As sales professionals, we know that there are good sales habits and bad sales habits. Sometimes it seems far harder to create the good sales habits and the bad habits seem to happen on their own. We develop habits over time. With bad habits we tend not to put a lot of thought into what we’re doing as the habits develop and before you know it, you’re doing something you don’t mean to purely from habit. On the other hand, we tend to put a great deal of thought into developing good sales habits.

You want to develop habits that will help you to increase your sales. When you begin to create these habits, you must be sure to stick with it over time.

Make a plan

To be successful in sales, each sale must have a plan. No two sales are really the same and each sales plan should be different. The differences in your plans from one sale to the next might be minor, but you need to look at each new sale as needing a new plan. Developing good sales habits like this will help you in a couple of ways. First, it will cause you to think about each sale as a separate opportunity. Second, it will also give you the opportunity to look back at your process to see where something might have gone wrong.

Build on your success

One of the very important good sales habits is to build on your success. Make sure to ask for referrals. It is amazing how few professional sales people do this. If you developed a good relationship with your client and they bought from you, ask them if they know of anyone else who might be interested. At minimum, give them your card to pass on to others. Referral sales build on your success and as you do this each time you will be developing good sales habits.

Don’t keep fighting

We have all had sales that we know are not going according to plan. Many times we refuse to give up regardless of how hopeless the situation seems. You don’t want to spend your valuable time fighting for a sale that is probably not going to happen. It is better to give up early on than to waste your time and the possibility of moving on to another sale. Good sales habits develop over time. After you start to back away from unlikely sales, you will start to see the signs earlier and will save yourself a lot of time and aggravation.

Always follow up

You know how easy it is to get distracted by all the minutia of your week. Follow up is one of the good sales habit that should become second nature to you. Always get back to any potential customer, especially if you have said that you will do so. Again, as time goes on not only will this become a natural part of your sales process, but also, you will start to develop a feel for when it is the best time to follow up with customers.

Keep up your motivation

Sales is a profession where it is too easy to lose your drive. A series of unfulfilled sales can cause you to lose your motivation. We all have times when our sales our not what we hoped they would be. Sales slumps are part of being in sales. However, you need to stay positive and be persistent. Engaging in self motivation techniques and doing it on a regular basis will help you to stay positive. This is one of the good sales habits that will help you to avoid slumps.

You need to develop good sales habits to increase and maintain your sales. Once you have developed good sales habits, and you continue to practice and implement the habits, your good sales habits will become second nature over time.