How to Succeed in Sales in 8 Steps

“You have 30 seconds to five minutes to sell yourself to a new client,” according to Jana LaVell of MLT Vacations.

LaVell, MLT regional manager, business development & sales, outlined the elements key to successful selling at the recent MLT University in Minneapolis. The annual event, now in its 20th year, offers MLT’s travel agent partners educational seminars aimed at honing their sales and product skills.

Successful selling requires a combination of people skills, product knowledge, sales skills and self-promotion, LaVell told attendees.

Cultivating sales skills is worth the investment of time and effort, she suggested. “The more clients we can keep, the less prospecting you have to do.”

Following are LaVell’s tips for success.

#1. Listen, listen, listen
LaVell advised agents to take a “first date approach” to meeting with prospective clients. “Find common ground – where they’ve been, their pet peeves when traveling,” she said.

“And make small talk,” she added. “The likeability factor is huge.”

#2. Profile your clients
Ask the right questions: What do they like to do on vacation? What is their “vision” of the perfect vacation?
 
“No two clients are alike,” LaVell noted.

#3. Identify emotional benefits
Agents should decipher the emotional benefits clients seek in travel.

Travel can be an opportunity to re-charge or to celebrate a special occasion with a “splurge factor,” La Vell said.

The desire to travel can also be driven by guilt – “not spending enough time with one’s family,” for instance – or by ego, since “a great many clients want to be the first to see or do something.”

#4. Develop your trusted advisor skills
“Be yourself, but be your best self,” said LaVell.

Agents should show genuine interest in their clients; keep their promises – even for the simplest things, and find ways to sustain clients’ excitement for their travel plans.

#5. Follow-up
“Very few people follow up with clients,” LaVell said. “There’s a big difference between saying ‘call me after your trip,’ and ‘I’ll call you.’”

Agents can also garner valuable information by making follow-up calls after their clients’ trips, she added.

“Four out of five clients have an idea of where they want to go on their next trip,” LaVell said. Hold onto that information and be sure to follow up with them in the “down times.”

#6. Be a life-long student
Product knowledge is critical to success, LaVell said.

Agents should take advantage of tools and training, both from suppliers and other sources; tap their clients and third party experts for inside information; visit destinations whenever possible, and use the Internet to fill in gaps in product knowledge, she said.

#7. Develop a trusted ‘brand’
There are numerous ways for agents to develop their own brand, according to LaVell.

They include self-promotion activities like seeking client endorsements, joining community organizations such as the Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce, and billing oneself as an expert.

Specializing is also a way to develop a brand.

“Find niches like adventure, family or health and wellness and promote your specialty,” said LaVell. “If you’re selling resorts that specialize in health and wellness anyway, promote yourself as a health and wellness expert.

“And put that specialty out there on everything, including your business card and collateral materials.”

#8. Deliver value
“Price isn’t everything,” she said. “Focus on the experience and take ownership of value-adds.”

Agents should take credit for value-added offerings they provide such as complimentary breakfast and resort credits.

“You have to assume that people are checking out the Internet and OTAs,” La Vell said. “You can’t control what they do, but you can sharpen your skills.”