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Sales Training Is Much More About Great Attitudes than Superior Sales Skills

Written by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Do you believe great sales is about having the best sales skills or sales attitudes? Read why Attitudes are the foundation for great sales.

Sales Training Is Much More About Great Attitudes than Superior Sales Skills

Have you ever wondered why some of the best salespersons are not the most knowledge sales professionals respective to their sales skills? Possibly, he or she cannot tell you how to:

• Fact finding
• Turn stalls into objections
• Deliver excellent presentations
• Close (I prefer to say earn) the sale
• Explain their sales process

Yet, month after month, these folks continue to meet or exceed their sales goals. And, you as the sales trainer, the human resource person or the CEO continue to shake your head as to the reason why. Why do some excellent sales team members continue to perform while having sales skills that are minimal to average at best? And the better question is how can you replicate the success of these anomalies?

Possibly, these statistics from a national sales association may help answer that question”

• 48% of all sales leads are not followed up
• 10% of all sales professionals make more than 3 contacts
• 80% of all sales are made between the 5th and 12th contact

Looking at these statistics, the answer is truly not found within knowledge or skills because most professionals know that they need to follow-up and to keep calling. The answer is really about great attitudes and habits.

Recently when speaking to a group of small business owners to executives, all in attendance said that they wanted to increase sales. Yet, when I asked if they had followed up on all sales leads, no one could respond positively. Did these individuals know that they need to do the follow up? Of course, they did. So why did they not follow-up? The answer is all about having the necessary positive attitudes and habits more than great sales skills.

Those sales people who meet their sales goals probably have far greater positive attitudes and habits than all those professionals with super sales training and skills. These individuals keep going and going, much like the Energizer Bunny, demonstrating the basic behaviors necessary for success. Sales Coaching Tip: Using a proven goal achievement process reinforced with a proven goal achievement tool can help to establish the necessary attitudes and habits.

When reviewing the plethora of sales training programs, many examine how to acquire or develop sales skills as mentioned early. The emphasis on how to build positive attitudes and sustainable habits is in many cases not present.

Possibly, this is why sales coaching has experienced such a dramatic increase these past few years. This type of sales training focuses much more on the individual and what is keeping him or her from sales success.



Take Action Sales Coaching Tip: If you want great sales people, then look to developing the necessary positive attitudes and sustainable habits along with filling those gaps in sales skills.

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  The 4 Buckets for Sales Training that Deliver a Positive Return on Investment
  Successful Sales Techniques
  Do You have a Selling Attitude?

Article Tags: anomalies, attendance, ceo, excellent sales, human resource, li li, nbsp, objections, positive attitudes, resource person, sales goals, sales leads, sales professionals, salespersons, small business owners, statistics, team members



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