The Ultimate Guide to Sales and Customer Service

Why Sales?

Long before you close the sale, trust has to be established. You may have the best product or service around, and the customer may even need what you have to offer, but they won’t buy if they don’t trust you, and frankly like you. Building trust and loyalty starts at the very first interaction you have with a potential customer. When you develop trust, they become loyal and want to use you again, and will recommend you to others.

If you can’t build trust you aren’t likely to continue to close and increase your sales, which is the lifeblood of every business.

Sales play a key role in the building of loyalty and trust between customers and your business. When you develop trust and loyalty with your customers, this encourages them to want to recommend your company to a colleague, friend, or family member.

Why are Sales Important to Your Business?

Sales are the source of revenue generation that companies need in order to survive and thrive. They play a major role in any company’s growth trajectory.

If the overall sales for your business are poor it is a clear indication that something is wrong with your business as a whole. Whether the issue lies with the overall management of your company, how your salespeople are ‘selling’, or a lack of interest in your products and services by potential customers, understanding these issues and working to refine your sales process will likely have a positive impact.

Whether you are a business owner or in a leadership position, you must be analytical when viewing sales results as this could be the key to making decisions that will positively impact your revenue. An old adage is “know the score, report the score, and the score gets better”. When it comes to analyzing sales results this is particularly true.

So what is stopping your business from generating more sales?

What are the common struggles that businesses face when generating sales and what can you do to prevent such struggles and achieve continual growth?

How can you improve the sales skills of your team? What can you do to improve results and close more sales? Is customer trust a function of good sales skills or something else?

Whether your sales are good but you’d like to have more referrals, or your sales are lagging or inconsistent, there is no denying the importance sales has on your business, and ultimately your life.

This resource page has been created to provide you with help for your sales and sales process. It provides real-world examples of how minor shifts in your sales process can dramatically change your results. You’ll find answers to questions about what sales skills are key, how they impact trust and loyalty with customers, and how tracking sales numbers can be eye-opening, and helpful.

We have divided the resource page into four sections, and have included an entire section on customer service at the end. Each section builds on the section before. Throughout each section, you’ll find tools and ideas. Read the articles and take advantage of the resources we provide.

Sales isn’t a sometimes thing, it’s something every business needs to be thinking about regularly. It’s something business owners and leaders need to assess regularly to see what is working, and what isn’t.

This resource page is divided into sections including

• Sales Mindset

• Sales Team Leadership

• Sales Skills

• Sales Strategy

• Customer Service

We would be remiss if we didn’t include customer service in this resource page because providing a great customer service experience during and after the sale is essential to building trust and loyalty with your customers.

This resource page offers you ideas on these topics to keep you at the top of your game. We begin the discussion with mindset…

A sale is not something you pursue; it is what happens to you while immersed in serving your customer. Top sales professionals learn to skillfully blend time, energy, perseverance, and creativity to consistently achieve above-average results.

The bottom line is this: customers buy from people they like. That’s why the mindset of a successful salesperson is more focused on connecting than closing. Building rapport allows you to build trust, get others to listen to you, and ultimately influence them to consider your solution.

Do you wonder why salespeople do what they do?

Is your first thought that it is a way to make great money? Yes, that’s true but there are deeper reasons why successful salespeople do what they do.

It’s a winning combination of enjoying connecting with people at a deep level and getting to truly know them, plus the sincere desire to be of service to others. People ‘feel’ it when you care more about them finding the right solution to their needs than you closing the deal.

You may have that winning combination but there are still things that can get in the way of you being able to make the sale.

Here’s fourteen examples of myths about sales, selling and business development that are costing you sales, and limiting what’s possible.

If you can identify with even one or two of these such as selling begins when you have a prospect in front of you or if a conversation or meeting doesn’t result in a next step it was a waste of time, then you are likely missing sales opportunities.

Just think, if shifting your thinking around one of these fourteen examples and one or two of them helps you close one deal you wouldn’t have, what is that worth to you in terms of real dollars and your long-term success?

In today’s world, every business and profession depends upon how well you can sell it. And selling is more than just gaining customers through closing deals. Whether you are appearing for an interview – where you sell your skills – or whether you need to ask your boss for more resources, a raise, or a promotion. You may have to sell a concept to someone to get approval. When working in an organization you will find that you would be required at one time or another to sell something.

There are 5 no-fail attributes that make a successful salesperson, which you can read in more detail HERE. If you were to master your own level of confidence and learn to focus on the customer…those two attributes both will have an immediate impact on your ability to close your next sale.

Are you imagining, planning, preparing—doing everything besides the actual selling? It is easy to get caught up and unknowingly sabotage your ability to close a sale…I cover the top 4 most common mental traps in this article and share simple tips to help.

If you take away anything from this article, remember that the next time a customer interrupts you and asks how much it costs that you don’t have to give a number right away!

All you need to do is subtly evade the question by saying, “Right now, I just want to see if we have a good fit. If we want to do business I’m sure we can agree on a price..” This gives the impression that you’re not just after a sale—and that you don’t work with just about anyone.

Whether you are struggling to close sales, or want to uplevel your skills, getting feedback can feel uncomfortable, yet necessary. Oftentimes we avoid it and yes it can be painful for sure, but so incredibly helpful, if you are able to scrape your ego off the floor. I share the story of how tough feedback and how it skyrocketed my sales in this article here

What I recognized, as a result, was that I was impacting the sales process and I will be forever grateful to Joe, my manager, who took me from being a loser (who was likely close to being fired) to a place where my sales skyrocketed because he cared enough to tell me the truth.

Finally, let’s wrap up this section on how to master your mindset around sales with a very important bit of advice… to win sales the smartest thing you can do is to be yourself.

In sales, this is critically important, because what you are selling is first and foremost you, and then your product or service. People buy from people.

The truth is that it’s hard to maintain not being yourself. It’s demanding and stressful and will drain your energy. It simply isn’t sustainable to be anything but yourself over the long haul.

Are You a Smart Salesperson Who is Ready to Uplevel Their Skills?

Inside this Guide, You’ll Discover 11 Secrets That Will Exponentially Skyrocket Your Ability to Close the Sale.

Being effective at managing your sales team begins with creating a positive work environment where your salespeople know they are valued and their role is important to the organization.

As a sales manager you get to set the tone and the code of conduct for the team and enable a healthy culture where everyone is happy to come to work.

To help you focus on ways that you can become more effective and develop your team I’ve compiled this simple list of 4 ways you can coach and monitor your sales team’s progress.

You want to remember to always be on the lookout for opportunities to coach and help them develop their skills. Point out possible improvements in their pitches, rebuttal, or presentation skills, and don’t be afraid to share new insights and tips you’ve learned for yourself.

If you are a CEO reading this…it’s critical that you know you have the opportunity to directly increase sales…if you don’t agree, you’ll want to read this article where I share 4 things that you must implement to increase sales because what I have to share will have you changing your mind.

And if you take away anything from this article, it’s that you should teach employees outside of the sales team to help with the company’s marketing and lead generation. Everyone in the company can have an impact on sales.

Let’s talk about If you are a business owner or a manager, how improving negotiation skills will lead to improving your bottom line.

In this article, 5 effective sales negotiation strategies that you can incorporate into your daily operations. Good leadership entails teaching your team the right techniques to make a sale. It also includes teaching them when to walk away. Sharing these sales negotiation strategies with them can help them succeed.

As a leader not only is it important that you teach and coach your team, you’ve got to create a culture where they can thrive and look forward to coming to work every single day.

Thus the sales culture which I share in more detail here, is what you do about selling, how you do it, what beliefs you have about selling…everything that you think and do relative to the sales process. What’s important here is to look at how you manage sales people, the sales process and your beliefs about sales people and the sales process itself.

And you must remember that creating a sales culture extends to outside of your sales team…it should apply to everyone inside your organization.

Imagine what your company culture would be like if every person and every department thought and acted like your sales team and was intent on creating value, problem-solving and being customer-focused? Imagine the impact it would have on sales and customer retention.

As a manager or leader of a sales team it’s important to remember that training isn’t just a one time thing…and it isn’t just for new sales people either. In this article I share a list of 3 simple things you can teach your sales team so that they can keep improving. Training needs to be seen as just as important as contacting customers. If your sales team doesn’t know how to sell properly, all the conversations they have will be for naught.

And running a successful sales team isn’t just about training them, you must measure their performance and keep them motivated as well.

Measuring the performance of your sales personnel is important but sales alone are not the only criterion to measure the employee performance of your sales team.

There are several other factors to consider such as:

• Percentage of repeat business

• Customer retention

• Referrals they get

• Discounts they had to give to get the sale

• The relationship they have with their customers

And let’s not forget the importance of motivating your sales team…Clearly, motivating employee performance is important for every manager, and sales managers have challenges that other managers do not have as I cover in this article right here.

I share 4 things that generally motivate salespeople besides money and, as a sales manager, you must find something other than money to motivate employee performance.

Lastly, let’s wrap this section on leading your sales team up with my time-tested secrets to hiring successful salespeople. When it comes to hiring and retention, you might be surprised to find out that a high percentage of sales managers still make bad hiring decisions, regardless of the industry.

One key thing that most hiring managers overlook is assessing the candidate’s managerial fit, even if they aren’t being hired to manage. Many managerial qualities equate to sales skills.

As a salesperson, the candidate you are considering should be able to exhibit characteristics that point to the ability to motivate other people, the ability to give direction when required and achieve laudable goals with minimal support and direction, to name a few.

Are You a Smart Salesperson Who is Ready to Uplevel Their Skills?

Inside this Guide, You’ll Discover 11 Secrets That Will Exponentially Skyrocket Your Ability to Close the Sale.

Selling is critical to the growth of any business, and the better your sales team is able to do it, the more success they will enjoy. Understanding and making sure that your sales team has the right skills is critical to their success.

One of the most often asked questions is why are sales skills important? And are they more important than what you are selling?

Sales skills are communication skills that everyone, no matter what position they are in, needs to develop.

To many, the word selling conjures up the image of a used car salesman using tactics like manipulating, pressuring, cajoling.

However, as I point out in this article everyone needs sales skills…no matter what field we are working in we are selling something to someone sometime. You may need to sell an idea to management for a new project, get more resources, or even adjust the timeline of an existing project. You may need to demonstrate to another department why your solution is beneficial to them. There may be a time you need to ask for a raise, or promotion, or be assigned to another department. All require sales skills

Think of selling as explaining the logic and benefits of a decision.

Everyone needs to master this type of sales skill. It could be helping others understand that an idea you have makes sense, showing your boss or an investor how a project or business will generate a return, or even helping people on your team understand the benefits of a new process…the list goes on and on.

Sales skills are basically communication skills. Communication skills are critical in any business or career, and you can learn a lot about communication by working in sales.

Successful selling is about using first-rate communication skills as I point out in this article. Skills such as listening, questioning, not interrupting, suspending judgments, assumptions, and more are what make someone successful in sales, and these are communication skills.

The most important sales skill to develop are your listening skills.

In this article, I share the top 10 ways that listening impacts your ability to make a sale. If you take anything away from this article, it would be that throughout the sales cycle the prospect provides clues. They will share with you their needs, likes, dislikes, concerns, challenges, and more. You just have to be paying attention.

If you aren’t listening you’ll miss most or all of them…

And, equally important, active listening clarifies your understanding. Active listening skill is perhaps the single most important sales skill you can learn. It involves listening to a person, understanding what they’re saying, and responding with a brief summary of what they’ve just said. And then ask them to verify your understanding is correct or if you have missed anything.

But let’s not forget the power of asking questions. A good example is you’re in a sales conversation… talking about your company or what you offer won’t help you discover what the prospect needs.

Instead, try asking this: “What do you want to learn in this conversation?” “I’d like to spend our time getting to know you, and give you the opportunity to ask me whatever questions you have, does that work for you?” “Based on what I’m hearing you are ready to say yes and we just need to work out the details, is that correct?”

The power of questions is that you get information. It doesn’t mean you like the responses, but it does mean you have the information to make an informed decision. Ask yourself, how often do I ask questions?

I bet not often enough.

One of the things that you may be doing in sales that’s costing you millions is neglecting to ask the tough questions.

At some point, I’m sure that you have this inkling that something isn’t quite right with the deal, and it’s so tempting to ignore those thoughts and hope they don’t become a problem.

For example, a prospect that mentions your pricing is higher than others isn’t saying that because they are thinking out loud, it’s something you need to address. When they say they really wanted blue (and you don’t have blue) you can’t ignore it.

Always, always ask the tough questions. It may mean you learn that you can’t close this deal, but at least you’ll learn that before you invest a huge amount of time. And it’s possible you can address their concern early enough in the process and handle it.

Where Do Influence and Sales Success Intersect?

Many people would say that the art of selling includes the art of influencing. I agree, with the caveat that the influence occurs throughout the sales process, not at the end when they are ready to buy. Success in the sales process happens when the salesperson is able to build a high-trust relationship with the prospect or customer.

Being able to build a high-trust relationship with your prospects and customers is key to having a successful sales process.. When you have this dialed in, there is very little need for you to persuade or induce your customer, it happens as a natural outgrowth of your relationship.

I’m pointing out that in order to achieve long-term success in sales, building high-trust relationships is more important than anything else you can do.

It eases the path.

Objections either don’t come up or are more easily handled because they trust you. When your customers feel comfortable with you and you have built that high-trust relationship, you already have everything you need to move the sales process along.

Are You a Smart Salesperson Who is Ready to Uplevel Their Skills?

Inside this Guide, You’ll Discover 11 Secrets That Will Exponentially Skyrocket Your Ability to Close the Sale.

A sales strategy is a set of decisions, actions, and goals that inform how your sales team positions the organization and its products or services to close new business. It acts as a guide for sales reps to follow, with clear objectives regarding sales processes, product positioning, and competitive analysis.

So why is having a sales strategy important?

Sales strategies are meant to provide clear objectives and guidance to your sales organization.

A sales strategy most often includes the following include key information including:

• Goals

• Measurements such as KPIs

• Buyer personas

• Sales processes

• Sales team structure

• Competitive analysis

• Product positioning

• Selling methodologies

While most of these guidelines are helpful for communicating goals and keeping your sales team on the same page, they fall short because they focus too much on the internal working of your sales team.

The actual skills needed to have winning conversations with your prospects and clients are most often an afterthought.

Think about it, the goal of every sales strategy is to make sure your salespeople hit their quota, right? And it’s what and how your salespeople communicate in order to create perceived value that loses or closes the sale.

To truly be effective, your sales strategy needs to focus on specific customer conversations. When skillfully delivered, these conversations demonstrate value for your customers and separate your company from the competition.

Before you connect with a prospect, stop and ask yourself, is sales just selling stuff or more? In this article, I answer that question. Sales Is Just Selling Stuff…Right?

The answer is no, it’s more than that…it’s a process that begins with 4 steps including understanding who your customer is, what problems they have, identifying what they are currently doing, and then, only after getting clear on these things can you effectively present your solution and close the sale.

If you want to improve your sales skills, start by understanding what sales are and what sales aren’t. Then get in the habit of planning. Plan your day, your week, your month. Plan what you are going to say in each sales interaction whether in person, on the phone, or by email. Sales is a series of steps that ultimately lead you to the end result.

What if, instead of the outcome you want, a sales call goes poorly and downhill from there? In this article, I share what to do when calls happen that should have been terminated before they got as bad as they did so that you too can avoid making a bad sales call.

The worst mistakes you can make are not having a plan in place before you make the call, forgetting to listen, or not asking enough questions.

Don’t forget …you need to be more concerned about the other person than yourself or whether you sell them anything. I know that may seem counterintuitive and yet I promise, it’s the first step in preventing bad sales calls.

Let’s move on to some effective strategies that will help you get leads, close more sales and repeat customers.

If you want to improve your odds in the sales process, then you want to make it a point to plan your interactions and know where you want to go in each interaction, without primarily focusing on the sale. The sale happens because it is the logical conclusion to the end of a successful process you and the prospect have been through together.

Successful salespeople manage their sales process. They focus on getting information, identifying needs, and moving the process along.

Here’s a quick list of what they do:

1. Know who are you contacting

2. Be clear on why are you contacting them

3. Have a clear objective for the interaction

4. Check your attitude before you contact them

5. Focus on listening and adding value, not closing the sale.

You have to be ready to meet the challenge and that starts with planning and making sure you are in the right frame of mind before you make that sales call.

Instead of overthinking about if you should be selling more, what if you focus on how you can sell more? In this article, I share 6 simple sales strategies to help you get more sales without spending a ton of money.

A tip I share and is often overlooked is to come from a position of adding value for your customers. You can easily do this by asking the question:

What can I do to help your business grow?

Or What can I do that would help you….(whatever area they may need help with)?

Help your customers build their businesses and in return, your own business will grow.

The other often overlooked strategy is to offer incentives for referrals. Your clients or other businesses you are working with can send you referrals. Create a system to make this happen on a regular basis. What can you offer people when they send a referral your way? Think creatively. What are you already doing for them that you can do more of or what could you do that you aren’t now?

I dive even deeper into this topic here, and share how you can generate leads using this technique without wasting money.

Do you know how to ask for referrals? Here’s a simple technique.

Talk to at least 10 clients and ask each of them for a referral. What can you provide that would incentivize them to provide the referral? See what happens, then do what you can to improve from there.

Think about it. If every single client of yours sent just one referral your way, year after year, how much would your business grow in just five years? In 10 years?

Tapping into your existing customer is a smart sales strategy…

Are You a Smart Salesperson Who is Ready to Uplevel Their Skills?

Inside this Guide, You’ll Discover 11 Secrets That Will Exponentially Skyrocket Your Ability to Close the Sale.

You might be wondering why we included customer service to a resource page dedicated to sales?

Surveys show that customers are willing to spend 66% more with a company that they believe has excellent customer service.

You might be thinking that your business already provides excellent service, but in reality, fewer customers than you think would agree..

According to the same survey, conducted by a consultancy firm in New York, 80% of businesses think they provide good service, but only 8% of their customers confirmed they received good service.

In this article, I share 3 ways to get more out of your existing customers. The big takeaway here is that you want to provide your team with regular customer service and product knowledge training, one that will help them interact with customers more efficiently.

Is customer service a lost art?

We all know that good customer service is crucial, but when we get down to defining what it is, not everyone is on the same page. To some, good customer service means solving a problem and offering solutions, usually in a timely manner. To others, it might mean a willingness to give the customer anything they want, almost without consideration to the reasonableness of the request. Others might say it is meeting the customer’s expectations by being competent, polite, friendly, and professional.

In this article I go further into why there is no right or wrong plus a couple of great examples of companies with great customer service…

I share the true value of customer service in this article and discuss customer service in a very broad sense, broader than providing outstanding service to people who buy from you. It’s way beyond client retention or repeat sales. It’s about being in relationships like you never have before and watching what unfolds.

Did you know that a study by customer relationship management organization Convergys, revealed that one online negative review can cost you up to 30 new clients.

That study was done over 5 years ago…and it causes me to ask… what does that say about today? What comes to mind is that it is more important than ever to make sure that you create a great customer service experience no matter what point you are in the sales process…customer service shouldn’t be thought of as something that comes after the sale…

In this article where I discuss why customer service is a smart marketing technique, I urge you to consider taking part of your marketing budget and instead of using it to drive traffic or sales, use it to train, develop, and mentor everyone in the organization on customer service.

Let’s examine what to do when things go wrong…

As much as we would like to think we would never have an unhappy customer…it’s smart to be prepared for those times so that we can prevent a negative review.

In this article, I share 4 communication skills that will turn that frown upside down when handling customers. Whenever a customer is unhappy and complains, there are steps you can take to turn an unhappy customer into a happy customer, or at least a less unhappy one.

The first thing you must do whenever you have an unhappy customer is to review their complaint and make sure you understand the situation. Use active listening when talking with your customer so that you have a clear and complete understanding of the situation.

Unfortunately, despite huge customer acquisition costs, many businesses don’t have a solid customer satisfaction policy or procedures in place.

In this article I answer the question, Can you save that angry customer?

Sometimes an angry customer isn’t worth saving and sometimes they are, and knowing the difference can save you wasted time and energy.

Think about those customers that you have an uneasy feeling about. It’s not always clear why, but your gut feelings are often correct.

If you get that bad feeling, if they’re not returning your calls promptly, they pay late, don’t follow instructions, or have terrible business communication skills, then you might be better off not dealing with those types of customers.

Or, you may have the all-consuming client that I detail in this article here.

The energy and time you spend handling their needs may not be worth the money you’ll earn.

What’s considered bad customer service is fairly consistent across different industries. If you recognize any of these behaviors in your team, a business communication skills refresher training might be in order.

There is never a one-size-fits-all solution to handling problems and In this article, I give you some simple ways to help you avoid those bad customer service behaviors.

If you implement anything that I suggest, I would start with getting your process straight and consistent across all departments. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer than to be told different information from various people. Make sure your team understands what to relay and if they don’t know, ask someone before telling a customer something that might not be accurate.

It boils down to having good communication skills.

It’s important to remember that your customers never want to hear excuses…they are just looking for help, a fix for whatever problem they are experiencing.

I detail the different excuses customers have already heard—and don’t want to hear again in this article so that you can make sure that your sales or customer service team does not use them.

Drop the excuses and get things done instead.

Next time you get a customer complaint, remember these 5 golden rules that will help you handle them better:

1. Respond instantly.

2. Believe that customer’s complaint is genuine.

3. Apologize for the pain they feel not for the mistake.

4. Do your best to meet their expectations.

5. If it is your mistake, overcompensate.

The way you handle a customer is the way you are going to be known in the market.

I want to leave you with one last thought about customer service and that is you want to treat customers as you would like to be treated.

A recent survey shows that customers are willing to spend 66% more with a company that they believe has excellent customer service.

According to the same survey, conducted by a consultancy firm in New York, 80% of businesses think they provide good service, but only 8% of their customers confirmed they received good service. That difference is staggering.

Follow these 7 simple tips and you’ll build a customer service foundation that works:

1. Answer their question… then answer another, until you have addressed every question.

2. Admit your limits.

3. Surprise your customers once in a while.

4. Phone, email, and in-person support aren’t the only options.

5. Answer questions quickly and show off your business’s great service.

6. Most importantly: don’t be a hindrance to your own employees.

7. Handle bad reviews without losing your cool.

Make it a point of providing great customer service, your existing and future customers will thank you!

Conclusion

I cannot stress enough how important making sales is to the health of a business.

A business—especially newer and small businesses—rely on the sales of products and services to generate an operating income that will keep your business afloat.

Additionally, the ability of a company’s salespeople to sell determines whether or not customers will take the first step towards spending with your business and whether they become repeat customers or refer your business to others.

Now you see how important sales are for any business.