In its essentials, Selling is a craft, more than an art and, is based on sound principles. Understand and apply those principles diligently and, more often than not you will succeed in finding a buyer, offline or online.

1. Maintain a List. This list is populated by people who have evinced some interest in your wares at some time. Organise the list in the following order of precedence.

a. Hot prospects, people who you know are very interested and are just waiting for that final nudge from you, to convert from prospect to customer.

b. Medium prospects, people who you know are reasonably interested in your wares but will take a lot of working on to develop into clients.

c. Likely prospects, people who are but mildly interested and will need a huge amount of convincing to cross the line.

It should be evident from the above classification, where your energies are better spent.

2. Keep yourself up to date with the complete details of your product, its advantages and, disadvantages as well. A salesman anticipates and meets a need in the market. A prospective customer may either not be aware of your product or, may only be vaguely aware. It is to your benefit if you are able to match the customers perceived need to your product. Give him the unique privilege of learning from you about how your product could help in making his life easier and he will always come back to you.

3. Be curious. Once you are able to interact with a prospect, ask a lot of questions, of course, as unobtrusively as possible. Engage the prospect in a conversation, gently advance the usefulness of your product and elicit the prospects response to the stated benefits. See if you can understand the prospects mindset and any objections he may have to the product as presented. This will enable you to recast your approach as well as improve and modify the product if enough feedback warrants it.

4. Close the Sale. You generally know when the prospect has been brought round to the stage of buying the product or service. Still, he needs that final push, nudge to complete the sale. Do not hesitate to ask for the order. This can be accomplished by simply asking him his preferred mode of payment and giving him the available options. Once you have brought him round to see the benefits of the product and offered him a suitable payment option well, the sale is in the bag alright.

Paramesh