Editor’s Note: The following blog is the first of 7 blogs on Essential Selling Skills Bootcamp
The upcoming sequence of blogs will outlay the principles of selling skills that will work with any product or service or idea that you want to sell.
- Why Choose a Career in Sales?
- The Myth of Sales
- Personality Traits of Top performing Sales Professionals
- Essential Selling skills of Top performing Sales Professionals
“Life itself is a matter of salesmanship.” -Thomas J. Watson
Everyone is a salesman; a loan applicant sells his financial need to a bank. A professor sells her academic ideas to her students. A candidate sells his experience in an interview.
Selling skills are not just a vocational requirement, but an essential skill for everyday life. In essence, selling is persuasion. It is something that we are always engaging at an early age whether you are contemplating a career in sales, already in sales or aspire to improve persuasion skills.
There is nothing mysterious or complicated about sales as there is no such thing as a born salesperson. Everything about sales is learned. The beauty in sales is its simplicity.
What Are the Benefits of a Sales Career?
Brian Tracy once described sales as the “ultimate default career.” What he probably meant that many people select sales as a career because no other job requires no specific academic qualifications and still pays you handsomely.
Salesmanship had come a long way since the 1800s and early 1900s when peddlers promoted fake snake oil to cure a wide variety of ailments and phrenology: The science of selling cars based on the size of a customer’s forehead.
In today’s dynamic sales landscape and the rise of new sales processes and methodologies supported by sales enablement programs and sales acceleration software, selling has evolved to be a great career.
Other than the monetary rewards there are numerous reasons why you should choose a career in sales and not just be in sales until you make enough money or some other career opportunity becomes available.
Benefits of The Sales Career
Transferable skills.
The skills developed in a sales career are diversified and practical, from Time Management skills to dealing with objections skills. Those set of skills are transferable to any industry, thus giving you the freedom to move between industries and providing you with new career opportunities.
Great Earning Potential.
A sales career offers you the opportunity of financial success. There are very few careers offering the income potential that sales careers offer. Your income is based on your performance. The financial rewards come in different forms of commission checks, quarterly and annual bonuses, trips, prizes, and other perks.
Flexibility.
Sales positions come with the benefit of a flexible schedule allowing you to manage your daily schedules.
Entrepreneurship.
Being in sales and managing your pipeline is like running your own business while still having the marketing and financial support of an organization.
Accomplishments.
A career in sales is one of the most emotionally rewarding jobs. In addition to the sales awards, rewards, and commissions, there is a great deal of satisfaction that comes from finalizing the deal. The feeling of accomplishment comes from the fact that you are the person responsible for making things happen.
Job Security.
Sales jobs are considered to be one of the top professions that is recession-proof. Successful sales professionals are normally among the last to be cut from a struggling business or during an economic downturn.
More Benefits of The Sales Job
- Sales Is A Career Where the Sky Is the Limit to The Success You Can Achieve.
- Sales Is A Job Where You Are Always Learning About Yourself and Others.
- Sales Is an Evolving Landscape.
- Sales Are Not Just A Job; It Is A Lifestyle.
The Myth of Sales and Sales Professionals.
Unlike any other jobs, there are many misapprehensions about sales and Sales Professionals. Unscrupulous salespeople have unfortunately validated some of those misconceptions while others are pure myth.
The First Myth; Successful Sales Professionals are natural-born.
Fact: Everything about sales is learned. The top sales skills that lead to success is through cognitive learning. Successful Sales Professionals acquire and understand knowledge through their thoughts, experiences, and senses.
The Second Myth; Great Sales Professionals are fast-talking, outgoing extroverts.
Fact: Top performers in the current sales landscape are listening more than talking. They are more into consultative selling than hard-selling.
The Third Myth; Successful Sales Professionals are aggressive and pushy, fast-talking, back-slapping “I will make you an offer you cannot refuse.”
Fact: Tenacity is a crucial trait for successful Sales Professionals. However, there is a fine line between being pushy and determined to succeed.
The Fourth Myth; Successful Sales Professional don’t need training or coaching.
Fact: There is nothing “natural” about becoming a successful Sales Professional it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. They reached that success by listening to their coaches and mentors, opening up their minds to new sales methodologies, and skills.
What Are the Personality Traits of Top performing Sales Professionals?
Passionate– Successful Sales Professionals are passionate, they believe in what they are selling, and they validate that with their passion in every way and at every occasion.
Self-motivated and highly focused – Successful Sales Professionals are self-motivated. At the same time, they can focus on essential quality, one that drives them towards achievements.
Resilient– Successful Sales Professionals keep moving forward regardless of the difficulties or rejections they encounter. They don’t waste time feeling down and sorry for themselves but bounce back from losses, mentally preparing themselves for the next opportunity.
Achievement Orientated– Successful Sales Professionals are absorbed with achieving their goals and measure their performance in comparison to their assigned goals.
Curious -Successful Sales Professionals are highly inquisitive, they want to know if they can close the deal, and they want to know the probability of it at an early stage of the sales process.
Coachable -Successful Sales Professionals are energetic, willing to learn and have the ability to adopt new skills and processes. They are always learning.
Essential Selling Skills of Top Performing Sales Professionals
Outstanding Communication Skills – Successful Sales Professionals have excellent communication skills. They are good presenters and have control over their verbal and non-verbal communication. They can articulate their thoughts and messages very well and master the 3 Primary Modes of Communication, Verbal, Vocal, Visual.
They implement the best practices in both spoken (e.g., phone calls, presentations, pitches.) and written (e.g., proposals, memos, referral requests) communications.
Tip: Don’t communicate more than three critical points in a single conversation with a buyer. Keep written communications concise. Personalize your communications and conclude your written communications with a call to action and always provide value with your written communications.
Lead Qualification – Successful Sales Professionals ask structured questions so they can gather and analyze information about a prospective buyer that will show them which available solution or product features directly addresses a prospect’s pain points, therefore, moving them to the next step in the selling process.
They ask
- Close-ended Questions
- Open-ended Questions
- Confirming Questions
- Probing Questions
- Summary Confirmation Questions
Tip: When asking qualification questions make sure that you write the answers down so you can revert to them at the closing stage or in case of an objection.
Demo Skills-Successful Sales Professionals have excellent demo skills. They understand their product and demonstrate its capabilities to a prospective buyer.
Tip: Bombarding the prospective buyer with too many features and expecting them to understand the related benefit is the wrong approaches and can overwhelm and confuse the prospective buyer. Customers are only interested about the features of your product that are relevant to their need. Excellent sales demos & presentations.
Product knowledge-Successful Sales Professionals are knowledgeable, and experts on the product they are selling. Through their product knowledge, they can create effective pitches and connect with the prospective buyers needs to the best solution available.
Tip: Knowing about the product features and benefits is very important, but you need to translate those benefits through storytelling so the prospective buyer can relate and establish “What Is in It For Me.”
Compelling Storytelling -Successful Sales Professionals intertwine the product or service they are selling into a larger story that has an end with the customer receiving what they want. They articulate their message by telling a story that profoundly resonates with their prospective buyer.
Tip: Stories are how humans communicate. Exploit the power of story selling to connect with the prospective buyer, so keep your story True, Short, Relevant, Focused on the prospective buyer ’s pain point.
Time Management-Successful Sales Professionals view time as their most important commodity. Managing their attention and optimizing their time improves their productivity and cost efficiency, creating the environment needed for high performance.
Tip: Allocating a specific time to a task is no assurance that the job will receive your full attention, and without attention the time that you have allocated becomes irrelevant.
Objection Handling– Successful Sales Professionals consider objections as a sign that the prospective buyer is interested in what they are selling and can ask questions to understand the root of the concern. They acknowledge and respect their prospective buyer’s objection and respond in a way that alleviates the concern therefor allowing the deal to move forward.
Tip: When facing an objection understand your prospective buyer’s real concerns. Why is the objection an issue for them? Make no assumptions.
Social Media & Social Selling– Successful Sales Professionals, understand that Social Media has become a significant part of everyone’s daily life. They use social media to find and engage with their Prospective buyers. Successful Sales Professionals use social media to provide value to prospects by responding to comments, answering questions, and by sharing useful content throughout the buying process.
Tip: Create content that positions you as an expert in what you are selling, and the industry that you are representing – but remember, to keep it simple, relevant and adds value.
Closing Skills– Successful Sales Professionals know that they need to earn the right to ask for the sale. They earn this right by handling their Perspective’s Buyers concerns and objections. They deserve the right by following up and assisting the prospective buyer at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Tip: The closing technique that you will employ has to meet the following criteria. It is relevant to the sales process, you have earned the right to close, it matches the prospective buyer’s personality and that you are competent in executing the technique.
Client Nurturing – Successful Sales Professionals realize that closing the deal doesn’t end the buyer’s journey. They continue to offer additional value by providing the customer with excellent customer service during the implementation stage.
Tip: Being courteous and friendly with your clients is an excellent place to start, but you need to provide them with valuable advice and efficient help.
Sales Process -Successful Sales Professionals use a well-Choreographed and systematic Sales Process in all situations. They navigate each stage of their sales process based on a sales methodology aligned with their prospective buyer’s purchasing journey.
Tip: Do not assume that your Prospective buyer is ready to move to the next stage in your sales process, validate that by asking questions, handling objections and adding value.
To be a top performing Sales Professional, you need to develop the above attributes and acquire the necessary skills; however, your mindset, personality, and work methods are the entire basis for your professional success and the glue that brings all of the above together to achieve a higher level of salesmanship and results.
