Taking Centre Stage

If you are moving into or hoping to move into a career involving face-to-face sales, especially in the B2B environment, then you need to get used to delivering professional and productive presentations. If you have no experience in giving presentations, then it is a good idea to get some practice or formal training as you don't want to find out to your cost that you are out of your depth. If you are applying for jobs that will involve face-to-face selling via sales recruitment agencies in the West Midlands, then use the interview process with them as practice for your presentation skills. Ask for honest feedback and work on the pointers you are given. When it comes to separating the good presentations from the bad, preparation is everything. That doesn't just mean to make sure you know your product inside out. It also means making sure you know your audience. What is their role or purchasing driver in the process? It means being able to pace your presentation to make the optimum use of the time you have allotted to you. It means learning to understand the body language of your audience so that you can maximise the impact of your delivery to keep them engaged. And it means getting used to speaking in front of a lot of people. This can be nerve-racking at the best of times, and however much you know your stuff a total mind blank can happen to anyone. A fail-safe approach to preparing a great presentation can involve the creation of a set of prompt cards or a script. If you know your subject well enough, this shouldn't need to be something you read word for word. It can just be something to remind you of what's coming next and to store any complicated facts and figures that you need to get right. They can also be helpful aids to keep reminding you to keep speaking at a slow enough pace and to keep making eye contact with the audience — all things that can be forgotten when under pressure. Remember that some of your audience might not want to be there, so do your best to keep them engaged. Drop in the odd question now and then to regain their attention and steer your focus to any obvious areas of interest notable from their replies. It is a good skill to be able to read the body language of your audience to see if they are listening, interested and thinking about decisions or if they are bored, challenging you or have drifted off into other thoughts. Above all, be mindful of people's time, and never overrun on the time you have been allotted unless this has been agreed. Keep an eye on your timings and if you are running over, then skip to the main points you need to make. If the prospect of presenting to lots of decision makers doesn't fill you with dread, then you may well be cut out for a career in sales. Speak to your local sales recruitment agencies in the West Midlands to find out what opportunities are available.

Sell Yourself or Turn to the Professionals?

You might think that when it comes to selling there would be nothing more rewarding than selling your own product, service or invention. However, it's worth thinking about whether the type of skills which make someone so good at developing and creating the product are necessarily the same skills needed to sell that product or make a successful business venture out of it. That is not to say that it cannot work like that — think of the stall holders at art and craft fairs. They manage to do it all. But when building a business depends on securing big deals and contracts, it can be a little harder. If you are too close to the product, your protectiveness might make negotiating difficult. If you are a step away from the product and a sales professional, yet you fully believe in the product, you can still learn to negotiate deals without compromising the integrity of the product. Whether you make the actual sale yourself or you have professionals working with you, the thrill of the sale of your own product is still as invigorating. If you are building your own business and you are finding it hard to handle the sales side of things, then don't struggle on in the belief that this is a failing. If you are busy managing every other aspect of your business, then give yourself and break and let the professionals help you. If you don't know where to start recruiting a good sales person, and you haven't got time to be taking a chance on your own recruitment attempts, then why not speak to sales recruitment agencies in Warwickshire who are experienced in finding just the right person for the job? If you are a sales professional and you thrive on the challenge of making sales which will build a new business, then let sales recruitment agencies in Warwickshire know what types of roles you are looking for and particular types of companies you would like to work for and let them help sort the perfect match. If this is the sort of work you have done before, then make sure you are able to quantify in terms of revenue and business impact the sales success you have had with previous fledgling businesses. It will be hard for small start-ups to make the cost commitment to hire staff, so the more you can show that you are able to give them a return on their investment, the easier you make it for them to recruit you.

Can You Get Things Started?

You're great at reeling off facts and figures and making your product sound irresistible, you're great at giving presentations and you've no difficulty listening to customers and working out what they really need. On top of that, you know how to negotiate and close a deal. But are these all the skills you need to be successful at sales? The one thing they have in common is that they take place after the ground has been prepared. But none of those skills will count for much if you can't get the sales ball rolling. There will be plenty of times in your career when part of your sales work involves following up warm leads or managing repeat business with existing customers. However, you will be hard pressed to find a sales role in which you won't be expected to bring in some new business. If you want a better idea of the types of sales jobs available and how much each role would involve the generation of new leads, then contact sales recruitment agencies in Worcestershire and ask for a breakdown of role expectations for various opportunities. Once you know where the balance lies, you'll be able to assess if you have the right skills for the job. Generating new business from scratch will mean researching and talking to new prospects with a cold-selling approach. Alternatively, or additionally, you will need to get into the networking scene to generate new contacts. Either way, you need to be able to strike up a conversation and quickly build up a rapport and relationship with a complete stranger. This can be hard for the most outgoing of people, as no one likes to suffer rejection. Remember that at networking events almost everyone else will be feeling just as nervous as you. Good eye contact and a smile can work wonders, so make sure you start scanning the room as soon as you arrive. There are bound to be other people on their own eager to strike up conversation. If you wait too long, you might find everyone already in groups by the time you are ready to take action. You don't have to use witty opening lines or killer questions to break the ice. Simply smile, hold out a hand to shake and give your name. Then make sure you ask lots of questions and avoid just talking about yourself. The rest should flow from here.

Meet, Mix and Make Business Happen

Companies have been getting the new year off to a great start in Coventry as hundreds of businesses from around the region attended the B2B Expo, which the Federation of Small Businesses runs in conjunction with the local paper, The Telegraph. With 54 exhibitors and a packed programme of speakers and seminars, there was much to keep the delegates engaged. One of the attractions was the networking breakfast which brought together 250 businesses for that perfect opportunity to make new contacts and generate leads for business potential. Events such as the B2B Expo are an ideal mix of learning opportunities, marketing vehicles and new business development, so they are great for moving your business forward. Looked at in the right way, every aspect of these events can be seen as preparation for making the sale. At seminars and talks you might learn of a new selling technique or an innovative way to market your business or maximise the effectiveness of your operations. As an exhibitor you get to overtly promote your brand in a professional business atmosphere to a captive audience. And with networking opportunities, either as a formally staged event or casually as you meet other delegates or exhibitors during the day, every encounter can be the start of a relationship that can lead to new business. Even just experiencing an event such as the B2B Expo can give new sales staff a quick introduction to and feel for the business environment they are now part of and how their competitors or customers are operating. B2B events and exhibitions can be great ways to develop contacts to help with your future recruitment needs as sales recruitment agencies in Coventry will often exhibit or may even deliver seminars. At the Coventry B2B Expo, the council made a special pitch to promote their 'Get An Apprentice' scheme, highlighting the different ways you can develop your future resource requirements. Networking and opportunities to meet other businesses can also be a great way to subtly scout out your next career move. As a sales professional, you will be good at striking up conversations, but you should be equally good at listening, so these can be great opportunities to learn about the developments within companies before hiring plans are made known to the outside world. If sales recruitment agencies in Coventry happen to be exhibiting at a B2B conference or exhibition alongside companies you would like to work for, then make the most of the connections to garner the perfect introduction. You can do so by engaging the recruitment representatives as your introducer or by gaining insight from the recruiter about potential positions vacant or the best contact for speculative applications. This will allow you to introduce yourself appropriately to the people who matter. Whatever your professional or personal objectives are when attending a B2B event, remember that you are a representative of your company, so it is not just about what you can get from the opportunity. Your presence makes an impression about the company you represent and the product or service you sell. Even when engaged in an interaction that you think won't benefit you personally, remember that it is an interaction with your company so it is always an opportunity to shine.

A Little More Learning to Get Ahead

Sometimes no matter what your experience or achievements at work are, you might keep coming second to another candidate in a recruitment process because you haven't got the same training or qualifications as they have. Very often employers will look for experience over qualifications, but sometimes it can require a mixture of the two to secure that ideal job. If you want to make the move up the career ladder but you don't have the qualifications, then it's time to look at some training or education opportunities for yourself if there are no training routes open to you in your current job. There are hundreds of different training courses you can take, ranging from half-day workshops to longer-term study courses, so you need to decide how much time you can commit to studying and what courses or programmes will fit well around your hours of work. Some courses you will be able to do remotely, while with others you will need to attend a class or training centre. There are many examples of marketing-related training courses available to boost the weaker aspects of your skills and experience. You may need to work on your copywriting skills if you want to focus on direct mail marketing or producing marketing literature. You may need to get to grips with the latest possibilities that have opened up with social media, or you may need media training if you want to focus your career towards PR. Decide where you want your career path to go and see what the most regular vacancy opportunities are with your local marketing recruitment agencies in Wolverhampton to make sure you are choosing something that has real opportunities. It might not be specific marketing qualifications that you need to set you apart from your peers. Marketing has many aspects, from strategy development and budget planning to implementation planning or communications co-ordination, amongst other elements. So you could benefit from gaining more general qualifications to boost your career, such as business management, finance, or project management. Speak to marketing recruitment agencies in Wolverhampton to see what are the most popular qualifications or examples of training courses that can boost your career. As well as giving you the extra qualifications that you need, setting about improving your skills will also mark you out as a self-starter who can assess what is required of a situation and seek out the means to address it. This use of initiative is something all employers will be pleased to see in applicants for their jobs, so make sure you don't hide this in your application. If you were never a fan of learning or exams when you were at school, don't let that put you off. Remember that as a teenager it could be difficult to see the point of essays and tests and you might have developed a phobia about the exam situation. To get past this fear, you just need to alter your mindset and focus on the very real benefits that applying yourself to learning again can bring. Being able to see the point and wanting to learn is more than half the battle won.

Mis-Selling Boosts Other Sales

The amount of compensation that customers have been receiving from mis-selling things such as PPI has been linked to the increase in car sales as consumers find themselves with lump sums they hadn't expected. While these are serious and extreme cases of misconduct within the sales and financial services professions, they are timely reminders that the effect of a poor approach to selling can mean sales for other businesses, but usually those other businesses will be your competitors. Think beyond the temptation to make the sale at all costs. Remember that the sales process for the customer doesn't end at the point that the customer signs on the dotted line or hands over the cash. That is the point at which it begins. To be successful at sales you need to operate honestly and with integrity and truly understand the value of the product or service you are selling. By believing in what you sell, your passion will come through, and when that is matched with the knowledge that you are totally trustworthy, your customer base will keep growing — largely though word-of-mouth recommendations. However, in just the same way that a great customer experience can be quickly communicated, the news of bad experiences spreads even faster. If you stretch the truth about what a product or service can deliver, it is only a matter of time before that is discovered and the after-sales service will be left to pick up the pieces. So the sale must be successful throughout the process, and that means that all follow-ups such as receipt and performance of the product and the interactions with customer services must meet the expectations set by you in the initial sale. Anything less and you will find your competitors benefiting from your poor conduct. Feeling confident about the reputation and operations of the company you work for can be central to you being able to confidently sell. If you have even the smallest doubts, then this can start to affect your performance and that will quickly show in your results. If in doubt, it's time to start looking for a new job and a new company to represent. See what sales recruitment agencies in Birmingham have on their vacancy lists and do some research into the companies hiring. If there is a specific company you would like to work for, then let the sales recruitment agencies in Birmingham know in case they are contacted about any opportunities or they already work with that company and are able to forward your details speculatively.