Digital Sales Strategies: Leveraging Social Media and Online Platforms for Sales Success


In today’s fast-paced digital world, the art of selling has transcended traditional methods, embracing the vast potential of the digital landscape. Welcome to another insightful entry on “Best Salesman,” where we explore cutting-edge strategies for sales success. Today’s focus is on harnessing the power of social media and online platforms to skyrocket your sales.

1. Embracing the Digital Shift:
The first step is acknowledging the immense potential of digital platforms. With billions of users worldwide, social media and online platforms offer a vast audience for your products or services, along with unparalleled targeting capabilities.

2. Building a Strong Online Presence:

  • Consistent Branding: Ensure your online presence reflects your brand’s identity consistently across all platforms.
  • Engaging Content: Create content that resonates with your audience – informative blog posts, engaging videos, and eye-catching graphics.

3. Utilizing Social Media Platforms:
Each social media platform offers unique advantages for sales:

  • LinkedIn: Ideal for B2B sales, networking, and establishing thought leadership.
  • Facebook and Instagram: Great for B2C sales, showcasing products, and running targeted ad campaigns.
  • X(Twitter): Effective for real-time engagement, customer service, and brand visibility.

4. Harnessing the Power of SEO:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is critical for increasing visibility online. Use relevant keywords, optimize your website content, and maintain an active blog to improve your search engine rankings, driving more traffic to your site.

5. Leveraging Email Marketing:
Email marketing remains a powerful tool for direct sales communications. Personalize your emails, segment your audience, and provide valuable content to nurture leads and convert them into customers.

6. Engaging with Customers Online:

  • Prompt Responses: Respond quickly to queries and comments on social media and your website.
  • Community Building: Create and nurture online communities around your brand. Engage in discussions, provide valuable insights, and establish a loyal customer base.

7. Utilizing Online Reviews and Testimonials:
Positive reviews and testimonials are incredibly persuasive. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on your website and social media platforms.

8. Exploring E-commerce and Online Marketplaces:
If applicable, sell your products on e-commerce platforms or marketplaces. These platforms can expand your reach and provide an easy, accessible shopping experience for customers.

9. Analyzing Data for Improved Strategies:
Digital platforms provide a wealth of data. Use analytics tools to track performance, understand customer behavior, and refine your sales strategies accordingly.

10. Staying Up-to-Date with Digital Trends:
The digital landscape is ever-evolving. Stay informed about the latest trends and technologies to keep your strategies fresh and effective.

Digital sales strategies are no longer just an option; they are a necessity in the modern sales landscape. By effectively leveraging social media and online platforms, you can expand your reach, engage more effectively with customers, and drive significant sales growth. Stay tuned to “Best Salesman” for more insights into mastering the art of sales in the digital age.

Best ways to cold call as a salesman

Selling a particular product to someone unknown is quite a difficult task because as long as the person does not know you, he will not have the confidence and the will to purchase the product from you. He may want to give all the available excuses to avoid you. However, this does not mean that it is simple to sell something to a person you know or have a good relation. Selling is definitely an art and it takes lot of pain and practice to master the art. Not every individual can sell things. People who want to make a career in sales should first understand if they have the potential to be patient and can persuade people in buying his product.

It is said that if you are able to fix an appointment, you have already completed 50% of your job. The rest 50% depends on how the salesman who meets the prospect handles the situation. In the entire process of sales, the first 50% is the most crucial one. We get so many calls from people who want to sell something or the other and this really makes life frustrating. People have work on do and when they are in middle of their work, getting a cold call from a salesman can really irk you. So what can a cold caller do to work it out differently?

Check if it is the right time to talk to him:-

While you start a call, it is important that you greet the person first and after having introduced yourself to him/her, check if it is the right time to talk to him about the stuff you want to sell. If you just start going without even trying to know if the person would like to talk to you or no, he/she might straight away hung up the call and you lose a prospect. Just in case if the person says he/she is busy for the moment, try to know when you can call him/her next and ensure that you call the person at the time mentioned. It is also possible that the person may be busy the next time you call him/her but it is prudent that you take the next available time to call.

Speak well about your product and try to know his requirements:-

Before you start making calls, try to know your product well. If you get a prospect who is interested in your product and if he asks questions, you should be able to answer them. That will show how confident and knowledgeable you are with your product. Other than this, it is important that you check if the prospect has any requirement of your product. If you are trying to sell something that is commonly used item, then you can even create a need.

Do not be pushy with the prospect:-

Ideally, we don’t like people who push us to do something we are not interested in. If you are able to generate interest for your product, you can make a sale but if you be pushy with the prospect you may lose the sale.

Get a Mentor to become a Great Salesman

We all want to excel in life but sadly only few are able to make to the pinnacle. It is undoubtedly their hard work that pays. No can reap the sweet fruit without having worked hard for it and so have the men and women who have managed to get to the top has gone through rigorous hardships in life. When you are going through a lot of hardships, you feel like giving it up but there is one thing that can keep you going and that is a source of inspiration. If you have a mentor in life who is guiding you all the way then the path of success may not be so painful. You will have someone that you know will help you come out of difficulties, who will show you the right way to do things and who will inspire you when you feel completely down and frustrated with how things are shaping up in your life.

Especially when you want to become a great salesman, it would be very difficult to reach the top without the help of a mentor. Salesmanship is not everybody’s cup of tea and people with exceptional persuading qualities are able to survive in the market. Still at times they find it hard to combat certain situations and feel like giving it up. This is when a mentor comes handy. With loads of his/her experience, he/she can guide you how to hone your skills and what you can do better to improve your selling technique. They are the ones who can see your plus and minuses and can guide you accordingly.

Finding a proper mentor may be difficult but you have to keep the search on till the time you hit upon someone whom you find can help you achieve your goal. Few things that one should see in a person to consider him/her as their mentor are as follows.

A person who can understand you:-

It is very crucial for your mentor to know you properly before he/she starts mentoring you. A mentor should be aware of your strengths and weaknesses and should work hard to inspire you to take care of your weaknesses and concentrate more on your strengths. We all have weaknesses in life but someone who can overcome his weakness and stress more on his strengths can taste success. It is futile to spend time working on your weaknesses, rather work hard on your strengths keeping your weaknesses at bay and never allowing them to become a barrier for your growth.

The mentor should know the industry well:-

Your mentor should be someone who has loads of experience in selling things. He/she may not be an ace salesperson but that does not disqualify him/her to become a good mentor. The person can with his/her experience can mold you and make you a better salesman. He/she should be able to guide you in the different phases of becoming a great salesman.

It is important to understand that a great salesman does not mean an ace salesman but it means a person who can sell things by understanding the need of the client.

Product Knowledge is a key to be a successful salesman

To become someone successful in life, you need to go through a lot of struggle and hardships in life. Nothing will come easily at your doorstep. Continuous struggle is the only way by which you can attain a successful career. When it comes to become a successful salesman the effort increases. You got to sacrifice a lot of things in life and only focus on your skill. Becoming a successful salesman is perhaps the hardest profession. It is not easy to sell something to an unknown person. It is rather difficult to get someone’s attention towards you and once you have it, you got to exceptionally good to pitch the product that you want to sell. At times, people may not feel the need of your product or service but somewhere down the line, the thing you are selling plays an important part in their life that they are unaware of. You got to make them aware of the importance of your stuff to them in their life. They may never find it important as long as they feel the need for it. It should be you who will work as an eye opener to them making them realize the importance of the product or service in their lives.

One very important thing that plays a crucial role to become a successful salesman is the product knowledge of the salesman. If the salesman knows what he is selling and how important it is in a person’s life, he/she may not find it difficult to create a need in the mind of the prospect. The salesman only has to convince the prospect that not having the product can have serious ramifications in his life and he can protect his interest by buying the product from him.

A salesman should also keep an eagle’s view on the competitor’s product and services. It is not just him who is selling things. There are many other men and women who are in the same profession and are selling competitive products. Therefore, he should be in a position to counter a prospect when the prospect starts comparing his product with the product of some other company. This means that the salesman should not only learn about his product but also have to study what the competitors are selling and how better they are in terms of their quality. Also need to check on the features they competitors are offering and what strategy you can follow to counter those features.

Alternatively, innovation is something that helps the salesman in selling the product. A salesman is the eye and ears of the company he is representing. Therefore, if at all he gets to know of something that is superior to what he is selling, he can make a note of it and inform his company about it. Concurrently, he should also make a note of customer’s grievances or complaints that they had with a particular product. He can let the company know about such grievances and thus make things better for the end users.

Become a customer care machine

When we have problems with things we depend on someone who can help us fix it. Moreover, when we buy a product that is new to us and we are learning to use the stuff, it becomes all the more important for us to find someone who can help us with our queries. In case, if any of the product stops working, we need to speak with somebody who can walk us through the ways to get the thing back in business. In situations like these, we see the need of a customer care professional to be very essential. It is not possible to go all the way to the shop to see what went wrong with the product. It will only increase your cost. It will be rather ideal to talk to a person who knows how you can fix the problem and in case if the product needs some special check then he/she can arrange someone to your place that can get the problem resolved.

Other than this, in the world of online shopping you buy things from all over the world. So if you have bought something from an alien country and need help, you just can’t go there to fix the problem. In such scenarios, a customer care professional becomes handy. All you have to do is call the customer care number and talk to a person. Talk about the problem and see how they help you to fix the issue.

Few essentials are required to become a good customer care professional.

Ability to listen and understand the problem:-

In order to become a good customer care professional, you need to be a good listener. Be patient and hear out the issue. Understand the problem well before you start giving solutions. Often we begin to assume things even before we have heard the entire problem of the customer. That can go completely against us. It may irate the customer and he may decide to give upon the product or service. If you hear the problem well at one go and are able to understand it clearly, then you can start thinking of the available solutions and can also suggest some alternatives. This may make the customer happy.

Be quick to response:-

Here you have to remember that the person calling you can’t see you and therefore if you are late in responding to the customer then he may feel neglected and this may make him irate. Therefore, you should be always quick to respond to his questions/problems. If it is an ongoing issue, you should be apologetic for the situation and inform the customer about the expected time when the issue will get resolved.

Have a through product knowledge:-

Having good product knowledge is the key element of this business. If you know the in and out of the product and are confident that you will be able to solve the problem; it won’t take long to come with a solution. You can give numerous alternatives that will help the customer fix the issue.

Top Five Indispensable Benefits of Salesmanship

Merchandising regards as salesmanship and many of us think personal selling is about influencing technique. It has the capacity to turn a prospective buyer in to a client. There is no confusion that persuasion is the key skill of every seller. Are you a budding salesman? If ‘yes’, then this article will surely help you to boost your career with the quality of salesmanship or personal selling.

Most of the marketing departments have more than one person to advertise salesmanship. It is a huge responsibility and if it is controlled by one salesman, then the company’s growth chart falls down automatically. Personal selling is the principal factor of marketing which helps the manufacturing organisations to earn more and more revenue. Salesmanship is a knack of trading products and services. This art induces the punters to procure the commodity. In today’s contemporary competitive business world, application and significance of salesmanship is gradually augmenting. In the manufacturing and distributing industries, salesperson plays an important role. Personal selling is accepted as the universal marketing strategy because it contributes a lot in developing country’s economic condition. Some of the marketing professors stated, “It is the ability to persuade people to buy goods or services at a profit to the seller and benefit to the buyer”.

Advantages of Personal Selling for the Customers

  • It enables the punters to get quality commodity in reasonable price.
  • This helps the customers to express their grievances and suggestions to the sellers which in turn assist the manufacturing companies to rectify their mistakes.
  • This salesmanship technique facilitates the consumers to choose their best products according to their taste and requirements.
  • A salesman performs as a friend or guide to the purchasers. It helps the consumers to gain knowledge of any novel product.

Benefits of Salesmanship for the Businessmen

  • Personal selling boosts the brand image of a company and its products and services. In other words, we can say that a salesman works as the ears and eyes of the manufacturers.
  • It gives the opportunity to the makers to perk up their product’s quality, package and design. The sellers come to know about their lacking products by the feedback of the customers.
  • This salesmanship updates the traders with latest market value and encourages them to participate in this competitive business world.
  • The incessant demand created by this promotional technique aids in lessening the seasonal instability in requirement.
  • It facilitates the merchants to protect the economies’ profits of degree and advertising.
  • It gives scope to the novice businessmen to promote their new products in the souk.
  • Salesmanship assists in finding the potential purchasers and generates demand by earning the confidence of the punters.

Salesmanship is not only beneficial for the traders and consumers but also helpful for our modern society. It is considered as the pillar of all business activities. Government of every nation always focuses on personal selling because it helps in augmenting their revenues. It reduces the risk of inflation and generates employment opportunities for the youngsters. So, in the concluding lines, we can say confidently that if you want to expand your business, apply salesmanship and become an eye witness of this effective marketing strategy.

Tips to handle different customers in salesmanship

Are you facing any problem in winning the customers through salesmanship? If “yes”, let us tell you that you are not the only person who is facing problem in handling the customers; there are many other marketers too. To boost the sales deal, good salesmanship is very essential. Every customer behaves in an individual way. This behaviour is very important in handling the customers efficiently to change the conversation to a sale.

To get a clear understanding of the dealing process related with the customer’s behaviour, just check out the following article.

How to handle the different customers?

  • Talkative behavior: – The garrulous or talkative people go on saying without paying any attention to the words that the salesman is saying. They always pick up faults in other’s clothes.  But, it’s not very difficult to handle them. You should try to shift their focus to the product only. Allure them with the different offers that your company is giving by explaining other details of the product. Have patience and try to clear all the queries they have.
  • Calm behavior: – These persons are the hard nut to crack. It is really very difficult to look into their mind. Tell them everything related with the product. Start a candid conversation with them asking them what they are looking for in the product. Solve all their queries as politely as you can. This will help you to get a sale.
  • Nervous behavior: – Those who are nervous lack in confidence. Try to start a polite and calm conversation with them. As they are generally shy in nature, they may hesitate to ask you every detail of the equipment. Provide them with all the general information like its application, price and how to maintain it after using it.
  • Suspicious behavior:– These kinds of people always disbelieve the salesman and his product. Do whatever you can to win their beliefs. They may scrutinize your product in an irritating way. But, don’t get angry. Keep smiling and clear all their queries and go on answering every question with patience even if they ask the same question again and again.
  • Impatient behavior:– They are always in a hurry even when buying a huge constructional equipment. These people can give you good sales, as they don’t spend much time with you in unfolding their big list of questions. So, you also don’t have to repeat the same words to them. But, mind it, these people can come back to you to ask further questions which they forgot to ask in the first meeting. That’s why, it’s better to explain them clearly all the usage of the equipment along with its product and customer service.
  • Shopper’s behavior:- These kinds of customers want to get information about the equipment’s price and application. They ask the questions with the genuine intention of buying them. You should warmly welcome them giving the necessary information about the equipment.

 

No, it’s not at all easy to deal with all the above said customers types. But, practice and experience will definitely sharpen your skill in this matter.

Become a Great Salesman by Following These Tips

Selling is a difficult business and one has to strive a lot during his initial days to master this art. It’s said that people with tough skin and innovative skill can only become a great salesman in the future. Innovation is a much needed product that we all are expected to possess but why a tough skin. When you are on the fields and trying to sell stuffs, you’d be experiencing a lot of harsh rejections which is more like a bitter pill which not everybody is able to gulp in. It requires lot of courage and sheer determination on the part of the salesman to hear those harsh criticisms and still carry on with his job.

More often, you are not even liked by your pals as they have an intuition that you would be selling your products to them. This takes you away from your friends and you may see yourself to be completely alone. Therefore, you need to make your way up very swiftly or else you may find yourself lost and may even decide to drop this profession. Though it may offer you rich rewards but to get that, you need to sweat the heck out.

What it takes to become a successful salesman? There are two simple things. First is to know everything about the product you are trying to sell and secondly be honest with your customer and don’t sell something they are not looking to buy. In order words, never miss-sell things to your customers.

Following are few tips which one may need to become a great salesman

Knowing your product:-  You can’t sell a product if you don’t know what you are trying to sell. Just giving mere sales talks can’t fetch you customers in volumes. For that, you need to know what you are dealing with. For the first few days, while you’re in your training, try and know everything about the product and once you hit the field you should be able to answer most of your client’s queries. In case, you come across something you don’t know, just accept it. There’s no harm in saying “I’m not sure about this. However, I can get an answer for this”, and do revert with an answer.

Miss-selling is forbidden:-  Understanding the need of your customer is very important. Selling them what they don’t need is like cheating them and no one like to feel cheated. Hence, you need to take ultra care that you know what they are asking for and in case if you don’t have what they need, they to come up with alternatives which may help in most cases.

Be creative:-  Being innovative is the key to become a successful salesperson. You should be sharp enough to come out with innovative ideas while giving demonstration to your client. The product here is not necessary. You can sell anything if you have a creative mind. Though the demand and supply factor plays a vital role in sales, it however doesn’t stop you from selling your product if you’ve a creative head.

Dreaming of Becoming the Best Salesman – It’s Time to Make It Come True

We all must have dreamt of becoming someone great in our lives. Some has aspired to become engineers, some astronauts, some must have thought of joining the army (if they were adventurous by nature) and some wanted to become salesman. But the work of a salesman is no joke and the one who is into it knows what kind of serious business he is dealing with. Today we see a lot of colleges have courses on business marketing which is more or less selling your company’s brand to other big companies. There they hone your skills and shape you up to become an able marketing manager. In other words, he is turned into a very sharp salesman who has learnt the tricks of the trade and is supposed to use them to get business for his company.

Selling is an art and you can master it only if you practice it day in and out. For many, selling is a toughest job they have ever done in their life and there have been numerous instances where people left the job out of frustration. Selling is all about numbers. You need to hit high volume to earn accolades from your boss and eventually earn good incentives. However, you can’t expect that to happen in the first few months of your job. Because in the first few months, you do nothing but learn the game well.

You go out on the field with your manager or your senior sales rep and hear them talk with their clients. This is for you to learn how to speak professionally with people and how to crack the deal. You may not adopt the very style of your senior sales rep. Rather, you should make one of your own. Now that comes with a lot of practice teamed with too much of rejections and failures. Nevertheless, it teaches you to deal with rejections in life. Presumably, no one can deal with rejections better than a salesman.

Few tips one should consider to become a successful salesman.

Join the best university:- You need to keep your foundation strong and therefore you should get enrolled with the university which is renowned for its teaching in business marketing. It will definitely not be a waste of money and you’ll come out learning something which you probably never knew and would also help you a long way in your future. Other than that, you also need to work hard to learn your lessons. At times, you may find things quite boring and may also annoy you, but you got to carry it on till you reach the goal.

Innovation is the key:-  The level of intelligence differ from people to people. However, if you always think about ways to sell your things, you come out with some real great innovative ideas. You can show your creativity in your presentations. Try to make it as simple as you can but add things which make it look simple rather than just keep on writing stuffs in it. You can use some cartoon characters on your presentation and then link it up with your product. You need to be extremely smart while you are dealing with things like these.

Be confident:- You need to be confident with your approach. When you’re representing your company, people want you to be confident while you speak about your brand/product. Any fumble or mishandling things may go against you. Hence, you need to be very careful while you’re presenting youself.

Videos Marketing as Compared to Other Forms of Marketing

Videos Marketing as Compared to Other Forms of Marketing

Setting up a business is just the beginning. The real challenge is to market it and let others know about your product and services. Perhaps we all know that it costs a fortune to advertise your product in the domestic market and it also takes time for you to gain speed. Some small business owners may not have the luxury of time and money with them which compels them to wind up their shops before their product has managed to reach the ears of the audience. This really sounds cruel but this is the bitter pill which most of them had to gulp before Video Marketing had put its foot in the business world.  This new technology has come as a saviour to bail out start-up businesses and businesses that have struggled to prove their existence since their inception.

We first need to understand what exactly Video Marketing is and how it is helpful to entrepreneurs and other business owners.  As the name goes, you can create a video showing your presentation, product quality, utility of the product etc. In order to set up these videos, you do not need any professionals to work for you. You can make use of your own talents and give your voice to the video. You just need to present your business plans along with some product explanation. Once you have the video ready, you can upload it on you tube or any other video portal which is visited by number of people on a daily basis.

Well, let’s talk in detail about how video marketing is in comparison to other methods of marketing.

Video V/s Email Marketing:  In email marketing, the seller sends bulk email to prospects with a hope that they will revert to him with the intention of signing in for the product. However, the chances of the prospects reverting to the buyer are miniscule. On the other hand, video marketing has an edge over email marketing as it succeeds to leave a stronger impact with its visuals. The customer also gets the chance to go through the presentation which is somewhat difficult to out it across in an email. Moreover, they also get to hear someone explaining the product to them which leaves a sharper imprint on the minds of the customer.

Video V/s Article Marketing: Article marketing is a good mode of advertising your product. Buyers are always ready for a hunt to get more information of the product they want to buy and they get to read the articles written by experts, sellers, article writers and people who want to bring their stuff in limelight. However, if we speak about graphs and try to explain them in the article, it may sound bit confusing which will eventually lead to the reader getting completely plugged off and may move onto something else. We may once again find Video Marketing as a solution to this problem. Since it will be in the form of a video, the viewer will find it interesting to view it all and in this process may even develop likeliness for your product.

Though video marketing is not a fool proof technology, yet it’s highly beneficial for sellers who want to give it a shot and perhaps things may work out well with them.