Whether you are a seasoned seller or just starting out, you can be confronted with numerous challenges in a sales role. These challenges come and go with the shifts in the sales industry and may require some adjustments to your selling technique. Some challenges can be specific to your company’s product, but others are faced by nearly every sales person at some point during their career.

In order to overcome these hurdles, creative thinking and strategizing can put you on the right path to success, allowing you to become an expert salesperson. To help you achieve your sales goals, here are 5 common challenges in a sales role and how you can overcome them.

1. Generating Leads

Generating leads is one of the biggest challenges in a sales role and can drastically affect your ability to reach your targets. While new leads may not be that hard to find, quality leads with sales-ready prospects can prove to be a bigger challenge. Luckily, there are many different approaches you can take when focusing on developing leads. When considering possible leads, develop a system that allows you to evaluate how sales-ready a prospective is, and learn about their company. Knowing as much as possible about a prospective client allows you to begin the sales process with the advantage of knowing just what they need.

2. The Follow-Up

So you’ve made an initial approach to a lead and you’re ready to follow-up. What is preventing you from getting past the point of contact and into a potential deal? When faced with a lack of response, seeming disinterest, or not being in touch with the right person, make sure to directly communicate the value of your product and how it can provide a solution to streamline their business needs. The follow-up may require patience and flexibility, as you are working according to the customer’s timing and not your own. However, knowing when and how to promote your product to the client will allow you to have successful follow-ups.

3. Not Enough Product Knowledge

You can’t effectively sell a product with which you aren’t familiar. If you are finding that you struggle to communicate with your client about the nature and value of your product, consider investing time into re-training yourself or learning more about what you are selling. This is a time investment that will translate into improved sales and increase your confidence with the selling process. You will then have the ability to translate the value of your product to the consumer by demonstrating that you know how the product functions and the benefits it can provide.

4. Waning Ambition

With the natural ebb and flow of the sales industry, maintaining ambition is one of the major challenges in a sales role. While it may be easier said than done, staying motivated throughout the ups and downs of sales directly correlates to sales success. Recognizing that there are things that you have no power over and learning from your mistakes are both crucial elements to remaining ambitious in your sales role. Finding ways to improve, setting attainable goals, and rewarding yourself are all ways that you can remain motivated and be a more effective seller.

5. Lack of Client Trust

New leads and prospective clients have the tendency to be suspicious of sales people; perhaps they have been previously taken advantage of or have been on the receiving end of proposals that sound too good to be true. To build a client’s trust, you must earn their respect and devote time to convincing them that you and the company you represent will be valuable to their business. Putting in the extra effort to build a client’s trust can transform one of the common challenges in a sales role into long-lasting, loyal business relationships.