What Are the Most Are the Most Important Sales Skills?
Advanced and Important Sales Skills: In the world of sales, success is anything but random. Actually, research indicates that only 8% of sales professionals generate 80% of all sales. This shows that when it comes to selling, the approach that one takes might just be the most important factor. Unfortunately, It also shows that most salespeople just don’t know how to improve their sales technique.
1. Advanced and Important Sales Skills: improve Nonverbal Communication
A majority of our communication is done non-verbally, and although the exact percentages are debated, a study done by Professor Albert Mehrabian for his Silent Messages indicates that 93% of communication is nonverbal.
Whether you are face-to-face or simply on the phone, it is just as important to have proper posture and a positive attitude as a sales person. It is easy to tell the difference between someone who is just going through the motions, and someone who believes in what they are selling. 84% of the message shared over a telephone comes from tone of voice, so it is critical to smile while you are on a call to a client. Affecting how you portray yourself and your company, mastering the skill of nonverbal communication is especially important.
If your company is stuck in a revenue rut, you need to get back to a simple, well-defined sales process. Establish an effective means of implementing the process and following up to make sure that all managers and employees understand and stick with it.
If you want to be successful in sales, be sure that your environment is not affecting the message you are trying to send. If you are working in a more-casual setting, such as your home, you can perform more professionally by dressing the part. According to an article published in Inc. magazine, dressing as if you are going into the office may help you take your work more seriously.
2. Practice Social Selling
Our dependence on technology has vastly increased as new advances are made. By having an online presence, you can establish a more-personal connection with your clients. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is quoted as having said, “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people.”
This advancement has allowed sales professionals to do research on their prospects before ever making initial contact. Being authentic and staying involved in conversations regarding sales, or even simply sharing something your company was involved with on social media networks lets the client know you are on board with what you are doing. It also helps you establish credibility. Many employers look for your involvement in groups on sites such as LinkedIn to get an idea of your interests, and potential clients can do the same. People want to work with someone they can trust. Whether you work for a startup or a well-established big business, engaging in genuine conversation helps build that relationship without distracting from the task at hand when generating sales.
3. Advanced and Important Sales Skills: Listen Actively
When attempting to close a sale, you might be so focused on the numbers and your pitch, that you end up failing to pay close-enough attention to what the client is using your products or services for. By re-wording what a customer is saying and stating it back to them, you show them that you are being attentive, rather than just waiting to get the next word in.
Discover not just what they are looking for, but how soon. Is there an immediate need, or are they simply doing some price checking? If they are in the early stages, find out what they are trying to achieve by using your product, and inquire about some of the issues they may have encountered when speaking to companies offering similar services. Take note of what they value that wouldn’t be a high cost to your business. This will help you bring points to the table in the negotiation process, and achieve an agreement that will benefit everyone involved.
4. Negotiate Intelligently, Advancedly and Important – Sales Skills
Negotiation helps you take a step towards building a more long-term relationship and establishing trust. Some people worry that if you make a deal once, you’ll have to make it for the remainder of the time you are working with a client. However, this is rarely the case. If you are willing to offer a deal to a new client, they are likely to spend more money with your company in the future to get even better results.
Make sure to establish your goals and objectives before pitching the sale. It is important to do your research and set goals that are related to more than just monetary value. A small business or startup will likely have a much different budget than a nationally-ranked corporate structure, and they will also have different goals in mind. Have a discussion early in the conversation about objectives, so you are not pitching your prospective client something they have no interest in. Remember, when building a relationship, a small win is still a win.
5. Be Assertive (not Pushy)
To some, the word negotiation is the same as compromise, which can have a negative connotation associated with it. Assertion can make the negotiation process less time-consuming, but also helps set a standard for a client. There is a difference between assertion and being pushy. One portrays confidence, while the other can create tension. This will help you in the negotiation process as well. It is important to follow-up, so the client knows you are interested in building a relationship, and that you value their business.
6. Evolve the Sales Pitch
Many sales people go into a meeting ready to pitch with the mentality of getting the customer to buy their product. On the other hand, a truly savvy sales professional will know that this is not the best way to approach the situation. Instead, present the problem and the burden(s) it is creating within the company. Next present the solution, highlighting how your product is going to solve the issue. Using this approach will increase your chances of closing the sale.
You should listen attentively (as mentioned in the second point) in order to accomplish this correctly. Ask the prospective client what they would want to fix the most, and based on those answers, show them the different features that will maximise the product benefits. Knowing how to effectively position the product for their benefit will remove any objections they have about making a purchase.
7. Think Outside the Box
Often times you will find yourself struggling to close the sale even after you have attempted all the usual tactics. When this happens, don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Get creative, and consider alternative options you might not have tried before. After all, you don’t have much to lose, and you might just stumble upon the secret ‘recipe’ that this potential client has been waiting for.
Author of The Innovated Sale, Mark Dunnolo, states that “Sales creativity is not an elusive quality. It’s not for the few with natural talent—we all have it”. If it’s not something that comes easily to you, then take additional time to research and observe any available opportunity to you. Learning to hone and master this skill for the long run will ultimately allow you to overtake obstacles thrown your way.
8. Improve Your Email Skills
Even though email may no-longer be the cutting edge of communication technology, it does have other virtues, such as being perhaps the most wide-spread communication method available. 98.4% of people check their email at least once per day, and 33.8% check their email almost constantly. As such, perfecting your email technique may play a significant role in your business’ success. 33% of email recipients open emails based on the subject line alone, and by personalising emails, you can improve click-through rates by as much as 14%, and conversion rates by 10%. Another important part of improving email response rates is knowing when to send emails. The best times to email prospects are 8:00 am and 3:00 pm, and of the weekdays, Tuesday is the day that has the highest open-rate.
9. Don’t Neglect Post-Sale Relationship Management
The client-customer relationship you establish can have a long-lasting effect. As such, it’s important to continue the relationship long after the sale has been completed. Show your appreciation by sending follow-up cards to remind the customer that you are available when needed. Once you’ve established a positive relationship with a previous client, they will be more likely to refer you to their peers, and customer referrals are seven times more likely to result in a sale.
Without a client, there is no sale. It is important to know your target audience and quickly find what their needs are, rather than just focusing on the financial aspects. The use of the above skills will not only help generate new customers but also help retain current clientele and secure future transactions. By focusing on the needs of the client, you can find a solution to any objections you may encounter and become a more efficient sales person in the process.
Advanced and Important – Sales Skills
Exceptional salespeople don’t separate themselves from the pack by doing what everyone else is doing and hoping for the best. They go above and beyond, and you can’t do that if you lean exclusively on conventional sales skills.
No, the best reps demonstrate advanced sales skills — ones that can help frame you as an authoritative, helpful, and empathetic guide with expertise relevant to your prospect’s circumstances. Here, we’ll review some of those skills and go over the techniques you need to know to demonstrate them.
1. Being Helpful Without Being Too Friendly
As cold as this might sound, your prospects aren’t your friends. Any sale is a professional engagement and must be treated as such. That doesn’t mean you have to bully potential customers, roll your eyes at their questions, and be visibly frustrated every time they take too long to answer.
But it also doesn’t mean that you can roll over to their every demand, agree with all of their objections, and let them run the conversation. The best salespeople can strike a balance between those ends of the spectrum — they help their prospects without giving up control of the sale.
Advanced and Important – Sales Skills Technique: Guiding Without Dominating
So how do you get there? Well, if you want to find that middle ground between overly friendly and excessively confrontational, you need to take a consultative role in the sale. You’re the expert here. You know what you’re talking about, and you want to apply that insight to help them — not just sell to them.
You have to lead with thoughtful, relevant questions. Quickly and thoroughly respond to objections while acknowledging where they’re coming from. Make sure you keep the focus on their business, its specific pain points, and how your offering is the best possible remedy for them.
You’re there to walk them through the process of understanding their pain points, seeing the value of your product or service, and ultimately finding where those two elements intersect. That comes from an advisory perspective, not an overly friendly or confrontational one.
2. Conveying Value Specific to Your Prospect. Advanced and Important – Sales Skills
This point ties into the one above. You can’t take on an advisory role if you have no idea who you’re advising. Exceptional salespeople don’t sell on general sentiments and generic “bells-and-whistles” pitches.
They offer tailored value propositions that consider the specific circumstances the prospect is operating within, the implications of those circumstances have had on similar businesses, the range of outcomes those implications might lead to, and how their offering can make those outcomes as ideal as possible. All of that takes precedence over touting the neat features their product or service has.
For instance, let’s say there’s an edtech company that sells a solution for curriculum planning. That business wants to sell its product to a community college in Northern California that still mostly tracks and coordinates its course registration manually. The value proposition shouldn’t be “Our product has an accessible interface that makes curriculum planning easier.”
It would be something to the effect of, “At an institution of your size, manual registration tracking leads to routine under- and over-enrollment in required courses, stalling degree velocity. Our program can provide information to cut unneeded sections and expand overfilled ones — accelerating degree velocity.”
Advanced Sales Technique: Conducting Extensive Research
The perfect value proposition doesn’t come out of nowhere. You can’t just read the front page of a company’s website and figure something out on the fly. You need to have extensive knowledge of a business, its leadership, its industry, its market position, and its current performance, among other factors.
That takes extensive research, whether that be through company marketing collateral like case studies, industry publications, public financial reporting, background information on company leadership, or any other resources that can give you a closer look at what a business does and the challenges it faces. From there, you can start to string together a thoughtful value proposition that will resonate with your prospect.
3. Teasing Out Pain Points Your Prospect Might Not Have Even Considered
Pain points are the basis of all sales. If they didn’t exist, sales wouldn’t either, so if you’re going to sell successfully, you need to be able to find and address them. Sometimes, pain points are obvious — ones that your prospect understands going into the conversation.
But the best salespeople go beyond that — they know how to unearth very real issues that the prospect hasn’t even thought about. Being able to identify unconsidered issues, bring them to light, and thoughtfully address them in a single conversation is one of the trickier, most advanced skills a salesperson can have in their repertoire.
By nailing this process, you can earn a special degree of trust with a prospect. In doing so, you’re effectively demonstrating that you thoroughly understand their businesses, have a strong feel for the challenges it face, and can solve problems for them as they arise.
Advanced Sales Technique: Taking a Consultative Approach
Consultative selling is an approach to sales where a salesperson focuses primarily on building value, trust, and rapport with a prospect before offering a solution. It’s a relationship-first methodology — once you’ve built one, then you can actually start selling.
The methodology involves balancing questions with insights, expressing knowledge, keeping conversations genuine, letting there be some back-and-forth, being receptive to feedback, and listening intently.
If you follow those steps, you can put your prospects at ease and get them talking. They can use you as a sounding board, and ultimately, voice issues might not have considered in the process.
4. Relaying Industry-Specific Knowledge
Trust is a recurring theme that has a place in every point on this list — exceptional salespeople know how to quickly and convincingly develop it with prospects. A lot of the time, trust is a byproduct of specificity.
Prospects want a specific value proposition that implies specific actions to suit their specific pain points. One way to nail that element is by conveying extensive knowledge of their industry in your correspondence with them.
Show them you’re well-informed and on top of the trends that are going to shape how they and their competitors operate. Again, you want to demonstrate that you’re not just a salesperson; you’re an expert — one who knows both what they deal with and how those broader issues dictate how they operate.
Advanced Sales Technique: Passing Along Relevant Content
Like the second point on this list, this one starts with research, but how you relay your knowledge to your prospect is key. One way to get there is by passing along relevant, industry-specific content to your prospect at different points in their buyer’s journey.
It takes some finesse, but this technique can give you some serious clout as you work your sales process — when done right. You don’t want to inundate your prospect with dozens of articles from industry publications, heavy-handedly trying to say, “Look how much I know about what you do!”
Instead, try to see if you can find content that relates to certain industry-relevant points you might have discussed in an email or phone call. For instance, let’s say you’re selling a construction project management solution to a regional fast-food chain that’s deciding whether to upgrade its tech stack.
You might want to pass along an article detailing how popular franchises are leveraging cutting-edge tech to let your prospect know you’re keeping an ear to the ground within their industry and give them more perspective on the rising tide of digital transformation among fast-food chains.
5. Maintaining a “Contrarian Mindset”
Maintaining a contrarian mindset rests on your ability to find gaps and hiccups in your prospect’s operations. It’s a matter of staying skeptical, scrutinizing, and being mindful of faulty logic, overlooked opportunities, or sub-optimal execution.
Exceptional sales reps with this mindset look for places where the customer might have gotten it “wrong.” Did they overlook an opportunity for savings? Do they leverage any processes that deliver subpar results? Are certain components of their tech stack redundant or inefficient?
Salespeople with this mindset can turn these hiccups into viable “ins” that give them a basis for an effective value proposition. From there, they can offer an alternative perspective to raise questions and answer unique ones, as opposed to confirming already established ones.
Advanced Sales Technique: Conducting Extensive Research and Actively Listening
Like the second point on this list, “maintaining a contrarian mindset” is a function of how well you can research your prospect —specifically, how their business is faring.
See if you can find out what solutions they’re currently leveraging. Review their public finances to see if they could be doing better in that arena. See if you can find some insight into their clientele.
One way or another, drill down how they’re performing and what’s influencing that performance. On top of that, you need to actively listen throughout your conversations with them. Be hip to any tidbits they might drop about where their business is lacking and why that’s the case.
Maintain your contrarian mindset and find the “in” you need.
Being an exemplary sales rep takes more than doing whatever everyone is doing better than everyone else — you need to branch out and master less conventional skills to get there.
