What Selling Skills do You Need for Your Home Based Business?

Selling skills are imperative in keeping and maintaining a steady income stream for your home based business. There are so many articles written on sales and yet the general message is the same.

Most of us already have the basic selling skills necessary. We just need to practice and enhance the sales skills we have. The components of a business sale are really quite simple. They are as follows:

• Qualify Your Prospect

• Product Pros and Cons       

• Finding the Fit

• Win / Win

Qualify Your Prospect

Qualifying your prospect is not only the first but the single most important step to determining if you really do have a buyer. Some very important questions you should ask will be:

• What is it that you are looking for?

• When do you need the product or service?

• What exactly do you expect this product or service to do?

• Have you used this product or service before?

• Why do you feel you want the product or service?

What exactly are you looking for?

This can be a loaded question for you because it will answer so many other questions. You may find that the prospect doesn’t really have an idea or they are vague on what it is they want or need.

The prospect may tell you what they don’t want instead.  Whatever the answer is, you now have some insights into whether they are really serious buyers or just fact gathering for a later sale (still a prospect). If they say that they are not really sure, then you can ask some more specific questions to decide whether you have a buyer, a prospect or a time waster (a time waster has no intention of buying just window shopping – and wasting your time). As your selling skills get better you will recognize them much sooner.

When do you need the product or service?

Having a time frame will help you in determining priorities. If they need it yesterday then they are not only serious buyers but they need your full attention now. Your energy can then go into creating the product or service fit. If they don’t have a time frame you may still need to continue qualifying with other questions.

One point that you should keep in mind is that you should ask as many questions as possible to be able to determine a buyer, prospect or time waster. Most prospects will turn into buyers eventually, so you should always be as helpful as possible however you do need to recognize when to back off and move on to more profitable activities such as working with a qualified buyer! This selling skill will come with experience and with the more business sales you have under your belt.

What exactly do you expect this product or service to do?

With this question you are trying to see how your offering will fit into the prospects or buyers plans, budget and expectations. Does this product offer exactly what the prospect is looking for? If so then with a fit you are now looking at a buyer.

Have you used this product or service before?

Not only will you be able to get a feel for what the prospect knows about this product or service, you will be able to know how much you will need to explain about the benefits.

Why do you feel you want the product or service?

This is really another qualifying question to get a feel for the motivation of the prospect. When you know what the motivating force behind the purchase is, then you can be better able to decide if you have a buyer or not.

Product Pros and Cons

If you are talking about the pros and cons of your product then you have decided that you have a qualified buyer. Now you are trying to find out how your product or service will fulfill your customers needs. Most salespeople feel that they have to beat the customer over the head to make a business sale which is far from the case.

If you have done the pre-qualifying process correctly, you will know what the buyer wants, when he wants it, how much she knows about the product and whether it is a fit or not.  You have created a good working rapport with your buyer. They will see that you have their best interest at heart and excellent selling skills as well.

Now talk openly about your product or service. What are all the wonderful benefits that it offers? What might be something that it doesn’t offer but makes up for in other benefits? Don’t be afraid to talk about the downside of your product or service.

No product or service is exactly perfect. Your buyer will understand that and will trust you much more knowing that you are not afraid of talking about the down side. They can see that have prepared a thorough answer or explanation to their questions. The more you know about your product or service, the more your customer will be able to make an informed decision.

Helping the buyer to make an informed decision is really the core of all selling skills. When you think of how the buyer will enjoy and be able to benefit from your product or service, then you are on the right path to running an excellent home based business with profitable business sales.

Successful salespeople truly forget about what is in it for them when they are talking to and dealing with customers. It is the customer first, and then the benefit of the business sale becomes an after affect thought as it should be.

Finding the Fit

Make sure you and your buyer are both seeing the fit for your product or service. Check all the angles out with your buyer to be sure that it will do what your customer expects. In my article;A Tough Lesson – Customer Service Tips, I discuss how important this fit is for long term customer relations and future business sales.

Win/Win

Everybody wins or I will not play! This statement should be the bases of all business sales. If the sale does not match your buyer’s needs and your home based business needs then it is not a good deal for all involved. This selling skill is really more of a rule then a skill, yet it does need to be practiced.

You might say how can I lose if I make the sale? Well if you aren’t happy with the sale and your buyer is, you will grudgingly help them out but you will not be giving your one hundred percent to them. If they are not happy and you are then you will have negative feedback and a returned product or lose of payment for your service.

The golden rule in all transactions it that it must work for everyone involved. Keep this in mind and you will have better business sales, more repeat customers and much less returns. An excellent side benefit of the repeat customer is that they create free word of mouth!

Bottom Line

Selling skills can be learned and should be fined tuned as much as possible. The more fine tuned your selling skills are the better your business sales will become. You will be able to decipher the buyers from the time wasters.

Good salespeople realize that business sales are much like a matching game. A product or service is matched to the buyer based on her needs, wants and desires. Sometimes you just have to explain how the match will work for your buyer. 

If you remember that everyone must win, you will find that your home based business sales will soar. Business sales will be fun to do and you will have a more relaxed and happy attitude toward yourself and others. Your selling skills will put you miles ahead of your competition and you will realize that these selling skills can also be applied in your personal life as well. Good luck and happy selling!