A good salesman is someone who:

• listens more than he talks
• asks the right questions:
  • Who, what, when etc
  • Avoid questions that the customer can answer by ‘yes’ or ‘no’
• but is also communicative, and doesn’t mind picking up his phone to call people who are entirely unknown to him

In sales, you need to ‘under-promise, over-deliver’. Don’t do it the other way round, ever if you like all the technical features that your solution has. Keep something as a ‘bonus’ or ‘surprise’ that the customer did not expect. This helps increase customer satisfaction.

A good salesman creates trust and invests in long-term relationship. In particular, you can:

• help you customers solves their problems
• give them something for free once in a while
• confess your ‘little faults’. Nobody likes people who seem to be perfect, this creates mistrust
• be honest

Finally, as a sales person, you need to have a thick skin. A success rate of 10% is great!