Selling skills of a successful salesperson

I have noticed that every salesperson has sales skills in varying degrees. What bears scrutiny are those critical selling skills which prove to be the tipping factor between the average salesperson and the confident, successful salesperson. In my opinion, these essential selling skills would be:

1. The skill of forging lasting relationships: The focus of sales is shifting from pushing a sale, to one based on relationship building. Successful salespeople develop their ability to develop client relationships that have its foundation based on honesty. These relationships go way beyond the surface skimming, back slapping interactions with the client. They move onto a deeper and subtle relationship of trust and rapport and an awareness of co-dependence. A point that is beautifully brought out in the movie “The Avengers (2012)”, that I viewed recently.  All the super heroes of the movie are brilliant on their own; however they attain success against the common enemy only when trust and rapport get established among themselves. The super salesperson also similarly needs to establish rapport, not only with the client, but 360 degrees – with team, organisation and the client. 

2. Listening skills: Contrary to what is generally perceived, the successful salesperson is one who invests more time in listening attentively to the customer than in talking to him. A lot is learnt of the customers’ needs and wants by listening attentively and understanding the customers’ requirements. Tough to practice when we are itching to take the reins in our hands and wanting to bulldoze our way through with a mouth that runs a mile a minute. Customers want to be heard most of the time. not talked to. It is a skill worth developing.

3. Skilful questioning:  In fact, successful salespersons go a step beyond listening and enable the customer to take the buying decision, simply by asking the appropriate questions. Questioning skills is an art that very few people are master of. And it goes much beyond what is commonly perceived as open and closed questioning techniques. It’s involves becoming aware of the deletions and generalisations and filling in the gaps through appropriate challenging questions.

4. Skilful projection of Confidence: in self, organisation and the product/service. The customer is quick to hone in on the slightest dip in confidence in the salesperson. Start believing in yourself, your organisation and the product or service you sell. Even a fleeting hesitancy shown in any of these areas will be quickly picked up by the customer. Self-confidence is projected through voice, mannerisms and product knowledge. If you don't know something, have the confidence to say so and then get the information. When you show confidence as if you already have it, it soon becomes reality.

5. Follow-up skills: Rome was not built in a day. Neither does a sale, with exceptions. One of the greatest investments a successful salesperson makes is in time. Determination to follow up without giving up is a hallmark of a truly successful salesperson.              

Other posts on selling:

Five secrets to confident communication in sales
Saying No to the customer
Service in 'Customer Focus' while selling
Selling with a difference
Rapport in selling
Elevator sales pitch - 10 points to elevate your speech

Becoming better listeners

When was the last time you listened to someone? Really listened? Truly listened to all that the other person said and more importantly, left unsaid? The sad part is that many of us believe ourselves to be good listeners, little realising that what we have heard may be just the tip of the iceberg and unaware of the whole submerged mountain of information that we have missed.

Do these listening patterns seem familiar to you: We listen and in the process of listening, constantly think of how to respond? So much so that we often cut in-between the other persons talk, just to have our say. I’m sure there are some of us who take pride in our multitasking abilities, the ability to listen in the midst of doing a zillion other activities. Are we even aware that we could have lost out on a whole lot of information in this process?

Why listen? Much has been said and written about the importance of listening – at work, in teams, with customers etc. It all boils down to one reason – it is to establish a relationship based on trust and respect, be it with anybody – child, parent, colleague, friend, partner. That being the aim, I ought to be most concerned, not at what I've listened to and caught on, but on what I could have missed out. Because my map of the world is different from yours. And it becomes essential for me to get an inkling of your map of the world to even start the process of trust and relationship building.

What would be of immense value to me as a listener would be to leave the self aside and focus my attention on what is being said. An aid to the process would be to have a blank white board in my mind, on which the other person’s words are written, in exactly the way that they are being said. And on that white board, I underline, what I think are important words, and repeat them back in exactly the same way, just so we both know that we are looking at the same map of the world. And while I fill in the white board with the words being spoken, the camera of my mind also clicks images of the nuances of expressions flitting across the person’s face. 

And together, the words and the images come together to form a beautiful collage in my mind, which tell me a story - the story of the other persons experience and views.  A story which I periodically check with the other person to see if I’ve got it right. And once the collage is ready, I look at it, take my understanding of it and then decide my response.
This process, if attempted, goes a long way to enable genuine listening among persons. A listening which is not done for the listener’s sake alone, but a listening which aims to establish trust & respect and through it, the foundation of a solid relationship.