Once upon a time, Julie Marie Karpus was a Spanish teacher at Henry County Senior High School and she was looking for ways to earn extra money during her summer break. Accordingly, she took a job selling life and disability insurance to small businesses.

Realizing that most small-business owners were potential clients, she walked into a small retail shop even though the fear of being rejected loomed large in her mind. She planned to cold-call on the proprietor and explain why he or she needed disability insurance. It seemed like a good idea even though she received no training and never sold anything before.

Karpus nervously opened the door and a lady greeted her.

“Can I help you?” the lady asked.

Karpus opened her mouth and tried to speak. But no words came out.

“Are you here to sell us something?” the lady asked. The words still stuck in her throat and Karpus silently nodded her head.

“Sorry the owner isn’t here now and you’ll have to come back,” the lady said. Karpus quickly left and never returned.

Since then, Karpus worked as a salesperson, received formal training and was eventually promoted to the North American sales manager for a Brazilian manufacturer. She was based in Atlanta and trained distributors nationwide and in Canada about how to sell heavy machinery to paper mills.

I met her at a party. We married, and she became Julie Karpus Chautin.

Selling is an art and a science. Both are learned skills. Reading books, attending workshops and reading articles about selling is a good start. Practice, practice and more practice is required to perfect your selling skills and internalize them so that they become part of your being. Every sales call is a learning opportunity.

Arm yourself with an opening sentence or two, sometimes called an elevator speech, to grab the prospect’s interest. It usually includes a promise to fill a need, provide a benefit or avoid a loss. The next step is to create credibility for you and your company. And lastly, a call to action, or closing, asks the prospect to buy. In fact, the closing is so powerful that you must always ask for the order even while you are learning the other steps.

If you are selling online, your web site should include the same steps. Grab attention with a promise, create credibility with testimonials from happy customers and ask the prospect to click the “buy now” button.

Of course web sites have technical requirements too. For example, sales are lost when prospects have difficulty navigating through the checkout process. Sometimes they are turned off by mailing and handling fees that were undisclosed until the very end.

Meanwhile, face-to-face selling is a two-way conversation. Telling is not selling. Listening to the prospect’s needs and thoughtfully offering solutions is the essence of selling.

But getting a prospect to engage in conversation is not always easy. That is why you have to work on your elevator speech, test it out, practice it and continue to fine-tune it.

Compile testimonial letters in a presentation book and use them to tell a story about solving problems that are similar to the prospect’s needs.

Closing the sale is a subtle process that unfolds as you speak with and listen to the prospect. It involves testing the water whenever you see an opening. Ask probing questions to ferret out buying signals and closing opportunities. Keep asking questions until you are sure that you understand what is needed and have the solution.

Here is an example of a closing question: "If everything I've described is responsive to what you've told me, and represents the solution you need, is there anything else that we should discuss for you to make a decision today?"

Depending upon the prospect’s response, you'll know whether or not to write the order.