point
The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

Mastering Sales Symposium A Platform to Learn How to Sell

Roshna Sankar
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Roshna Sankar
The process of sales can be compared with the snake and ladder game as there is a great deal of probability and luck involved in both. There are ladders that can easily help the sales team to reach their target, but there are also downs like snakes that can simply bring them down. “As it is a game of chance, the sales force has to prepare well before a call or meeting with the client,” according to Anuj Vahid, General Manager, Wipro Infotech.

The sales team should make the maximum use of the available resources if they want to be efficient in sales, opined Vahid while sharing his views at SiliconIndia’s ‘Mastering Sales Symposium’, which was a platform for sales professionals to learn about various aspects of sales management.

Successful sales strategies are only created by people who possess a combination of two important qualities, critical thinking and expert-based, sales process experience. Gopalakrishnan Kannatath Palakkil, Senior Vice President, Head (India - Sales), MindTree, describes selling as creating demand and fulfilling those demands. According to him, a sales person should know his competition thoroughly. But there are very few people who try to do it. He cited that only five percent of people whom he interviewed spent time to read newspapers.

Customer knowledge and customer intimacy are integral parts of sales. A sales person definitely needs to communicate with the customer. They should clearly communicate what the product or service can provide and cannot provide. As without the better knowledge of the product and the customers, it will be difficult to build up the trust, a vital component that ensures the success in buying and selling. A long lasting relationship is possible only when the customer gains his trust either on the seller or the product. So the relationship is really important. “The less we try to make the sale, the more we make them trust the sale and more success can come to us as sellers,” says Shajy Koshy, Head Sales – South and East Region, Mphasis. He opined that all buying decisions are based on emotions and justified with logic.

A proper knowledge of the sales environment also helps one to place practical goals in terms of a pipeline. Pipeline visibility helps the sales force to view the opportunities available in the market. A lack of visibility into the sales pipeline may cause loss of sales opportunities and it may end up in making poor decisions. Inaccurate sales forecasts will result in unachieved corporate goals. So improvement of pipeline visibility is very much essential as it helps to diagnose and rectify the hurdles that exist on the way long before they actually begin to be felt. It also helps the users to view the pipeline at any level of details.


Share on Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Share on facebook