The sales industry is a very unique one. No college degree can make a perfect salesman — as the traits of great sales reps come from various professional experiences. There’s only so much you can learn about selling effectively from youtube courses or college degrees.
However, the best way to learn to be a great salesperson is to look at great examples of people who have excelled in the field. Not only people though — we can also learn a lot from companies too.
For instance, I recently came across a blog post regarding how Apple, the infamous tech brand, markets its products in Apple Stores. The employees are instructed to keep the showcased MacBooks’ lids on a specific closing angle of 76 degrees. Everyone who enters the Apple Store and looks at the MacBooks can’t see the display from a good angle. Then, they interact with the MacBook’s hinge to move it up so they can have a great viewing angle.
By getting hands-on with the MacBooks, the visitors get to experience the quality of the hinge mechanism and the premium-ness of the used materials. As far as I know, such type of marketing expertise is never taught in schools and colleges — and merely comes from years and years of industry experience.
With that out of the way, let’s look at some honorable names in the most influential salespeople list.
Mary Kay Ash
Ash is often considered to be the pioneer of female sales reps. Like many other major salespersons throughout history, Ash started from nothing. She started her selling career by going door to door and selling books. However, her creative thinking and admirable expertise soon earned her a big name.
Ash is considered to be the inventor of trusted selling, meaning she kickstarted the idea that selling to friends and family member works better than selling to strangers. She used to encourage women to host parties where they’d sell products to the gathered set of friends and family members.
We can apply Ash’s techniques in modern, on-phone selling too. As she indicated that selling to friends, family, and other closely-related people works better, we learn that you can boost sales by building trustworthy relationships with the people you want to sell to.
For instance, if you’re trying to sell a product to a customer on the phone, you can try to make friends with them during your conversation to try to promote a transparent, trustful pathway to a successful sale.
Steve Jobs
We can’t talk about famous salespersons without mentioning Steve Jobs, can we?
Steve Jobs is the late CEO of Apple, the company we talked about earlier. Steve faced many hiccups during his work years. However, he manage to build an incredible legacy that’s appreciated even today, many years after his death.
Steve’s remarkable selling skills set him apart. People often joke about him and say stupid things like, “Steve could even trick me into thinking the spoon he made is legendary and I should totally buy it” — that goes to show how talented Steve was.
Steve used to hit where it mattered the most. He used to take his sweet time in understanding what people want from his products and what problems they’re facing. Then, he used to devise solutions that worked exactly in a way to fix users’ problems.
There’s a lot modern salespersons can learn from Steve today. However, if I had to narrow it down into a sentence, I’d say salespersons today should try to mimic Steve’s selling tactics by deeply understanding what the customers want, then targeting those specific weak spots.
Dale Carnegie
Dale’s tactic was to build a relationship of trust and understanding with his potential customers. He promoted the idea of showing genuine interest in a potential customer’s matters to make them yours.
He got himself so good with his techniques that his friends were willing to pay him to get his skills.
We can certainly learn a lot from Dale today. His tactic to show sympathy and interest towards customers works even today.
A final word
Selling is not a walk in the part. It’s a complex skill that comes from experience and natural talent more than anything else. Hence, the best way to improve your selling capabilities is to look at people who were remarkable at this job.
At Easybee, we’re always doing our best to learn from the best salespersons to improve our sales calls. We learn from the best salespersons who ever existed and implement their strategies right into our selling services.
Get in touch with us right away and see what we can do to boost the results of your sales calls.
