Tips for gaining selling experience and learning sales skills (for people new to selling or seeking to teach themselves sales skills for a career in selling)

If you want to learn selling skills for your own personal purposes, especially if you want to start a career in selling, here are some tips on how best to acquire and teach yourself selling skills, and gain valuable sales experience that will help you in interviews for sales jobs, or perhaps to start your own business.

First improve your understanding of which type(s) of learning and communications styles that you find most effective - look at the Gardner's Multiple Intelligence theory, and the VAK learning styles and Kolb model to get an idea of your own preferred thinking, communicating and learning styles. This will give you good indications as to your most effective selling style as well. Do you prefer to watch (films, videos, other people demonstrating sales and selling)? Do you prefer to experience it, hands on? Do you prefer to read about it (books, online learning and training like the articles above)? Do you prefer to listen (attend talks, lectures, listen to audio-tapes or CD/DVD sales courses)? Do you prefer for example: system and process, numbers and logic, people and feelings, facts and figures, concepts and ideas? Understand your own personality and strengths.

The understanding of thinking and learning styles is also a very useful sales skill in its own right. In learning about your own style, you will appreciate that other people each have their own preferred styles for learning and communicating and receiving information. This relates strongly to the style in which people prefer to receive sales information from a sales person. By learning about this, you have already begun to increase your selling capability - because you are increasing your appreciation of how and why people prefer to make decisions and to buy.

Then consider cost and feasibility of sales training and learning options that meet your most ideal method(s). Research what is available. Much is free or very low cost. Research is also a very important part of the selling skill set.

If you like to read about selling there is a wealth of sales training, selling techniques and related theory information on the internet for free. Books are actually very inexpensive given all that they contain, especially if second-hand, borrowed from friends or from a library. Read all you can about behaviour and communications. Subscribe to sales and selling newsletters, especially to the many good free e-newsletters available from sales and selling websites, and other websites relating to behaviour, business, marketing and communications.

Read the newspapers and business supplements which contain articles about sales and selling. Sales is not just about selling. Sales is about people and relationships, business and marketing, psychology and communications, self-confidence and attitude, belief, ethics and trust, information, quality, equipment, processes, and all of life. Learning opportunities for improving your understanding of selling are all around you, everywhere, on the internet, in books, magazines and articles.

If you like to listen and watch: observe sales people in selling roles - in stores, at exhibitions, and especially when they call at your door, or call you on the phone. Give them time to show you how they sell. Learn from the good and less good things that you see other sales people exhibiting. It's easy to judge whether selling is good or not: did it result in a positive experience or a sale? Or did it result in a negative experience and a feeling that the prospective customer and the seller will never speak again?

Get yourself onto the mailing lists of the sales training organisations. Business and training exhibitions and magazines are very useful for identifying relevant providers and for adding your name to their mailing lists. Look out for free seminars which they use to promote their courses. Attending business and training exhibitions is a good way to meet people in the sales community, to observe sales people a work, and to add your name to their mailing lists.

Attend talks and lectures or courses about selling - many are very low cost - some are free. You will hear about them if you are on the mailings lists of organisations providing them. Also contact your local business chamber or local government business support unit for information about such events.

Observe politicians and business people being interviewed on TV; they demonstrate good and not so good sales techniques when they attempt to persuade, build credibility, answer questions, overcome objections, etc.

Join a debating society. Observe how people 'sell' their ideas and propositions - again you will be able to judge what is effective and what is not. Give yourself experience in public speaking and debating.

Offer to give presentations to local voluntary groups, schools, anywhere that you can practice, learn and get experience of giving presentations. Capability to speak and give sales presentations to groups is largely a question of experience and confidence. This comes from having done it. So start now.

If you like to listen and learn, especially while driving, buy or borrow sales training and communications audio-tapes and CDs and DVDs. Sales and selling learning is not limited to sales techniques - listen to anything about communications and behaviour, personal development and confidence, goals and aims, relationships and psychology, ethics and philosophy, process and systems, equipment and ICT (information and communications technology), marketing and business. All these areas directly relate to and give depth to your sales and selling capabilities.

Aside from all this there is no substitute for experience - actually selling something..

And you do not need anyone to give you a sales job in order to start. Do it for yourself.

This type of learning is the most valuable and well-respected (by future potential employers) of all. And it's free.

Start your own modest sales business - working from home. You'll even make some money from the activity. Start a home business and sell to local consumers and/or business people, depending on your chosen product service. It doesn't matter what it is as long as you have an interest in it and enjoy it, and preferably that it has a reasonable demand and competitive advantage. Of course avoid ridiculous pyramid investment schemes - many exist that exploit people's inexperience and people's desire to get into selling - so be on your guard against these outrageous scams. Do not be persuaded to part with money for stock or the purchase of a franchise or territory, unless you are absolutely sure about what you are doing, and even then, get advice from someone older and wiser.

If you decide to start your own small sales business - which I urge you to do if you cannot get the experience elsewhere - think carefully about what you want to sell, to whom, and how. Start simply and modestly. Choice of what product/service to sell, and what market to sell to, are also important parts of the selling capability, and so this will also give you valuable experience in choosing good products or services that are worthy of your sales efforts and personal endorsement. You must believe in what you are selling. Look at the marketing section to help you decide what to sell and to whom. Perhaps become an agent for a door to door sales organisation. Perhaps do some telesales work. Start modestly, start learning, and you will have started selling. You will soon develop skills, experience, and confidence that will be desirable to many sales employers, although you might quickly decide that you like the feeling of running your own sales business, and from then on you will never need to find a sales job with an employer, since you have created one of your own. To be successful in selling does not necessarily require an employed sales position. You can do it for yourself if you want to.

Selling is after all mostly how you feel about yourself, and making things happen for yourself. So feel good, and go make something happen.