Sales Skills - The Five Critical Sales Skills

There is no such thing as a perfect sales call. All of us in sales have significant room for improvement.

Through research, The Sales Board has identified Five (5) Critical Selling Skills that are the most critical to sales success.

They include:

• Buyer / Seller Relationship


• Sales Call Planning


• Questioning Skills


• Presentation Skills


• Gaining Commitment

Our research identified three very important facts about these skills:

1. They are measurable through assessment.
2. They can be learned with effective training.
3. Performance improves at twice the rate with Certification.

The Next Step: The 3 Keys to Unlocking Sales Potential

Learn how to Certify your sales force on each of the 5 Critical Selling Skills.Take our Sales Skill Assessment

Learn more about our Sales Training or Selling Skills

Sales Skill - Get A Better Sales Prospecting Strategy

Got Prospecting Woes?

In sales prospecting, your objective most often is to persuade a new customer to agree to meet with you face-to-face. To gain that commitment, you must convince the prospect that you are someone worth meeting. Every customer’s first major buying decision is whether to buy you—the salesperson. They’ll never decide to buy your products before they’ve bought you.

You must begin to “sell yourself” in your very first call on a new prospect.

Here is a quick, four-step prospecting strategy that allows you to begin “selling yourself” immediately.

1. Introduce yourself: Use your people skills to politely introduce yourself and your company. Say please, say thank you, and use the prospect’s name twice.
Example:
You: Hello, (first and last name) please?
Answer: This is he/she.
You: Thank you, (first name). This is (your first and last name). I'm with (company).

2. Gain Attention: Make a very brief capabilities statement about your company. What is the most appealing thing you can say about your company’s offerings? Choose a capability that is fairly universal, so as not to eliminate any potential customers. Example:
My company, (its name), has created a remarkable software product that makes it extremely easy for our customers to create and maintain product catalogs, then produce them in just about any media from paper to Internet.

3. Create a Vision: What desirable goal can the prospect achieve due to the benefits of your products or services? Communicate that goal as vividly as you can. Example:
With our Catalog Builder software, customers are dramatically reducing their catalog costs and time requirements while growing their top-line sales due to the new markets they’re able to tap.

4. Ask for Commitment: Prepare to ask for what you want to achieve as a result of making this call—for instance, a face-to-face meeting. Example:
Would you be open to exploring how we might be able to reduce your costs and drive more sales toward your company?
Start with this basic approach. Tinker, refine, and document your results until you have tailored the most successful prospecting strategy for your individual situation.

Contact us to learn more about effective prospecting.

Sales Skills - Ask For Commitment

Salespeople are expected to perform many duties, from market analysis to customer training. But in the end there is only one reason why a salesperson's job exists. Your principal mission is to Gain a Sales Commitment from customers. To do that, you have to know what you want the customer to commit to do and you have to ask for that commitment - every time.

More than six out of 10 salespeople aren't doing their job. They fail to ask for commitment consistently in sales calls.

How do you Gain Commitment from customers? First, set a Commitment Objective for every call. You may have any number of legitimate goals for a client call, such as exploring the customer's needs or finding out who the real decision-makers are in a prospect's company. But your Commitment Objective must be something you want the customer to agree to do. The Commitment Objective is not always to "get an order." Sometimes you may want a commitment to attend a demonstration, to schedule another meeting with all decision-makers present, to grant you primary-supplier status, etc. But the commitment must be for something that will move the sales process forward and bring you closer to the ultimate goal. You must not only plan to gain such a commitment, you must ask for it - in every call you make.

Salespeople have been taught to act like consultants, but they are consultants who get paid for making sales - and their clients know it. Customers actually lose confidence in salespeople who do not ask for commitment - because if the process isn't moving forward, you are wasting their time.

Never forget that your principal mission is to Gain Commitment. Begin every call with a plan to ask for it. Have a solid procedure that helps you gain it. Become an expert at Gaining Commitment and you'll supercharge your sales career.

Contact us to learn more about gaining commitment more consistently.