Sales Training – Four Poor Sales Skills Not to Ignore!

Procrastination, like a car’s noises, is sometimes only heard on occasion for salespeople and independent professionals. Because it may be infrequent, the temptation to ignore it is big. What potential selling noises are you possibly ignoring?

Take procrastination, a noise similar to applying the brakes on your vehicle. You plan your day the evening before or the morning of and then you just cannot make those follow up calls or those get acquainted calls. You reason with yourself why. Before to long, way too many days go by and it’s the end of the week. Now you complain about not having enough business. Procrastination, like brake noises in a car, needs a check up. Get to the heart of your procrastination, then implement the best remedy to get moving again. Whatever you do, just get started on doing at least one thing!

Does your sales presentation squeal? Like a loose belt squealing noise which is heard only when the engine is running, you can only hear your presentation squealing when you either debrief a call or record a presentation. If you are too focused on yourself, your products or your services, then your presentation can squeal a prospect right off of the road! Unless you get some self-assessment or feedback from a sales coach or sales manager, you won’t know about the squeals. Use techniques and skills that keep you talking more about the customer and create less noise.

Sales follow up can be noisy just like noise you might hear when turning a car around a corner. How noisy is your follow-up? Since 80% of salespeople don’t follow up after up to a third contact, this noise is a difficult one to diagnose. From a recent survey I read, here’s how it breaks down: 34% feel like they are bothering people so they don’t follow up; 32% have a hit or miss process; 14.9% say they are too busy with other things, and just 17% say they persist with a series of planned actions. Just like driving a car, turning corners in sales follow up is necessary, as most of your sales are realized in the follow-up process. Your lack of follow up is a must action to pay attention to.

Creating a lost sales strategy can help from falling into a sales slump. Tim Connor, sales trainer since 1973, suggests that a lost sales strategy is an often overlooked sales skill. Central to his strategy is an attitude to treat lost clients like new prospects. What might happen driving in a pre-owned car if you didn’t have regular maintenance? Like with a car, soon enough things might come to a halt. If you don’t analyze why you lost a sale, if you don’t take a lesson away from a loss, and if you don’t reframe the loss to something positive for yourself, then your car will slow down some day to just die at the side of a road! A lost sales strategy can help improve your sales overall.

Pay attention to the sounds of procrastination, listen for too many me-centered presentations, watch out for lack of follow up and be careful to ensure that you have a no lost sales strategy in place. These skills may not be found in every sales training program, but you if you want to accelerate your sales results you seriously need to develop them.


Sales Training – Four Poor Sales Skills Not to Ignore! - To learn more about this author, visit Patricia Weber's Website.

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