Sales Rep 101 – Chapter 7

Skills Needed

Sales is a fantastic career option but it does require you to have a few important skills. Some of them can be learned but some of them are more your personality. Now, that doesn’t mean that even though you don’t possess all of these skills that you cannot have success in sales. But it will be harder and you will have be even better at some of the other skills. Okay, let’s dive into some of the more important skills needed to be successful in sales.

Friendly Personality

I believe this is close to the top if not at the top of most important traits to have. And here is why. First impressions are huge! If you walk into a business looking to sell something you are already at a disadvantage. Business owners can smell you coming from a mile away. So the first thing you need in order to overcome that is to be approachable. Now, I don’t mean over the top happy and giddy. Because that is a total turn off as well. But just be nice and friendly. This can be very hard to do on your tenth business that you have called on that day and the first nine of them were horrible people. Believe me, that happens. But remember, it is all a numbers game so you can’t take it personally. Sometimes when you first meet someone they may seem disinterested and in a horrible mood. But if you are friendly and not overbearing you may just find that they are more willing to talk to you than you think. So if think you are maybe not the most approachable person or maybe you have a hard time having a friendly conversation, make sure that you are on point on the rest of the sales call.

Need To Be A Chamaeleon

This is also in the top 3 most important traits to have as a sales person. If you think about your friend group that you hang out with, most of you probably have quite a few things in common. Well, that is definitely not the case with your prospects or clients. You will meet all kinds of people when you are in sales. And when I mean all kinds, I mean all kinds. I have some funny stories in my blog so you need to check that out. But what that means is that you have to able to relate to all kinds of people. I don’t mean that you need to be an expert in everything or you should BS your way through every sales call. But you need to be willing talk about almost anything. And your customers can tell if you are judging them and that will end the sales call real fast. When you are talking with a prospect you need to find out what type of person they are and be interested. People love to talk about themselves. Not in all cases, but most. So for example, let’s say you are in advertising sales and you are calling on an auto repair company. And maybe you have no idea about cars and really don’t care. As you are walking into their office be observant. I always look for pictures to see if I can find something to talk about. Let’s say you see a picture of a lake house. Ask them if that is their lake house and where it is. Maybe you don’t have a lake house but one of your friends does and you can talk about how much you love to go to your friends lake house during the summer. Or maybe you see a picture of them golfing with friends. You just need to seem like you care even if you have nothing in common. It makes you more approachable. If you are constantly judging your prospects before you even sit down with them you are going to struggle. Being relatable is critical in sales. So if you struggle with that you to set that as your number 1 goal to work on.

Learn To Listen

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that sales people love to talk and that is what they are good at so why do I need to be good at listening. Have you ever know someone who is maybe a good friend but they can never stop talking about what they did last weekend or what drama they have going at work? That is what sales people sound like to prospects. You are so busy and focused on selling them your product or service that you just won’t stop talking. And they are on the other side of the desking thinking “will they ever shut up”? Listen, as sales people talking is one of our strengths. It allows us to introduce ourselves to everyone and make lots of friends. But in a sales call it can be one of our biggest weaknesses. When you start a conversation and start to ask questions, stop and listen to them. You would be surprised at how much you can learn from them if you really pay attention to what they are saying. Here is a great example. Let’s say you are selling Widgets to a potential customer. But the widgets are very expensive and the prospect says in a real subtle way that they don’t think they can afford that right now but they will be in a better position next year. If you are busy selling them on why they need to buy it today then you completely miss your opportunity. Maybe you have a finance option that is a 12 month no interest no payment option. So take a different approach and offer them a solution. Mr. Prospect it sounds like you think that our widget could benefit you right now but it would be hard to swing that amount of money. Well what if we could offer you a 12 month no interest no payment finance option to give you a full year to pay it off?

That way you can take advantage of all of the benefits for the next year. So by offering that you sound more like a consultant and less like a sales person. You are trying to help with a solution instead of selling them your widget. But if you were not listening you may have not picked up on that by the time next year rolled around they have already found another solution. Listen, Listen, and Listen more to your prospects.

Show Empathy

Being empathetic to your prospects will get you sales. No doubt about it. But you have to do it the right way. You can’t be arrogant about it. You need to really help them understand how hard it is right now. You work with other businesses that feel that same way and they were hesitant to try your service too. But what they found was, after they started using our product they realized what they had been missing out on for the last couple of years. So if you want to earn their business you need to let them know that you understand and you work with businesses just like theirs. Testimonials work fantastic if you can get them. So you can show them businesses similar to them using your product or service and how it is helping those businesses. The last thing you want to do is waltz into a business and arrogantly show them you service and act like they are stupid if they don’t buy today. They may actually want to buy your service but just can’t afford it right now. So try and find solutions for them instead.