2. Sales Training: 4 Essential Skills
Sales training is a vital activity if you really want to increase your companies’ bottom line as having a
sales force that can increase your business is a must. It can be tempting to think from a sales manager’s
point of view of equating more sales to more salespeople. However a more comprehensive strategy
would be to increase sales from within the existing sales workforce by using effective sales training to
improve the technical selling skills of your current sales teams. Here are four skills that every
successful sales person has. The good news is that any of your sales people can develop them.
1. Perseverance and Reflection
Through the course of every salespersons career they will encounter numerous setbacks, as prospects
reject their product or service. Rejections are part of the nature of sales and can be a consequence of a
whole number of different factors. Poor selling skills being just one of them.
The difference between the great salespeople and the average is their ability to analyse ‘knock back’s
and the underlying cause. Knockbacks can dent confidence and self esteem quickly it is the great
salespeople who can quickly accept rejection and quickly move on. Poor sales people will typically
question themselves wondering what went wrong, great sales people move instead ask.
What will it take next time to get a result.
2. Responsibility
The mark of the best salespeople is their take on being responsible for their actions. Salespeople that
take on difficult requests and hold themselves to account for the result will inherently make better
salespeople and more sales. They won’t shirk responsibility, make excuses for failure or look to shift
blame onto others for their mistakes. Selling is a process.
When great sales people get results they have usually followed a specific process. A reflection post the
sales call can often identify where the issue has happened.
3. Adaptability- Tell Sell is Dead
The world is changing at an incredible rate and consumers actions continually change. With the advent
of the internet came access to a lot of information. So often now the sales person’s , pitch or ‘story’ is
checked out online before the purchase happens. What separates the best sales people from the rest will
be their ability to adapt to new and changing situations. There is always something new to learn and
those that are set in their ways will not be as successful as those that move and change with the times.
3. 4. Relationship Building and Closing the Sale
Your marketing creates the perceived demand for your product or service. Your sales team must use
their selling skills to engage customers to then take the next action.
Salespeople must be able to connect with their clients and prospects on many different levels including
a personal level. It starts with basic rapport building skills, body language and connection verbally.
Over time providing value to the client will allow the salesperson to earn their clients respect and trust.
Turning a cold prospect into a buyer is the ultimate goal for a salesperson and that can only be achieved
through salespeople who master these 4 key skills.
Learn more about outcome selling.
4. Sales Training Companies: Why They Will Always Be In Demand
Sales training companies, to a growing organisation are worth their weight in Gold. For any
organisation to grow it needs to sell more of its ‘Stuff ‘to the target market it has identified.
The stuff we are refereeing to might be a product, service or even an idea. There are common skills that
will deliver this to any customer however a good sales training company will be able to tailor this to the
specific market and style of customer.
With buying cycles changing and the final purchase decision involving many individuals, a range of
skills are often needed. The truth for many sales people is they can lose their effectiveness. This can be
due to a number of factors. It might be lack of latest product knowledge on their product to fend off a
product attack with a current customer. It might be the lack of penetrating questions delivered in such a
way as that they identify what the customer actually wants and needs.
It can also be because of familiarity with the client. This can often happen in key account situations
where the sales representative knows the customer well and their relationship changes. Don’t believe
the saying it is easy to sell to friends. It isn’t for most sales people.
The real reason to use a sales training company on a regular basis is to up skill your sales team. No
matter if you have one or a thousand everyone needs to constantly improve. A certain thought leader
once said if you are not growing you are slipping backwards because everyone else will be putting their
efforts here. That may or may not be the case in your industry and yet just look around.
The good to excellent sales professionals are always looking for ways to improve. That might be
improving their selling skills to engage customers or learning how selling to groups can leverage all of
their prospecting activities.
Top sales training companies are well aware of this and structure their training programmes
accordingly.
In the current economy and the way we are developing as a race, human interaction and relationships
are becoming key. The traditional tell sell style needs a face lift. Prospects now need
to, know like and trust us before they buy anything from us. This is especially true when the unit price
increases. A tin of tomatoes is a tin of tomatoes. However if someone is selling me a market research
service that will cost five figures I will need to know more. A first step should always be to found out if
your designated provide of sales training does. If a sales training company does not include this in their
programme ask them why not?
Some key questions to ask?
5. What selling skills model do you use
6. Do you carry out a diagnostic evaluation
7. What are the latest skills my sales team need
8. How have you developed your approach in the last few years?
5. Nic Hallett is the MD of Excel Enterprise one Europe's most successful Sales Training Companies.
To Find out more about the Excel Enterprise Outcome Selling System visit
http://www.excelenterprise.co.uk
