Is Sales a Science or an Art?
This is one question that baffles most salespeople even today. I have met Sales People from various industries are daily stepping into the market to sell their products without having a basic understanding of their profession of Sales –
Is Sales a Science or an Art?
What I as a Sales Person discovered after investing one-quarter of a year meeting clients and trying to close a sale has a great significance in my success as a Sales Person – The day I got a deep understanding of the answer to the above question and I consciously started applying it to my sales process, my sales closing techniques improved and I started getting results.
Now I was able to put to work my sales tools in a much more effective way. The result was I surpassed the targets of salespeople who were not only highly qualified but also had many more years of experience than me in selling.
So, is Sales a Science or an Art?
One group of Salespeople is of the belief that Sales is Science. They support their answer by giving the explanation that in Sales they have to follow certain Scientific Steps.
The Scientific Steps of Sales are –
1. Opening
2. Probing
3. Supporting
4. Closing
They believe that they have to go through these Scientific Steps in any Sales. If they don’t follow it, Sales will not happen.
Another group of Sales People is of the opinion that Sales is an Art. According to them, each customer is unique and in order to make a sale to them, they have to follow the art of selling. The way these Sales People use their body language, the way they speak, the words they use, and the way they express themselves while explaining the benefits of their product all come under the art of selling. There is no science involved in this entire process. So, according to this group Sales is an Art.
If you go through the above two answers you will find that both answers are logical and both appear to be right.
Yet the question remains – Is Sales a Science or an Art?
What is the right answer?
Here it is –
Whether you say Sales is a Science or whether you say Sales is an Art, you are not wrong. Yet you are not totally right!
The right answer to the question is – Sales is a combination of both Science and Art.
In a Sales Process, you cannot use just any one of them. If I were to take the example of water, it is composed of Hydrogen and Oxygen. When you need to quench your thirst you cannot have Hydrogen and Oxygen separately or have just anyone of them. You will remain thirsty. You have to use the combination result of Hydrogen and Oxygen that is available to us in the form of water to quench your thirst. Similar is the case with Sales. You have to use the combination of Science and Art to get the results in Sales. You cannot take Science out of Sales and do Sales, neither can you take the Art out of Sales and expect to close the sale.
The Science of Sales:
As a Sales Person, it is important to use the Scientific Steps of Sales. If you don’t you are bound to face challenges in your closing. Look at the four Scientific Steps of Sales mentioned above. They have to be followed in the same exact manner. You cannot directly approach a client and start probing before opening. The client might feel offended and demand who are you to come and start probing about her. Most of the Sales Person have faced this challenge and it happens because their focus is just on closing the sale, which is again not right. I agree that the ultimate aim of a Sales Person is to get the Sale, but jumping the Scientific Steps of Sales will not get them the result.
Likewise, you cannot jump directly from Opening to Supporting. You have to proceed step by step. After Opening you have to go to Probing then only you can go into Supporting.
The Art of Sales:
How you go about using these scientific steps is an Art. For instance, in the process of opening, what you say and the way you say, and the body language you use to make your customer trust you all form the part of Art.
I have seen that most of the Sales People are given a standard script that they have to follow while interacting with their customers. The challenge with this is that there is no art involved in this process. The salesperson who is
Oftentimes salespeople are also given a set of objections with pre-written answers that most of the customers give during a sales process. The salesperson is expected to learn the answers to these twenty-thirty objections so that when a customer comes out with the objection the salesperson starts playing the record of the answer to the customer without understanding why is this customer raising this objection.
This happens because he has not been developed to think on his own and has been given the readymade, once a successful set of lines to follow when he goes on a sale. In fact, he is even warned not to deviate from the script or else he will lose the sale.
Look at yourself as an individual, today how you buy things has changed but ironically as a salesperson, you don’t want to change the way how you sell and expect your customers to keep on buying as they did years before.
Not ready to change himself as a salesperson is the biggest challenge a sales professional faces in his profession.
This becomes his biggest professional competitor. The closing becomes impossible and depression and frustration creep into the mind of the Sales Person.
Blindly following the Scientific Rules of Sales is not the solution to a successful sales career. You have to bring in your personality in your sales. You have to develop your own unique style; you cannot copy others because you have a different individuality. Just because one person is closing using one approach doesn’t mean you can do the same. It can never be as simple as copy-paste. What you can do is learn from others but ultimately your persona will be reflecting in your sales call, so understand yourself and maximize your traits to give you the desired results.
This is where the Artistic side of sales comes into play.
Analyze yourself – how do you talk, how do you convince people, are people ready to listen to you, do they respect your suggestions, do they find you trustworthy or they look at you as a typical salesperson? Do people avoid meeting you because they are afraid that as soon as you meet them you will start selling your products to them?
Master the art of communicating and connecting with your customer during the sale then the chances of your customer raising objections are a bare minimum. Keep the connection alive even after the sale has been made. Remember, the person has bought from you, not from your company. She knows you better than she knows the company you work for. So it is your duty to keep in touch. I have experienced this myself and have been able to close many difficult cases and had a healthy relationship with them for a long, long time.
Why is Art important in Sales?
Without Art, you will become like a robot. You will approach your client in a mechanical manner and make your presentation in an uninteresting way.
The client will not be excited enough to make an instant decision or even make a decision at a later stage to buy your product and will say her favorite dialog – I will let you know.
As it is rude to directly say ‘No’ to a person, the customer uses this line so that you may not feel bad or get hurt. But remember, I will let you know means that you have not been able to make the right connection with your customer.
Don’t let this happen to you. Keep on working on yourself, keep on upgrading, and keep on studying your behavior as a customer as well as a salesperson and then go ahead to master both, the Science and Art of Sales. It is an ongoing and never-ending process.
Always remember,
While the Scientific side of a Sales Process gives us a structure to follow, the Artistic side makes the sales process exciting and interesting both for the person selling and the person wanting to buy. It also helps in the development of a long-lasting healthy relationship and of course we also in the process grow as an individual and take pride in what we do.
In Conclusion
So, what is Sales?
We can say: Sales is an Artistic Science or a Scientific Art!
Till next time, Happy Selling!
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