The Art of Sales
My first idea of sales while growing up was from my experience at Ariaria market, located at Aba and also Oil Mill market located at Port Harcourt. In my experience the sellers were very persuasive about buying a certain product, telling how original it is and in some other case they even tried selling things I didn’t need and most times, I end up buying them. Due to this I came to the conclusion that for you to be a good salesman you must be Igbo and also, you have to take advantage of your customers and this made me not to be interested in anything business or sales.
Time has passed now and based on my new experiences with capitalism, I have figured that you don’t have to be Igbo or take advantage of your customers.
My first attempt at sales was when my best friend and I decided we were going to make groundnuts to sell to our neighbours. We would obviously have made sales but then we went on to eat half of what we produced, which caused us stomach upset. Also the ones we attempted to sell couldn’t return our capital.
Years later, I have attempted sales from a different approach and the experience that stood out for me was when I was a documentary videographer. During this time, I was caught up with seeking validation for how good my art was which gave me confidence issues. When asked how much I was going to charge for my service, I always ended up selling myself short. My reason then was that I did not want my clients to be inconvenienced with the payment of my service and my strategy was the long game, where I would win the loyalty of my clients and subsequently increase my price with time.
I laugh at myself whenever I remember that time, because obviously that did not work. Everyone was looking out for themselves and looking to take advantage of someone, though this did not discourage me, I knew I needed to do better and start taking more risk.
My breakthrough came after I met a certain client, Who did not haggle the price I charged for my service (Even though it was in millions of Naira). After that I knew my target market had to change because I wanted an increase in my income, Since then I have spent many months working and optimising myself to understand the “Art of Sales”.
Firstly, I had to reprogram my mind from believing that I needed to solve the hardest problems to earn the most money. In getting to be a better salesman, I have worked on understanding my product, which has helped me to know my limitations and also understand the problems of my target market.
Being a problem solver has helped alot. I see my product as a tool and my client’s problem as an engine that needs fixing and being a mechanical engineer, I know that different engines come with different nut sizes and different arrangements. Understanding the problems enables me to know how to use my tools and also to know that my tools aren’t for every engine which saves me from attempting to sell my solution to everybody.
Secondly, building relationships is vital. In attempt to understand my customer’s problems, it opens me to understanding who my customer is and how they like their things done. As it’s with every relationship, for you to nurture it, you need to understand how the person wants to be loved and in return they reciprocate this love, In this case them paying you the right amount for your product is them showing you love.
Finally, staying calm under pressure is necessary. As a Product manager in a company that produces perishable product, it’s very critical for the process to go according to plan till point of sales. Obviously there are still chances of plan going wrong and from my experience it results in loss of revenue in the business. With time I got better at managing these pressure by delegating tasks, setting up alternative plans and staying focused on what I can control when plan doesn’t go accordingly. This has saved us a lot of money which helped me close sales, increase product quality and also the pricing of product.
Sales is the heart of every business and as individuals like me navigating freelancing and building their own products, The more you become confident and master the art of sales the better you become in sales.
This article was inspired by Peace Itimi’s interview wih Ayo Akindele where he spoke about how he was good in sales and got his first car which was a jaguar. The interview inspired me because I totally relate with how he’s navigating his career life, which gives me the validation that I am doing it right.
Since we can’t win against capitalism, we optimise to make the most out of it.
