The 10 Critical Selling Skills and Traits of High Earning Sales People
What makes a super sales person?
Well, experience from our sales training events suggests that it’s more complex than most people think.
There are some critical selling skills and traits that have been around since the dawn of selling.
Top-flight sales professionals have always had to demonstrate the following 5 traditional selling skills.
Traditional Selling Skills
1. A supreme work ethic, high levels of drive, and a competitive determination to win.
2. A good knowledge of the target market, the capabilities of the selling organisation, and competitors.
3. Great individual sales techniques, such as questioning, influencing, objection handling, closing, and negotiation skills.
4. Confidence and focus when dealing with senior prospects.
5. Consistently professional behaviour and an ability to sell within their own organisation.
However, in today’s more challenging selling environment - where corporates are driving to professionalise their sales forces - a broader set of selling skills are required. These selling skills differentiate the truly great salespeople from the rest of the crowd.
New World Selling Skills
Today’s top employers now look for the following new world selling skills:
6. A true mastery of an effective consultative selling methodology.
7. A disciplined approach to sales planning and an abilitiy to lead the sales process.
8. An ability to solve complex commercial problems and to challenge strategic thinking.
9. An ability to work in a diverse sales team and to take the lead or follow, depending on the situation.
10. Strong networks at the senior level in the target sector and in their own (and adjacent) industries.
The breadth of these new world requirements raises two important questions:
Can all of these critical selling skills be developed or are some of them necessarily inherent?
and
Is it possible for all of the above sales techniques to exist in one person?
In answer to the first question; the above selling skills can all be instilled in any enthusiastic sales or business development professional with the right sales training - so long as the sales person is intelligent, has an enquiring mind, and likes to work with people.
Because these 10 selling skills can all be trained or coached, we believe that they can all be developed within the same person.
People who have developed all of these dimensions are able to create huge amounts of value for their own organisation and the organisations they sell to. Their sales make headlines and they can transform the way that their organisation operates. That is why the best sales people out there can easily expect to earn a six figure salary.
If you want to learn all of the above selling skills and create real value for your customers, check out our online sales training.
Written by: Steve Eungblut, Managing Director of Sterling Chase
Contact Sterling Chase for more information or for a free consultation.
