When talking to new people in the business of selling, they often ask how to actually make a good income as a sales representative. I’ve been able to talk to a fair share of sales reps, and also did some research on the specificality of the sales business.
So how to make money as a sales rep? Selling a product to customers is how any sales rep makes a living, but It really depends on what the sales rep is selling. If you want to make real profits, then you will need to partner up with a company that will give you large commissions on a product that has a quick sales cycle.
However, it’s not a necessity to sell big ticket items to have a steady flow of income from your sales efforts. There are actually really critical concepts in this business that enable some sales reps and agents to work way less than the average joe.
The Beauty of Recurring Commissions
Again, large commissions are always great to have, and I enjoy a large slice of pie like everyone else. Yet, I do also enjoy making money without grinding it out too much. In our business we are able to makes sales that give us a recurring income, and this is where scalability is brought into the light. With this kind of business model, the concept of “Work Smarter, Not Harder” definitely begins to make more sense, and more realistic. Instead of constantly trying to find ways to sell more to your hot leads, you can get paid consistently for your effort up front for months to come.
Some examples of Recurring Commissions:
- Software Based Applications/Services: I want you to think about software packages that help business grow, organize, train, or market better than what they could done without it. These softwares have a long customer lifetime value (CLV), and you can literally keep pulling in revenue for the next 5+ years, because the business will basically need the service it’s receiving.
- Recurring Services: If you can sell a service and earn a commision on something that a customer will continue to order again and again, then you found yourself a winner. Even working with smaller business, and offering to market for them for a slice of the income they pull in makes so much sense for both parties, especially if the sale isn’t necessarily high ticket. An example is collecting recurring commissions from a pool service you joint-venture with. The key is to take low percentages and avoid trying to work with only one company, but networking with a larger net of them and pull in multiple income streams.
- Inhouse Services with Outsourcing: This is where the creative thinkers make their money. Doing things yourself will open up higher revenue potential. If you start representing yourself, and build a brand around the value you can accumulate for others, then you have the building blocks to build a business around who and what you know. If you can delegate services, or market a service you can fulfill repeatedly without much input from yourself, than you can start building a recurring income.
Having a sales system is a must have without a doubt. Doing some research here’s what I”ve found.
Building a Solid Sales System
What is a sales system? Why do I need one? Why do sales people use them?
A sales system organizes people and enables them to work more efficiently to produce results. Results of course being sales. Building a sales system should be on a sales rep’s hit list of to do’s, and shouldn’t be overlooked as a mental system. All business are built on systems, and sale’s reps should view themselves as a business. You must build a system of organization, and processes that you can follow to continue to produce results consistently and reliably. What kinds of systems are we talking about?
- Contact Management Systems: These systems allow you to find contacts easily without trouble. If you are cold calling, then you need to know who you have attempted selling to, and efficiently organize the data you collect so that you are never caught up doing double jeopardy on people who will waste your valuable time.
- Operation Systems: These will help you with the daily grind of what processes you take when doing a specific task. Say that you would like to start an email marketing campaign, then you would set up a system that will be easy to follow over and over again, and will continue to produce similar results.
- Software System: These systems can do the following things mentioned above, and they are suited to work for you and optimize your workflow and contact management. Software can do wonders in this day and age, and if you don’t use the tools available, you will be out mined by every other prospector looking for your leads.
With that last bullet point we see that you can easily pick up a sales system b uh means of purchase. Software is a good direction, but you always need to rely on the fundamentals if you want your business to succeed.
Retaining Leads and Customers
If you decide to go the route of recurring commissions then you won’t really have to worry too much about this topic. However, if your business is based on continually receiving payments from a client that continues to need new services then this is where retention is key.
You might know this but all salesman understand that we sell to people not businesses. The art of giving real value to a person goes a long way in business relationships. If you have nothing to do with the quality of the product that you’re selling, then what you do have control over is how you treat your potential client or lead. You should be giving 100% value to your customers or leads all the time, and the best way to do that is through direct communication and then social media for your leads and possible consumers.
A great resource on the Internet the explains very well on developing business relationships With clients is Gary Vaynerchuk. Content he puts out definitely introduces a lot of new ideas for the modern age, and we should all be on that bandwagon.
Networking for the Better!
When I think about networking I always refer back to my early days in elementary and junior high school when working on School projects. You might be working on projects right now if its work, or even class assignments in college. At the end of the day they do seem to be redundant and useless to be wasting your time working with other people, but in the world of business the more people and connections you know the easier it is to produce results.
The reason why one might want to network Is because it makes life easier. If you have something that you can give to someone else, and they have something that you need… Then the simplest solution is to network. There are a lot of people that are selling to customers and consumers, and they have services they can’t provide for them and if you provide that service then you can fill in the gap. They of course assume that you would do the same for them if you can not fulfill a need for your own customers, and you know that they can.
This is more ideal for the work of the joint venture. Just something to keep in mind as you endeavor to become the best sales rep that you can be.
Thank you for reading my article, and hopefully I was able to deliver the best value that I could tell you. Please tell me what you liked what you didn’t like it I might even make some adjustments to my article.