MBA Graduates and job opportunities in Sales. Necessary Selling tips and the Art of Probing.

I am associated with Business Schools and Education sector for last 18 years. Every year I face the same question again and again from fresh MBA Graduates that is it ideal and essential for a fresh MBA Graduate with specialization in Marketing to start his or her career in Sales in the very beginning ? The answer is very simple. There are direct oportunities to start from Marketing profiles as well.  Sales is just a part of Marketing. But then if one has to settle in Marketing profession, the best way is to start from Sales as selling helps a fresh MBA graduate to get a better insight of the market which helps him in the long run to sustain in Marketing profession.

I understand that it's an era of digital marketing and you can create a push and pull for your product by sitting inside the office. But then you cannot avoid the face to face interaction with your clients and to bring maximum clients on board, you need to be a very good Sales Person which depends on your art of communication with your client.

To understand a better product segmentation, Consumer Segmentation and most importantly the Consumer needs and behaviour, you have to spend a significant amount of your career on field which will help you to understand the market. My advise to all fresh MBA graduates particularly with Sales and Marketing as a specialization, that in the beginning of your career spend atleast 5 years in Sales and then take a jump into Marketing profession which will help you to sustain as a Marketing Manager. 

Unfortunately most of the Business Schools do not have any subject related to Sales and they mainly teach the administration part.

Here are some necessary tips for you to improve your selling skills.

Assuming you are meeting your client for a sales meeting related to product or service sector, the interaction must start with the identification of need and understanding his or her need for the product or service.

This is where the ART OF PROBING plays an important role. The art of probing means the art of questioning a person. There are two kinds of probing. Open probing and Close probing. 

What is an open probing ? One thing we must realize that as a sales person one should speak less and allow the client or the buyer to speak more so that the Sales person can identify the need of the buyer. 

As a step 1, when a client or the buyer comes to the sellers place, he or she possess different kinds of customer behaviour. Some are free and frank whereas most of them come with a sceptic nature with lots of doubts or questions in their mind. To make these kind of people speak, you need to start with open questions like " What kind of a car you are looking for ? Or What kind of locations and environment you prefer for your tourism plan ? The idea is to make your client specify about his or her specific need. So the Sales process starts with NEED IDENTIFICATION.

Then comes your part in the 2nd step as a Sales Person to understand whether he or she has the capacity to pay for your product. So again OPEN PROBING is the best way to understand the financial capacity of a person. Instead of using a direct or a closed probe, you can ask a open question like " Sir , thanks for showing your interest towards my product or service. May I know about your professional back ground ? What kind of Business or Profession you belong to " ? So this will make your client speak about his profession or business in details giving you an opportunity to understand his monthly income or annual income.

In the third step, once you are certain about the need of the person and his paying capacity, ask another open question like " What kind of features you are looking for in the car or mobile " ? Here your listening skill plays an important role. If you want to become a very good sales person, then be a good listener always.

In the 4th step, once you are aware about his feature specifications or need in details, start explaining the features of your product and start explaining the advantages and benefits of each and every feature. Remember that every product or service is supported by Unique Selling Propositions which have advantages supported by the benefits. For example if you are sellling a mobile which has a feature of a sleek look, then the advantages are the beauty of the set and easy to hold the phone and the benefits are sophisticated look and easy to carry in your pocket. If you are selling a pen and the feature is that its a ball point pen, then the advantage is that it's using thick oil based ink, and the benefit is extra smooth writing.

In the 5th step, once you explain all features with advantages and benefits, go for a need satisfaction check. While going for a need satisfaction check, use closed probes or to the point questions like " So Mr. X, I have explained about all the features, hope you are now satisfied with the quality of my product and convinced that my product is much better than the other products available in the market. Isnt it  "? Now the client has no other way than giving a specific reply of YES or NO. If he says yes, your 90% deal is done. If he says no, then again you have to use the open probing techniques or open ended questions to understand his doubts and clear his doubts and move for satisfaction check again with the help of Close probing.

In the 6th step, once you get a positive response against the satisfaction check, go for closing the deal.  Now here you need to be very very ascertive and try to understand the customer behaviour thoroughly. Never use a open ended question like " So are you making the payment today and complete the purchase formalities " ? This will allow the client to say no to you and allow him to take his own sweet time to make his decision. As a Sales person , you need to be very smart and try not to allow him to move to his competitors. So use closed probe like " So since you agreed that you are now satisfied with all the features of my product, I would request you to make the payment and close the deal today itself which will ensure a faster delivery of my product as we are running out of stock " . By using this closing probe technique, you are actually creating pressure on your client and it will be a win win situation for you. You may succeed and you may not. But atleast as a Sales Person you are using your ascertiveness and aggressiveness mixed with politeness to close the deal.

In any sales deal, you should learn when to say Yes and when to say No. As a Sales person, you must have the guts to utter the word No with your client with proper timing and attitude which will help you to win in negotiations.

These 6 steps are actually the basic steps. Selling is a vast subject. You need years to learn the negotiation part and understand your customers behaviour.

So in brief, these are the following steps :

Step 1 - Need identification with the help of open probing.

Step 2 - Understanding customers paying capacity - Using open probing.

Step 3 - Understand the need specifications with open probing.

Step 4- Explaining the features of the product or Service supported by advantages and benefits.

Step 5-  Need satisfaction checking with the help of Closed probing.

Step 6 - Negotiate and close the deal with closed probing.

So these are the Six basic steps of selling skills using probing techniques.

Remember that communication plays the most important role when you are into sales specially in the service sector where you cannot show product features, but instead you have to create a dream infront of your client using your art of communication while selling. 

An ideal Sales person is a person who can convince his client and close the deal without letting his client know that he has actually sold a product or service to him.or her.

I am fortunately involved with Unitedworld School of Business which is a part of Karnavati University located at Gandhinagar, Gujarat. As an exception, we provide special training on selling skills to our PGDM aspirants and make them involved into live project of sales and make them aware about the selling techniques in the preplacement training. This helps them to crack the placement interviews successfully with decent placement packages in MNCs.

For details, you can contact me at 9831137124.

You can also meet me at Karnavati University for a cup of coffee and discuss more in details. 

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