What are qualities and skills of a good retailer?

Thesales team of a Company is its backbone. After all it is the sales person who is the face of the firm and interacts with prospective consumers. Whether we talk about door to door selling or over the counter sales, the sales person is always under pressure to meet rising sales targets.

The sales presentation requires a sales man to be a friend, a guide, an advisor and sometimes a reformer to the customer.

Here are a few qualities that define an effective sales person -

• Goal Oriented - The driving force behind every Company is increased sales and high profits. Most Companies draw out expected sales targets for every year. The duty lies on the sales team to not only meet these targets but go beyond them. Every sales person must be goal oriented and should work towards matching these sales figures.

• Confident - A sales person should be confident about the product he is selling as well as his own ability to successfully close a sale. Especially in the case of door to door selling, the sales person should be able to interact well with the prospective buyer, gain their trust, arouse an interest and eventually convince them to try a new product. Sales persons should be willing to handle all kinds of tense situations.

• Patient & Courteous - Convincing a prospective customer to buy a product is not an easy task. Selling is an art and requires patience. A sales person should be able to guide a customer through the entire process which begins with a prospective buyer's indifferent attitude towards a brand and ends with them placing an order. The sales person should be courteous and pleasant while taking a buyer through these stages.

· Personality

A good sales person is not afraid to talk to anyone who may have an interest in what he/she is selling. Listening and controlling the conversation by asking intelligent, thought provoking, interesting questions that are open ended and gather information is another key trait to successful selling. Also, eye contact, standing straight and smiling are important for an effective impression towards someone who is spending their hard earned money.

There is a misunderstanding that a good salesperson has 'the gift of the gab' where as most trained sales people will have heard the saying 'You have one mouth and two ears, use them in that proportion'. A good sales person is a listener. They ask plenty of questions, and make notes of the answers. These notes (mental or written) help them find a suitable product or service for the potential customer. A successful sale is when the customer agrees with that solution

• Team Player - A good sales executive must be a good team player as well. An ability to interact and devise good sales plans should come naturally to him.
• Complete Product Knowledge - Every sales executive should be trained well. He should have complete product knowledge including benefits, uses and applications of each product. A good background knowledge will help him to answer all types of questions raised by a prospective buyer

The price

Many salespeople are unable to sell to their potential owing to their own misunderstanding of their potential customers' needs. They are able to listen to the answers, but misunderstand that the customer doesn't have the same goals as they. Many sales people worry about the price of their goods compared to the competition. Customers, unlike the sales people, are unaware of the prices of non commodity goods and are willing to pay what they believe is a fair price (usually slightly below the market price) for these goods. It is only when a sales person, or a third party introduces doubt into the mind of the customer, that price becomes an issue.

Ethic

Many successful salespeople have a deep understanding of human behaviour and are able to use these skills to their advantage. They are aware that, although there is a process for successfully completing a sale, customers fall into a range of different personality types. For instance, a sales person would have to deal with a teacher in a totally different manner to how they would deal with a businessperson. This is because the two sets of people have a different outlook on life and would therefore have different qualities which would be important %