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It's Only Common Sense: It's a Great Time to Be a Salesperson

No kidding, this is the best time ever to be a salesperson. If you are in sales—especially electronics sales regarding PCB design, fabrication, and/or assembly services—this is your time. Your services are wanted. Every company in the business today wants to meet you. It doesn’t matter if you are a direct salesperson or an independent representative; companies want to hire you or sign you.

Companies are looking for good salespeople. Heck, they are even hiring mediocre salespeople and hoping they can change them. Some are willing to hire youngsters and train them because everyone wants a good sales team. Companies are looking for sales managers too, so don’t despair. If you have experience in building and managing a sales team, companies will pay top dollar to hire you and make you part of their team.

There has never been a better time to be in electronics sales. There has never been more of an opportunity to be outstanding in your field. All you have to do is adapt to the new way of doing business in the 21^st century. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but it’s also not as hard as you think either.

Here are 10 actions to take to be the best in your profession in the 21^st century, starting with the first five ways you need to change.

1. Forget the way you have always done it; that doesn’t work anymore. Don’t blame customers or millennials. Find a new way to do things.
2. Stop complaining that you can’t get appointments.
3. Stop being boring and trying to “sell” because everybody hates being sold to.
4. Stop paying attention to the old rules; they don’t apply any longer. There is a new world order out there, and you have to learn it and get with it.
5. Get out of your comfort zone. Stop doing what comes naturally for you based on years of doing things the same way.

Now, here are five more steps to take to become a successful sales warrior.

1. Learn how to connect and communicate with people in a new way. Use social media to reach your customer base. Send them information that they need, want, and value.
2. Develop your ideal customer profile based on what you sell and who wants it. Then, do your research on Google and LinkedIn to find the customers you want to win over.
3. Connect with customers and send them some information they will find valuable, not just a brochure about your company. Again, send them something valuable—something they care about. Share data or articles that pertain to their industry in general, and their business specifically.
4. Make yourself valuable. If you connect in the right way, and if you position yourself as the person who can help your customers be successful, then your customers will come to you and want to do business with you.
5. Be visible. Write a blog or column, put out a newsletter or tech bulletin, or write a book—anything that will show your value to the market you are addressing. Make yourself the go-to person in your field, and customers will beat a proverbial path to your door.

And two more, in the spirit of under-promising and over-delivering.

1. Always focus on the customer. You are in the business of serving your customer, which means doing whatever you can to make them successful. The path to your own success as a salesperson is to make your customer successful. If you have that goal in mind, you will be the greatest salesperson in your field.
2. Help people. Dedicate your life to helping everyone you meet. Be generous, and in the end, people will be generous to you. This is even true for those who have tried to do you an injustice; being helpful to them is fun, will make you feel better, and will freak them out!

Do away with everything you thought you knew about sales. Start working on what you need to know about sales from this list, and you will be on your way to becoming the world’s greatest salesperson. And since salespeople are now the hottest commodity on the market today, envision how well you will do and how rich you will become!

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.