'm not saying that technicians should not have high incomes, but of course technicians should have high incomes, so that our science and technology can progress; But excellent salespeople deserve higher income, because you think that the fragrance of wine is not afraid of the depth of the alley, but in this era of information explosion, if a company does not have a strong sales force, the cutting-edge products will make you rot in the warehouse! Otherwise, others will sell it at a high price through their excellent sales network. The brother who said that salespeople do not directly create social value is completely divorced from this market economy society. In this way of thinking, I doubt whether he thinks that the existence of business is meaningless, because business does not directly create value. Then I think this kind of guy should not buy American handbags at Carrefour in front of his home, but should fly to the place of origin to buy them himself. Alas, there are still many people who read dead books in this society who don't understand how efficient commercial circulation can greatly save social costs. Isn't saving costs equal to creating wealth?
That is beside the point. Pull it back, hehe.
Now I find an interesting phenomenon, that is, it is difficult to recruit sales staff. The basic salary 1k of small private enterprises can't find anyone to sell, and the basic salary of bigger companies can't find anyone. The basic salary of foreign companies can't recruit people in need for half a year. On the other hand, a large number of XDJM can't find a company, or they can't stay when they find a job. I think there is something wrong with the enterprise system, communication and the mentality of job seekers. Some buddies think they know everything and have spent so many opportunities to study for N years. Isn't it easy to come out and do a small business? Although there is no order yet, boss, you shouldn't give me such a low salary and let me live like this in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. So I don't think I have talent. Why should I work hard? Brother, why don't you put yourself in others' shoes? Is it easy to be a boss? You have to take the risk of starting a company yourself. Will you bear the loss together? Don't think that there is nothing to lose if you don't do well in the company. Do you know how much tangible and intangible losses you will lose if you give an old customer? If you make a few small orders and hundreds of thousands of businesses end up in the sky, have you ever thought about the cost that a company has to bear for these sales revenues? If it is a trading company, you probably only know the purchase cost. Have you calculated all kinds of taxes, office rent, travel expenses, printing water and electricity, as well as the expenses of marketing department, contract department, commerce department, finance department and even administration department and personnel department? How much net profit do you think you can bring to the company by doing hundreds of thousands and millions of businesses a year? Therefore, I advise XDJM who has just entered the workplace to do sales, not to pay attention to the starting salary. Few private business owners are willing to give a very high basic salary without knowing how much you weigh. Foreign companies with better treatment are generally willing to recruit fresh graduates to be the talent pool of any other position, but rarely let you try to decide the position of the company's life and death.
But fortunately, although the starting salary of sales graduates is often lower than other positions, as long as you are a mule or a horse, you are really good at creating benefits for enterprises. In the foreseeable future, wages will definitely rise much faster than other positions. Because your income is bound to be linked to the benefits you create, it is difficult to quantify other positions, but sales are extremely intuitive.
6. One of the necessary sales stunts: "Always empathize"
As a salesman, you are in contact with all kinds of customers, and the biggest difficulty you face always comes from customers. As a newcomer, you are often surprised to find that no matter how advanced your products are, how famous your company is, and how favorable your price is (you have tried your best to ask your boss for this discount)-you think that if you buy it yourself, you will choose the brand you are selling, but users actually choose your competitors! Why? Depressed? Are you depressed? Can't figure it out? ^_^
XDJM, we often unconsciously forget that "advanced products, famous companies and favorable prices" are all considered from our own perspective. If we spend all our time with users on rendering and strengthening such advantages, our failure is doomed.
So, what should we promote to users? Promote the issues that users really care about. Have you ever wondered what users really care about? Hehe, in fact, users in different positions have different concerns! If you go to the user's office and introduce products to several people in different positions, what you say is 80% the same, then you waste valuable meeting time. According to my personal experience, at most 40% is the same content, and the remaining 60% must be elaborated and communicated according to the concerns of each specific customer. This ratio less than XDJM means that you haven't really thought about your customers.
Then how do I know what each user really cares about? Let's be thankful for one thing-human feelings are interlinked. As long as we always put ourselves in his shoes, you will know what he will care about. For example, when we visit an enterprise user, we first put aside the need to emphasize your company's commercial reputation to the purchasing department. We don't need to talk about any products, because they don't understand. They just introduce the products and treat the boss, workshop director and operators differently, right? For users, it is necessary to emphasize the convenience of its use. First, it is very similar to the products they used to. Secondly, why the newly added functions can greatly reduce their labor intensity, so that they can master this new baby with no effort. For the workshop director, emphasizing why the reliability of products is so enhanced can help him significantly extend the trouble-free running time of equipment, reduce the occurrence of accidents and reduce the chance of being scolded by the boss. For the business owner, we concentrate on helping him calculate how much operating cost can be saved by using this new product to reduce equipment failures. It's best to quote the statistical data of adopted enterprises in the same industry, and propose to accompany him to visit the enterprises with successful parts operation. Of course, this is typical, so that everyone can understand it at a glance. There are still many details to pay attention to in the specific work. In a word, the magic of operation lies in single-mindedness. One of the more difficult points is that users often don't take the initiative to raise their own concerns, but we have to analyze them ourselves and then move towards this goal.
Therefore, never expect a memorized speech to meet all customers. Before talking to each of your customers, always consider what he will care about from his specific point of view. Don't expect him to take the initiative to bring it up, you should skillfully lead the topic to his subconscious concerns.
7. The product quotation of this company is 30% higher than that of its competitors. How to deal with customers?
This is one of bloom XD's problems. The reason why I want to talk about him first is because my own company's products are often about 30% higher than those of competitors, so I often have to explain to users why, and I often have to teach our dealers how to explain to users. Maybe some XDJM will become bigger as soon as they hear that the products they want to sell are more expensive than their competitors, but in fact, I really hope that I sell the products with the highest price in this market.
Why? You can think about it. Other things being equal, it is natural that products with low prices sell better than products with high prices. If you are a seller of products with reserve price, what is there to boast about making a single order? Where can your value be reflected? On the contrary, only when you successfully sell high-priced products can you show the advantages of your basic understanding of your company and products, which shows that you basically have the professional skills and skills that a salesman should have, and prove that you basically have the value of being a salesman in a company.
On the other hand, we must admit that your price is 30% higher than that of your competitors, because if the price is unreasonable for a long time, you must either adapt to the market or face bankruptcy. Therefore, although it is one of the responsibilities of sales staff to report the sales promotion difficulties caused by high prices to the company, it is definitely not the first important job, because pricing is not our responsibility, nor is it something that can be changed within our ability. Our most important job is to sell more company products under the current price system.
Well, now that we have cut our own back, we are facing a last-ditch situation. With this determination, victory is in sight.
What should we do now? Take the dragon slaying road, the first sharp weapon in sales-forever empathy. Think about it. If you were a buyer, under what circumstances would you choose a product that was 30% more expensive? I want to give an example of something that everyone should have bought-rice. Please raise your hand if XDJM here has never bought rice. If no one raises their hands, I will continue, hehe. XDJM, which really hasn't bought rice, had better go to the supermarket to pick some rice first, and then come back and look down ~ ~ ~ ~
When we approached the rice counter of Carrefour or Wal-Mart, what did you see? Dozens of different origins, different companies and different brands of rice-just like your customers are confused when they are faced with similar products you sell. What is the first thing you will do at this time? It is necessary to scan all the prices ―― just as our first contact customers often ask you "the approximate price of your products" within ten sentences of formal conversation. But did you finally get the cheapest kind of rice, XD? Anyway, I have never done such a stupid thing. The cheapest brand is often the first one I rule out. You know, most customers will definitely not choose the cheapest product in the end. And I can assure you that the similarity between the products selected by customers and the rice selected by you will not be less than 70% in all details, which is definitely worth reference.
So, what happened between the user's inquiry and the decision of which product to buy, that is, between the process of sweeping the price and the decision of which rice to buy?