Sales Skills Course

Taking a sales skills course is the most purposeful route in enhancing a wide range of selling skills including cold calling, telephone sales, business development, closing, social selling, sales prospecting and sales presentations amongst others.

When deciding to undertake a sales skills course ensure that what you are being taught actually works for today’s savvy customers, in other words – What is working now so you understand what selling really is about in the sales 3.0 era. Also, too many sales courses just focus on sales process or steps in the sale. Research shows that the mindset of the salesperson is actually more important that any sales skills because if the mindset of the sales person is not right, no amount of sales training will work.

Look for a sales skills course that teaches you the soft and hard selling skills plus covers your belief system as to encourage a more optimistic view of your ability to sell. Courses that help you adopt the right attitude to your sales role and then provides you with the insight for the most useful sales tactics when dealing with customers or prospects.

It’s all about providing you with the framework to manage your sales activities, to develop practical skills in identifying and negotiating sales opportunities, to help you present compelling solutions that will ultimately win over more customers while improving your sales results for your company.

So, before you take a sales skills course, let’s review what makes a good sales person.

• They have empathy and engage in active listening
• Works hard to develop an understanding of the prospect’s needs
• Is comfortable at engaging prospects or customers at their level
• Is credible and can add value to a prospect’s life
• Skilled in asking questions to uncover needs or remove obstacles
• Ability to network and engage multiple decision makers in an organization
• Can pinpoint and quantify the value their proposed solution will bring to the buyer’s business

Soft selling skills

Empathy

The ability to put yourself inside the shoes of another person, seeing the world through their eyes. Empathy builds trust and shows customers that you care about their business above trying to sell them something.

Communication

Sales success depends on the ability to gather and provide information in a way that makes a potential customer want to do business with you. It’s not just about asking and listening, salespeople have to skilled at active listening, otherwise conversations will be unproductive.

Mindset

Your most valuable asset in the sales process and engaging customers is your mindset. Your mindset is your way of thinking, your opinions on yourself and on your skills. Average salespeople do what is convenient, Successful salespeople do whatever it takes.

Openness

Openness is the maturity to receive feedback to help improve your sales and interpersonal skills. You can train, you can learn, however if you don’t have awareness about yourself and the openness to grow then you might struggle to be successful.

Collaboration

No one is an Island. You may need the assistance of other people inside your company to help you with a prospect or the sales process. The sharing of information and exchanging of ideas has become essential between sales, marketing and other customer interaction teams. Collaboration in working towards the same goals can have a major impact on your results.

Decision making skills

The point of making a decision is to achieve a certain outcome. In the sales process you need to be able to make judgment calls on your own, whether to continue chasing a prospect, how much time to invest in a prospect or customer, when to ask for a purchasing decision etc. The more comfortable and skilled you are at making these decisions, the better the outcomes (as long as you learn to live with the consequences of your decisions).

Problem solver

To be creative when proposing solutions to customers. Trying to avoid the vanilla flavoured answers that every other salesperson offers. You do not become successful by selling things to people, you become successful by solving problems for customers. Selling skills are not a matter of trying to convince a customer to buy something, but instead it is the skill to identify their needs and showing them how your product can help them be successful.

Hard selling skills

As well as the above soft selling skills, there is also a range of hard selling skills that every salesperson should master. These skills can be taught through a sales skills course and training.

Sales Prospecting

Despite the rise of inbound marketing, one of the most valuable selling skills is the ability to do sales prospecting to find new sales opportunities. Prospecting can be done via social selling, referrals, cold calling, events etc. To be truly successful at sales prospecting you need to take a more strategic approach, one that builds credibility, value and trust with the prospect. You need to learn the skill to have a discovery-based conversation with a buyer, one with a value proposition that differentiates you from the rest, to get the buyer to listen and gets the buyer to invest more time talking to you.

Qualifying prospects

Qualifying a prospect is the sales skill to decide if the contact is really a genuine prospect. A qualified prospect must meet some criteria that indicates they have the potential to become a paying customer. Too many sales pipelines are crammed with unqualified leads. 80% of prospect’s make it through the whole sales process without ever making a decision due to poor or reluctant qualifying.

Sales presentation skills

Sales presentation skills is your ability to tell stories, paint pictures and impart a vision for the future that will capture the audience interest and make them comfortable with buying a change management process. Closing a sale is as much about getting the buyer(s) to undertake change as it is about price or product fit.

The skill to create and deliver a sales presentation that hits all the points uncovered in the discovery phase is a vital skill.

Social selling

Social selling now plays a huge part in sales prospecting and networking with customers. The potential to communicate and influence via social media is now expected by buyers. The reality is in the buyers digitally influenced world, you need a good level of social media understanding. A social selling strategy allows you to target the right set of buyer profiles, done skillfully it offers an excellent channel to influence, make connections and build a network of relevant people to extend your social reach (and by default your ability to talk to potential customers).

Product knowledge

People buy from experts. You need to deeply understand where your product fits into the market and the value it delivers to a customer. It is about understanding the benefits your customers would be most interested in, and how these benefits relate back to the goals your prospect has shared with you.

Market research skills

Apart from product knowledge, buyers are seeking to engage with salespeople who can add value to their lives. They want to collaborate with salespeople who understands their business and market. You need to bring insights, trends, forecasts so you can really engage the customer and set you apart of the typical sales driven salesperson.

Closing skills

Before you ever get to closing a sale, you must learn to see the signs that give you the right to ask for the sale. Have you delivered on your promises and made the customer aware of what you have delivered? Have you covered off any points from other decision makers? Do you understand their decision-making process and have you helped them to make buying easier?

Whatever sales skills course or sales training courses you undertake to improve your knowledge of selling, we want to wish you well. Because a career in sales is about constantly learning and not being afraid to make mistakes along the way. Best of Luck.

 

Sales Techniques from The Digital Sales Institute

Sales techniques are many as they are varied. They can be as much psychological as functional when it comes to engaging customers. In a heavily influenced digital sales world where inbound leads seem to rule the roost, lots of valid sales techniques have been overlooked. This has had the effect of salespeople not really understanding the nuances involved in making successful sales calls, presentations or pitches. Regardless of whether the sales call is an inbound lead, a web lead or a cold call, always approach the prospect or customer with the same degree of effort and preparation.

Sales techniques are usually part of a company’s sales playbook to guide salespeople on how to sell their products or solutions more effectively. These techniques will then be constantly refined based on past experiences and results.

 

Sales Techniques – Plan the sales work and work your sales plan

Prepare for success. Yes, planning and preparation are sales techniques. Before going into the sales meeting or picking up the phone, invest in planning and preparation to get insights into your contact and their company. Being able to speak about the customers industry, market trends, news and industry is a one of the most underused sales techniques. Apart from gaining credibility with the customer, it also shows your genuine interest in how you might be able to help them.  Use social media to gather intelligence plus to see any mutual connections in common. Next, plan out the call, meeting or presentation step by step. What is the value proposition for this customer and what is it in for them, what is the unique selling point aligned to this prospect and what are the goals to be achieved from the interaction? To be able to put the customer as ease, plan out the opening statement and personalize the value proposition into 3 or 4 sentences (so you can get their awareness and attention).

 

Sales Techniques – Focus on moving them out of the status quo.

The biggest competitor in any sales situation is not the competition but the buyers status quo. Status quo bias or the natural preference for customers to avoid change is the biggest threat to sales success. Of all the sales techniques we could discuss, this one is the most challenging. They key here is to understand the status quo then work through everything that makes up the status quo to determine how, if, why, when any change would be required or more importantly accepted (as in decision to purchase). To facilitate this change, salespeople need to become “Servant Sellers” and be willing to become a change agent. This involves facilitating the buyers journey with the customer and other members of the buying committee who may not have shifted their status quo yet

The sales skill here is to magnify the pain points, make them real plus make the cost of doing nothing as unbearable.  Its about moving your proposed solution up on the customer’s priority to-do list.

Returning to planning and preparation, write out questions such as:

“How would you describe your current situation? (as it relates to the salespersons product)”

“Where would you seek improvements all things being equal?”

“Could you help me understand this better?”

“What would be impact of leaving things as they are?”

“What are the obstacles as you see them in finding a solution?”

“What is the knock-on effect and cost to the business?”

“What triggered you to explore dealing with this now?”

 

Master the Performance.

Every interaction with a customer is a performance, to influence, to gain credibility and gain their trust. Everything from the tone of voice, from the way we dress, to what is said and how it is said is all part of the performance. The quality and relevancy of the information being delivered is what determines how the sales progresses. People buy from experts, so confidence is vital. Similar to an actor, talking at a measured pace while the words flow naturally and then using facts or data with a raised pitch is a great way to display confidence. Along with a personalized value proposition also have the company sales pitch fully rehearsed. Be ready to answer “How are you different from my current supplier?

Collaborate to uncover sales opportunities.

Successful selling is about 54% listening to 46% talking. On a sales call or in a sales meeting, measure the switch rate, this is the rate at which each party takes turns listening and then talking. This sales technique allows for the flow of information to be two-way. Become skilled at active listening so each side can work together to help find the solution that best meets their needs. To ensure the switch rate runs smoothly, a list of discovery type questions should be deployed with the added benefit of finding out if any sales opportunity does exist.

To ensure collaboration, they discovery questions should be prepared in advance.

Examples include:

Where are you experiencing challenges (role or product)?

What has been your past experience in choosing solutions?

How often would you review your current vendor/products?

In which area are you seeing most challenges (personalized to the solution/product)?

How have you gone about solving these issues? 

What type of solutions or options would you consider?

When do you need to have found some options for consideration?

What is the normal decision-making process for my type of solutions?

The discovery phase (which shouldn’t be rushed) is about receiving answers that will give a good indication of whether there is a sales opportunity or not. If the switch rate is right, the questions and answers should reveal the prospects main pain points. This allows for a progression in the sales process, however if no opportunity exists or can’t be crystalized then move on.

Help the buyer to buy.

Whether selling a commodity item or an enterprise solution, it has become a buyer’s world of more – more information, more options, and more people involved in a buying decision.

Salespeople need to focus on clarity in the sales process. To collaborate and help customers simplify the buying process, to make it easier to buy. Research shows customers who experience a high level of “buying ease,” the vendor helping to supply this ease are nearly 62% more likely to win the deal. This is why salespeople need to focus on moving the buyer out of their status quo, to open up new possibilities, that the cost of change is manageable, to master their sales performance, to collaborate on how to sell the solution internally and make buying easier.

To wrap up, every business should map out their sales process and sales strategy. To create a sales playbook that contains the most relevant sales techniques (social selling, sales prospecting, business development and sales model) for their product to help the sales team to stay in control of the sales process and acquire more profitable customers.

Future of B2B Sales

B2B sales and the impact of social media, data, connectivity, and technology are bringing a step change in how companies sell. These changes will help companies take a giant step that will take them way beyond all the traditional selling tactics.

B2B sales are about to evolve like never before by embracing the advantages digital technology provides. In fact, leading companies are already pulling away from their peers in both sales growth and sales productivity improvement.

 

There is no doubting that B2B buyers have moved the selling goalposts as they seek out information and content on products using the internet and social media.

This has led to a rise in challenges for sales leadership, challenges such as:

• Re-evaluating their products and services to meet buyers changing habits
• Combating new entrants, alternative business models, and pricing pressure
• The acceleration of commoditization and substitution due to buyer education
• Far greater transparency and increase in buyer purchasing knowledge
• The shift in seller-buyer control in favor of the buyer

The reality is that dealing with these challenges in B2B sales is here and now, but also that they will become more magnified in the near future.

If we add in the buyer’s preference for subscription-based models then the challenges listed above become even more pronounced, leading sales leadership to rethink how they go to market and engage with customers.

The Future Focus in B2B sales

Research into B2B sales practices being deployed by leading companies have found that they focus on 3 core strategies.

Strategy 1: Making the buying process easier.

This applies as much to the more complex sales as it does to selling commodity type products. Leading sales organizations are focused on making their product offerings, sales touch points, access to information and internal systems as easy as possible for customers and prospects. Acknowledging the change not just in buyer’s preferences but also buyer profiles (millennials are becoming the largest demographic in B2B buying), the sales interactions need to be more rewarding, informative and fulfilling.

Sales leaders are seeking out a sales strategy and methods to maximize sales touch points to improve the value buyers receive by make the sales process:

Transparency. Buyers are demanding a more open approach to purchasing, so companies will utilize new sales tools, new systems and processes to deliver a far greater transparent sales experience for their customers. The added bonus for the sales organization is this change can result in a more leaner and more flexible sales force.

Multi-Channel Unified Experience. B2B sales offerings will closer resemble the B2C sales experience. This entails the provision of 24/7 access to specs, pricing, information, ordering etc through all channels, but mostly digital or social media. It’s about connecting all the company’s channels to ensure a transparent experience across the different sales touch points.

Highly personalized interactions. Again, as with B2C selling, the concept of “my B2B sales preferences” is on the rise. Transparency and the multi-channel experience will lead to increased buyer trust, leading to more data becoming available. This data and information will give companies the ability to anticipate and adapt to B2B customer needs. At a practical level it will allow customers to receive customized and highly relevant interactions where they are presented with personalized value propositions aligned to their specific challenges.

Tools that let customers self-configure a customized product solution, quotation and a virtual implementation will grow in deployment.

Strategy 2: Focus on longer term customer value.

It’s no longer the seller V the buyer. Companies will focus on really understanding the “what, why, and when” of the customer needs. Buyers will be invited to participate in the ecosystem that serves them so they can self-generate their own value. Selling will become more collaborative and sales people will create more real sales opportunities by allowing buyers to bundle and unbundle products or solution themselves, based on their needs.

Adding Value. Companies will broaden out their offerings to include a more complete customer solution (maybe via partners) that lowers the overall cost of product acquisition, to make it easier to implement or to improve business results. The divide between products and solutions that a business offers to customers will be fluid depending on customer preferences.

Selling becomes more intelligent. Sales people will use the multi-channel approach to become a trusted advisor to a core group of buyers. B2B sales organizations will invest in up-skilling the sales teams to educate their customers on needs they did not know they even had. Apart from nurturing and educating the customer, the salesperson will engage the different stakeholders and decision makers within the buyer’s organization to discover and highlight the need. They will make buying easier.

Strategy 3: Using Data and Analytics to create customer value.

The use of data and analytics will help many organizations to reframe how it defines customer value. These tools and insights will uncover greater opportunities to expand the value delivered to customers.

 The future of B2B sales will to go beyond the traditional role of customer interactions, they will create value for the customer via:

Science in Sales. Data, analytics and the resulting insights will make it easier to offer the customer products and services that matches their actual assessed needs. B2B sales organizations will use deep customer and market intelligence to create value beyond what customers are able to self-educate on themselves via channels such as social media.

AI and the Virtual Experience. Engaging customers will evolve to include the use of sales tools such as AI, a virtual experience or simulated environment that will allow customers to truly absorb the potential value of a companies offering.

Sales and the social business. Companies will embrace the concept of a social business, using not just sales but other functions to reach and connect with a larger number of buyers. Social media, social selling and digital connectivity makes it increasingly easier to engage with a larger grouping of B2B buyers and influencers cost effectively.

The B2B Salesperson of the future.

The three B2B sales strategies provide some insight into the future of B2B selling. Combine these with market knowledge, the right sales training and sales motivation will provide the necessary ingredients to take B2B sales to the next level.

The future of B2B sales will see salesmen and saleswomen contributing to the overall business success with a set of modern sales practices that is focused on customer success not the companies. Sales leaders should be thinking about how they can take the next steps:

1. Implement sales tactics to simplify, enrich, and elevate B2B sales.
2. Utilize the digital influenced B2B sales practices as competitive business opportunities, to reach and engage a far great pool of potential customers.
3. Ignite sales transformation by adopting the social business mantra.

The future of B2B sales is about involving, empowering, and enabling salespeople to perform and change how we do business. This will generate a sense of excitement and fulfilment. So, start the future day, in striving today to shape the future of sales in a more collaborative and participative way, for the customers benefit.