Sales Love Affair: What Sales and Dating Have in Common [Infographic]

So, you want to be a better salesman?

Well, you can become a better Romeo while you're at it.

When it comes to your sales process, take a cue from your dating life; they aren’t as different as you might think. When you boil them down, sales and dating are pretty much identical.

In dating, you need to:

1. Choose who to talk with,
2. Know the best ways to engage with them,
3. And how to seal the deal.

Then, when working as a sales representative, you need to:

1. Choose who to talk with,
2. Know the best ways to engage with them,
3. And how to seal the deal.

No, those weren't typos. The processes are ideally the same.

Granted, each step is a little different depending on what you’re actually trying to do (you won’t go in for a goodnight kiss with your prospect), but I think you get the general steps.

With these steps and a little practice, you can go from good to a great salesman in no time at all!

Let’s break down each step a little more:

1. Choose Who To Talk With Carefully

In this first step, you’ll want to identify your target market or buyer persona. Find your top performing customers, your “best” leads, biggest deals, and fastest closings. By analyzing this data, you’ll be able to better target those prospects who will give you the most opportunity and sale potential.

2. Know the Best Ways to Engage

To make your job more efficient, you’ll also want to segment your dataset in your CRM (but only after identifying your ideal prospects).

By segmenting your prospects you can identify the information that will best engage and nurture each prospect. The more relevant information you can provide your prospects with, the more chance you’ll be able to close a sale. Statistics show that leads who were nurtured with targeted content produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities.

3. Seal the Deal

Typically, salesmen reach out to prospects to try and “seal the deal” two ways: email or a phone call.

The first step to maximizing your outreach at this stage is to ensure that the data you’re collecting from prospects is accurate.

If the contact information is non-existent or inaccurate, you could waste about 25% of your time!

Keep in mind, this information is gathered from the forms on your site so make sure they are collecting the right information for you to do your job.

Now that you’ve got your prospect on the phone, our best tip is to be as helpful as possible.

Yes, you want to make a deal, but if you’re pushy, overbearing, or “salesy”, more than likely you’re going to be rejected. Just like when you date, don’t say “I love you” on the first date.

To learn more about sales as a love affair, check out the infographic below from ZoomInfo!