You’ve heard it repeatedly said: the probability of selling to a business that is new to your brand is 5-20%, but to an existing business or customer is 60-70%. 

Selling is challenging. It is full of cut-throat competition and requires several touchpoints to generate a conversion. Yet, every day, you have to meet (and, where possible, exceed) your sales quotas or targets. 

The good news is that people will always buy products and services. Since your salespeople are the face of the company, you are the first point of contact with customers. Your chances of getting customers to quickly and continuously be in “buy mode” when they see your product lie in one thing: sales experience.

Let's break down what sales experience is, how to develop it, and the skills to cultivate to assist you in prospecting, qualifying, and closing leads.

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What is sales experience? 

Do you have a history of selling goods or services to others? Maybe eyeglasses or sunglasses at a local store or CCTV cameras to an organization? That is sales experience. It is any activity that involves pitching to prospects, interacting with them through different communication channels, and selling products/services to a customer. 

Why is sales experience important? 

Working in sales is challenging

Studies suggest that 60% of customers will reject your cold calls four times before agreeing to engage with you. As a salesperson, prospecting, closing, and qualifying leads are your biggest challenges. You can only succeed when you are persistent and willing to navigate these challenges.

Having sales experience gives reps the trait to turn things around in their favor faster

71% of professionals in the Arm Treasure survey reported it takes over one month from the first interaction for a customer to purchase from you. During this time, the customer is either engaging other brands or is uncertain. Using your sales experience, you can add some elements of urgency or address doubts and concerns to win them over quickly. 

Sales experience helps you establish a method that works for you

There are so many ways you can interact with prospects or customers: phone calls, email, text, or tweets. With sales experience, you can identify the channel that best works for different audiences.

B2C and B2B sales experience 

Before revealing to you all the skills that will help you sell, let’s look at a critical element in sales experience you will encounter most often: B2C vs. B2B sales experience. 

As mentioned, B2B sales involve a company selling goods and services to another company. A few activities a salesperson will perform to gain more customers or improve customer loyalty include scheduling meetings and phone calls, relationship building, analyzing information or data to gain insights into leads, and tracking the sales pipeline.

A B2C business provides solutions to people or individuals. Salespeople involved in B2C sales must be good at arranging follow-ups, performing product comparisons, and updating customers on new products or the latest development. However, these activities can also apply to B2B sales.

B2B sales experience, therefore, is the experience a salesperson gets when working or selling products and services in a B2B setting, while B2C sales experience is the experience you get from interacting with individual buyers.

Six skills you cultivate through the sales experience

 

Persistence and perseverance

Eighteen. That's the average number of phone calls you may make just to connect to a prospect. Let’s face it: prospecting and turning a lead into a customer takes time and effort. Giving up after a few attempts (or failure) will cause you to miss your sales quotas: you have to be persistent and perseverant.

 

Active listening

Customers have complained that as little as 13% of sales reps understand their needs. This is saddening and means sales reps may miss cues that help them offer the right solution. To uncover your customers’ problems, start listening intently during your phone calls or meetings. From there, you will easily fulfill your customers' needs.

 

Negotiation and persuasion

Earlier, we said it can take more than a month from the first date of interaction for a prospect to buy from you. The selling process is even more complicated if you are a B2B firm because of the increased number of highly knowledgeable decision-makers (6-10). Learning how to convince different people about your products or services will help you win customers faster and not lose out to your competitor.

 

Confidence

If you seem unsure of your product’s benefits and potential, customers will be too. Having confidence shows you have a deep understanding of what you are selling and easily gets the customer to trust and buy from you. 

Communication

Most sales activity happens via phone, email, or social media. As you gather sales experience, you will learn how to use these mediums to communicate about your product eloquently and with the correct language — without confusing a potential customer. 

 

Relationship management

Your engagement with a customer shouldn't stop after purchase or rejection. You need to continuously reach out to understand them better and gain insights into their behavior to ensure repeat business. As you do so, you are building a relationship, ensuring that every interaction with a customer is more like a partnership than a transaction.

Types of sales experience you should have

 

Inside sales experience

Inside sales refers to selling or building relationships with prospects or customers from an office. With inside sales, a salesperson doesn’t need to travel outside to meet with prospects. As a result, he/she engages with prospects via phone, email, or video chat.

Outside sales experience

Outside sales experience is the opposite of inside sales experience. With outside sales, sales reps must step outside the office and go to the field to interact with prospects and customers in person. Such interaction can be done in trade shows, industry events, or conferences.

 

Types of sales experience Types of sales experience

 

Inbound sales experience

Inbound sales experience involves engaging a lead or customer who has come to you to inquire about your product or service. Such customers come to you via live chat, your website forms, or social media platforms (DMs). What is interesting about such customers is that they are already aware of what they want (warm leads), so you must have expert product knowledge, good communication, and listening skills, and be quick at convincing prospects that your product is the best solution.

Outbound sales experience

While inbound sales is based on warm leads, outbound sales is based on cold leads. As a result, anytime you reach out to potential customers who know nothing about you or haven’t shown interest in your product or services (through cold email, cold text, direct mail, or tv commercials), you are building outbound sales experience.

How to develop sales experience

Now you may be wondering how to get inside sales or outbound sales experience. We are going to look at all the ways to succeed in your sales job.

 

Developing sales experience Developing sales experience

1. Be open to entry-level sales jobs

On-the-job training is where 70% of all the learning happens. So, if you want to gain the right sales experience, the best way is through hands-on training, performing daily tasks and challenges in a real environment. For example, selling loans, mortgages, or insurance to customers at your local bank.

 

 2. Identify weak spots and concentrate on improving them

Maybe you are good at reaching out to prospects but have difficulty converting them. Or, you may have poor listening skills or lack confidence. Identifying your weak spots helps you clearly understand what is pulling you back and concentrate on improving your weaknesses by crafting new goals or finding a mentor or support network to hold you accountable and achieve more.

 

3. Attend sales training sessions

Today, many online training resources (webinars or online classes) target those getting into sales. You can register for these online classes and learn the basics of selling to build skills that will help you in your selling endeavors. 

While attending these training sessions, remember to engage trainers by asking questions that will help you sell. Here are a couple of good questions you may ask.

 

4. Networking

Whether it is in conferences, virtual classes, or social media, creating connections with other experienced sales professionals will help you learn what is working or get career advice and support. From such connections, you can also land job opportunities to advance your career and get noticed. You can succeed by engaging prospects with the right questions. Here are a few questions you may ask at a networking event.

 

5. Follow sales-centric newsletters

Newsletters are also a great avenue to learn about sales. For example, Freshsales sends out a weekly newsletter that’s jam-packed with tips and tricks sales reps can use to reach a new audience, build confidence, and hit revenue targets.

 

6. Read top sales books

Not every book about sales will help you gain experience in sales. Today, anyone can publish a book. Therefore, you should read sales books written by a professional or a reputable firm. For starters, you can build your reading list with the resources mentioned here in the sales book blog. The best sales content helps you find strategies and tips for becoming a successful sales professional.

 

7. Shadow other salespeople to learn on the go

Is there a salesperson you admire in your industry or organization? Ask them if they can be your mentor so you can learn how they perform their work. This will help you better understand the field, learn practical skills in sales, and build better professional connections.

How a CRM can help you build your sales experience 

 

CRM in sales experience CRM in sales experience

 

1. Get an overview of all sales communication

We said earlier that most customers believe that only 13% of sales reps understand their needs. When you are interacting with different customers, there’s the possibility of confusing one customer’s needs with another’s. To understand what each wants, you need to revisit your communication or messages. These are stored in your CRM, making it easy to diagnose each customer’s problems, analyze their needs, and provide effective solutions.

2. Surface the best leads

Studies show that your product may fit only half of all your prospects. Wouldn’t it be great if you could focus on these best-fit prospects? Modern CRM systems can assign AI-based contact scores based on engagement with your business so that you can focus on the best opportunities to make a sale. 

3. Find the best deals to close

All historical data and engagement with potential customers are stored in the CRM. You can use this data to monitor trends and find how deals were won or lost. This information can help you better engage with customers or prospects in your outreach endeavors. Set up personalized chatbots, design sales email sequences, and create webforms to engage with potential customers. 

4. Improve time management

As a salesperson, certain tasks like entering data, attending meetings, writing emails, or scheduling calls take up lots of time. You have to keep working on your time management skills. They leave you less time to do the most important thing: prospecting. A smart CRM tool should help properly plan, schedule, and prioritize these activities, so you spend more time interacting with clients and potential prospects.

Ready to take your sales experience to the next level?

The stats mentioned in this post on selling don’t lie: selling is challenging. Your dream right now is to make this process easy so you can close deals faster when you pursue a new business, prospect, or opportunity. 

top salespeople know the trick is gaining the right sales experience, which you can acquire through hands-on training, learning from industry experts, uncovering trending topics, and tying it all together with an innovative CRM tool. This way, you’ll know exactly when (and how) to sweeten the deal for a tough prospect and close deals faster.