Tweet

Selling Skills for today’s economy

Written by: Bob Urichuck

Article Overview: In order to succeed and meet sales targets in today’s economy sales professionals need to be equipped with the appropriate selling skills, following a proven selling system or sales process, They can no longer afford to carry on with traditional selling skills of doing dog and pony shows, feature and benefit dumps, or hit and run closes.

Selling Skills for today’s economy

In order to succeed and meet sales targets in today's economy sales professionals need to be equipped with the appropriate selling skills, following a proven selling system or sales process, They can no longer afford to carry on with traditional selling skills of doing dog and pony shows, feature and benefit dumps, or hit and run closes. Today's economy demands engaging selling skills, not telling selling skills. Engaging selling skills attract and engage prospects into personal and business conversations - Personal conversations to build rapport and trust; Business conversations to qualify opportunities to do business.

Engaging sales skills starts with a desire to create relationships. Keep in mind that people buy from people, people they like and they trust. Once trust is established, a relationship starts. That is the sales skill foundation to a sales transaction.

To build that rapport, or trust, requires conversational selling skills focused on the prospect, not on you, your company or your products. The selling skill required here is to show a genuine personal interest in the person in front of you. You do that by asking questions, questions that they would like to respond to and talk about.

So, what do people like to talk about?

People like to talk about themselves, their families, hobbies, job, etc. These are more personal conversations. The selling skills required here are asking questions, listening and using your body language to show interest. You selling skill job is to get them to open up and to keep talking. The more they talk, the more you listen, the more you learn and the more they like and trust you.

Mind you there are also other selling skill techniques to build rapport. One of the best rapport building sales skills comes from Nero Linguistic programming (NLP) where mirroring and matching body language, tonality and words enhances rapport building quickly and magically.

You will know when your rapport selling skill has been established, just by the way the prospect has opened up with you. When they get to the point where they can't stop talking, you know you got the rapport selling skill that would allow you to move onto the next step in the selling system, or sales process.

With rapport, trust and relationship starting, you can then move from personal to business conversation, by simply interjecting another question - Bill, I really appreciate what you are sharing with me, but how much time have you set aside for our meeting?

With the answer to this sales skill question, a new sort of business conversation starts. Your time allocated is either confirmed or extended, either of which matter, as it is the next sales skill question that will make the difference.

"Bill, what is it that you would like to accomplish over the next X minutes?"

Most sales people only think of their objective, and not that of the customers. It is the customer's objective that is most important, so let's get it out of them first. Then we can add our's into the scenario.

For example, they could reply with, "I would like to learn more about your company and it's products or services."

You can then reply with an inclusion of your objective. For example, "that's great Bill, as I too would like to learn more about your company to determine if there is an opportunity for us to do business together or not. Is it ok if we ask each other questions?

Do you mind if I take some notes?

Getting permission to ask questions, and to take notes, is also an important selling skill. It shows interest, and makes the prospect feel important.

There are other parameters that can be set at this stage, but what is most important is that each step in a sales process or selling system is a selling skill. The selling skill that is most required in today's economy is to be asking questions, listening, showing concern and taking the prospect through a self discovery qualifying process.

Related Articles
  IBM Mainframe part deux
  Franchising Advantages in a Bad Economy
  Daily Meetings Result in Daily Deals
  Working at Home With Twitter
  Article #4 Attention: Legitimate, Affordable, High-Income Home Based Business Seekers!

Article Tags: bottom line, discipline, Sales, sales management training, sales training



Related Forum Posts
Re: How do you "Give Back To the local or world Community?" - I think even if you are not in a position to give back monetarily in todays economy friendly smiles and random acts of kindness are always a must.
Re: How do you "Give Back To the local or world Community?" - They should always be a must... [quote="deb-B":2pslmjwp]I think even if you are not in a position to give back monetarily in todays economy friendly smiles and random acts of kindness are always a must.[/quote:2pslmjwp]
Re: Service Or Product? - Service company always thrive in down economy. Let look at the advertising industies in any economy, you need to advertise your products or services even if you cannot afford any other things
Re: Plan Your Retirement NOW - Hi, Beat I must say the state of the economy has me worried these days. Not so much the state of it...but the knowledge that the politicians and people who are supposed to be in charge of the economy are so incompetent it's not even funny...
Re: Five Personality Traits of Successful Business Owners - 1. Focus 2. Ability to Adapt 3. Hard Work 4. Good planning 5. People Skills


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Remind Me...

What Aweber Can Do For Your Online Business

Are You An Accidental Consultant?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.