Everybody is in the selling business. At one point or another, assuming you are not Robinson Crusoe trapped on some obscure island, you are always trying to sell something to the next fellow you are relating with.

And you could be trying to sell them just about anything. From a strand of hair to ambient oxygen (assuming you have a better supply of it). We live in an interdependent society. Nobody is an island and for you to survive you’ve got to sell me that stuff i don’t have for you to acquire the stuff you don’t have.

In modern day selling, the art of selling has become as good as or in some cases better than the product/service itself. Your ability to master the art of selling keeps you in business; because the fact that you will open shop by this time next year depends solely on the rate at which goods and services leave your shelf.

For more effective sales, here are five sales strategies:

1. Put your whole heart into your selling. The more enthusiastic you are about your products and services, the better and faster you can transfer that enthusiasm to your customers. Absolute faith and belief in your products and services makes you present these products/services at every slightest opportunity and initiate the call to buy.

This enthusiasm is directly related to your ability to convince your customer that this is what they need. Human beings are primarily emotional in everything they do or say, and this makes caring for your customers a critical element to successful selling. The customer buys if he knows you care very much about his benefiting from what you are offering.

2. Ask the customer to buy. Customers always entertain some degree of hesitation or indecision even if they are convinced that your product/service is what they need. This indecision can always cost you the sale.

For effective sales, you need to get the customer to take action. Ask him to buy it given that under the circumstance this is the right product or service for him. Most sales people don’t do this and it takes its toll on their sales.

3. Build trust whether a sale is made or not. Most buying decisions are made after the fifth meeting or interaction with the customer. It is therefore essential for you to always build trust on your way to making the sale.

The more credible a prospect sees you the easier and faster you can convert him into a customer. Trust is built by showing more interest in the customer than in what you are offering.

4. Know your numbers. In everything you do there are always a couple of things that make the most difference. Twenty percent of your activities bring you eighty percent of your sales. Twenty percent of your products/services bring in eighty percent of your income. For effective sales, always identify and concentrate on the twenty percent of things. Spend more time with those twenty percent of customers. Produce more of those twenty percent of products/services. Use more of those twenty percent means of promotion.

5. Be omnipresent. If you simply increase the number of people you can reach with your products and services, there is nothing in the world that can stop you from hitting that sales target you place for yourself.

The top salespeople see more people and make more requests for their products and services to be bought. Leveraging on different marketing and promotional tools makes you omnipresent.