7 years ago
February 21, 2017

How to Develop Persuasive Skills in Sales

Get to know your customer, build relationships, improve your listening skills, and do these three other things to develop persuasive skills in sales.

Claire McConnachie Recruiter
Claire McConnachie

You already know that, in this day and age, you can’t be pushy or aggressive when trying to sell. Pushiness will only turn off prospective customers, make you fit into the “sales stereotype,” eliminate all trust you might have built, and reduce your credibility. Customers do not want to be sold to. Instead, you must be persuasive. Developing your persuasive skills in sales will go a long way to helping you meet your quota and boost your conversion rate.

If you want to sell almost effortlessly, then use these tips to develop persuasive skills in sales.

Get to Know Your Prospective Customer

In order to be persuasive, you must take the time required to get to know the customer you’ll be talking to. You’ll need to know what they need, what their challenges are, and what they’re looking for. Understanding the wants, needs, and desires of your buyers will help you more effectively spin your product or service in a way that solves the prospect’s challenge or helps them achieve their goals, because you’ll know what those challenges and goals are.

Build Relationships

Having effective persuasive skills in sales requires you to build relationships with clients. People are more likely to do what you want them to do if they like you and trust you. Think about it: it’s far easier to ask a friend to do you a favour than it is to get a stranger to do it. Be genuine and honest in your selling, get a little personal, and put the customer experience above the sale, and you’ll be on your way to more effective persuasive selling.

Play Hard to Get

People want what they cannot have. It’s natural. People give more value to the things that they have difficulty getting. So, during your presentations, work on making your product or service seem limited, scarce, or in demand to boost the prospect’s want for it.

Talk about Losses

While you certainly want to talk about what the prospects will gain by purchasing your product or service, you can be very persuasive by making themrealize just how much they’ll lose if they don’t commit. Gaining benefits that you don’t currently have isn’t as strong as a motivator as the pain of potentially losing something you already have; it’s human nature.

Use Social Proof

An effective way to boost your persuasive skills in sales and close more deals is to work on positioning your product or service in a way that shows it’s valued by others. People fear buyer’s regret. And this fear can lead to hesitation that can make you lose the sale.

However, hesitant prospects will often change their tune and be convinced to buy if they can see that others have benefited from the same purchase. Share case studies showcasing how well others have succeeded with your product. Share testimonials of happy customers. Share reviews of experts who boast the product’s excellence.

Improve Your Listening Skills

If you want to develop your persuasive skills in sales, then you must absolutely improve your listening skills. Selling today shouldn’t be a one-way presentation, where all you do is talk up your product. Instead, it must be a two-way conversation. Giving your prospect time to talk, ask questions, and share concerns, and learning how to listen effectively to what is actually being said, will help you to show that you care, better meet the prospect’s needs, and overcome all hesitations and objections.

In today’s business world, you must eliminate all pushiness from your selling and replace it with persuasive skills instead. The more persuasive you can be, the more deals you’ll close.

Claire McConnachie Recruiter

Claire McConnachie

Claire has 4+ years of experience in sales and recruitment. As a Director of Client Services, her main objective is to connect great people to great companies by building strong relationships with both top clients and candidates in the sales industry. She specializes in sales roles of all seniority levels for both enterprise and start-up clients North American wide. When Claire isn't networking with top talent, she enjoys being outdoors, traveling and spending time with friends & family.

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