Take a Look At Yourself to Realise a Shift in Your Performance

When it comes to selling, some things are simply out of our hands. After all, no matter how prepared, skilled or determined you are, it is unlikely that every single prospect you contact is going to be persuaded to immediately buy your product or service if your company has a bad reputation for letting its customers down.

But several factors that are well within our control or influence can affect our sales performance. By paying attention to these areas and taking the appropriate actions, sales people can significantly improve their overall performance and, in turn, enhance their ability to hit sales targets.

Selling Activities & Skills

Each and every activity undertaken during the sales process has an impact on your overall sales performance. From the early stages of prospecting through to the later stages of negotiation, each activity will ultimately affect the number (and value) of sales that you successfully close.

This means that you can greatly improve your sales performance by paying attention to the individual selling skills and organisational skills that are required at each stage of the sales process. By scrutinising your sales activities more closely and focusing on the individual selling skills that you need to particularly focus on, you should be able to significantly improve your performance and ability to hit targets.

Psychological Factors

While it is somewhat obvious that your sales performance is affected by your approach to sales activities and individual selling skills, it is perhaps less obvious that a range of psychological factors also impact your ability to sell.

Your attitude towards colleagues and clients will most likely have a big impact on your performance. A lack of respect for your colleagues or clients or a negative underlying attitude towards them is likely to hinder your performance, for example.

Meanwhile, your professionalism and the behaviours you display will also play a significant role on your ability to sell. A great positive attitude, a self-motivated determination, and a strong set of professional behaviours and disciplines will help you to make buyers invest
their time, trust and money in you while feeling right about making that decision.

To achieve a real shift in your sales performance it is therefore critical that you pay attention to making improvements in your selling skills, organisational skills, your attitude towards others, you drive to get the right outcome, and your professional behaviour.

Written by: Steve Eungblut, Managing Director of Sterling Chase