Sales

No business can survive without selling. Our overview of planning your sales strategy and recruiting, training and managing sales staff.

A good sales strategy will help you identify prospects, manage relationships and convert leads to sales. The basic things you need to know.

Getting customers: how to prospect for business leads, encourage referrals, identify hot prospects, win back old customers and attract new ones.

How to negotiate: selling solutions, overcoming objections and closing a sale that satisfies your customer’s needs and those of your business.

How to manage sales staff to help them meet the sales objectives set out in your sales strategy by setting targets and providing support.

Making sales presentations is a key part of the selling role; here’s how to plan a presentation and deliver a compelling pitch that wins the business.

Even if you're flat out, generating sales leads allows you to be choosy about which jobs you take on. Ben Dyer looks at how to increase your leads.

Websites like Rated People, Checkatrade and My Builder put homeowners in touch with tradespeople. Ben Dyer investigates the power of referrals.

Body language expert Robert Phipps explains how understanding non-verbal communication can help small firms to increase their sales.

Being sensitive to the body language of prospective customers is a useful skill for salespeople if they want to capitalise on selling opportunities.

We're not all natural-born salespeople, so we share some simple steps that can help you negotiate better sales.