4 of the Best Sales Skills for More Success in Business

Sales is the revenue-generating lifeblood of a flourishing business organization. Virtually everyone—business owner or otherwise—needs sales skills: from first-time entrepreneurs to CEOs, and personal assistants to sales representatives. If your sales process is anything but a well-oiled machine, it may significantly affect profitability. It’s essential for salespeople to apply critical sales skills, from the pitch right down to the closing, to keep their company growing.

This article will explore four of the best sales skills that bring success in this ever-changing business landscape. Some of these skills can be gained through experience, but training can shorten the learning curve remarkably.

Some of the top sales abilities include:

Effective Communication

Good sales skills are essential in nearly every industry or profession. This means that you have to be good at communicating with people in order to sell them something. Whether you're in retail, in manufacturing, or healthcare, being able to communicate is the key to success. Therefore, effective communication skills should be part of your skill set if you want to be great at sales. Communication is at the center of any sales process. If the seller comes across as pushy or demanding, it might put buyers off. Similarly, disengaged sellers risk missing the opportunity to identify the buyer’s pain points.

Research has shown that people prefer doing business with someone they like and trust over a person they don't. This is true even if the less-trusted seller is offering a superior product for less. So, mastering the art of communication is critical for drawing in customers and building rapport.

Getting your message across effectively to prospects, friends, colleagues, clients, and anyone else who might be interested in buying a product or service is an essential sales skill. Just remember that you are selling; the point is to convert the prospect into a customer.

In the simplest sense of the word, most people know how to communicate. However, basic communication is seldom enough to seal the deal. Customers respond best to crystal clear communication that usually requires some expertise.

The best sales training companies teach salespeople the importance of communication through role-playing. This allows sellers to practice and perfect their skills. Three of the top communication skills include:

Active listening

Active listening involves paying attention to the other speaker’s words and non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and body gestures. Truly listening goes beyond merely hearing a string of words while waiting for your turn to speak.

Sellers who practice active listening are often able to understand the buyer more and pick out what the buyer is looking for. So, sellers who listen are in a better position to make the proverbial offer that the buyer cannot refuse. Those without keen listening skills may miss out on how to offer the best value proposition.

Skilled salespeople are excellent at listening to requests and taking information and processing it so that they can make effective selling decisions. A good salesperson is adept in building trust and establishing credibility to complete a sale as well.

Asking the right questions

Highly trained personnel know what to ask and when to ask. The right questions steer the prospect into revealing their pain points, enabling the seller to better structure their offer. Asking the right questions also helps the seller keep the conversation on topic, saving valuable time.

Handling emotions

From the prospecting to the negotiating stage, the sales cycle tends to be emotional. Feelings of frustration, anger, and excitement can bubble up. One of the most important sales skills is handling your emotions well while nurturing the right emotions in the buyer.

As a seller, showing frustration or lack of interest could bring the deal to a grinding halt. Making the buyer feel respected and understood goes a long way in building lasting rapport. It’s no surprise that buyers usually prefer dealing with salespeople who have a positive attitude.

Sales reps and managers must have the ability to be a ‘decision maker.’ This means that you are able to think through the options and make decisions without a lot of emotion or other distractions. You need to be able to take the emotions out of the decision making when it comes to working with your prospects. It’s a valuable skill that will help you grow into being a successful and effective sales and marketing manager.

So, whether you read up on emotions or you take a class on how to handle and harness them, learning to control your emotional thermostat is crucial for making successful deals for your company. In a highly competitive business world, sales professionals must be able to adapt quickly to changing business conditions.

Research and Planning

Research is the backbone of successful selling. Putting on your sleuth hat and seeking out great prospects from the off helps avoid going in the wrong direction. In turn, you save time, money, and wasted effort.

Also, learning more about the potential buyer's needs can help tailor the offer to the prospect’s exact needs. Selling is all about exchanging value for profit. By training yourself to discover what the buyer is looking for, you can offer the best value and prepare carefully crafted counteroffers.

Useful research and planning skills include learning:

• Where to research
• Identifying the buyer's objectives
• Finding trade-off possibilities
• How to prepare counteroffers
• Analyzing the buyer's leverage

Additionally, by using research and planning skills along with a revenue operations platform, sellers develop an in-depth knowledge of the product, increasing their credibility with prospects.

Resilience

Regardless of the outcome of a sale attempt, showing resilience is a critical skill for salespeople. Despite a seller's best efforts, they are bound to meet rejection at some point or other. When a buyer rejects your offer, it could be a signal to move on, especially when the sale cannot be salvaged without losing value.

Moving on from the rejection without taking your eyes off the prize is what sets the successful apart.

However, in certain circumstances, rejection could mean the seller needs to recraft the offer to better suit the prospect. Knowing when to walk or if to try again is the hallmark of a skilled salesforce.

So, when is the right time to call it quits? Are there any steps to follow? How do you read the customer? The answers to these questions can be gained through experience. However, it may take too long before you start hitting the targets.

Sales training companies teach salespeople when and how to walk away can help develop a resilient sales team faster.

Negotiation Skills

It’s one thing to close a deal; maintaining profit while closing is a whole other ball game. That’s why negotiation skills are fundamental in sales. An unskilled negotiator may close the deal but lose significantly in volume or profitability in the process.

Understanding the key sales negotiation steps, signals, and expectations can make the difference between maximizing sales and giving away value.

Developing a skillset like negotiation through trial and error can be time-consuming and incur heavy costs for the company. Therefore, negotiation lessons can be critical to speed up the process and equip salespeople to negotiate well. Necessary negotiation skills include:

• Defining expectations and bottom line               
• Building value
• Patience
• Knowing when to give up

Conclusion

A skilled sales team increases revenue and business growth. Armed with excellent communication skills, apt research, and negotiating prowess, the sales team will be better positioned for success. These skills, spiced with an unwavering resilience, bring sweet success more often than not.