The “gift of gab” and persuasiveness are often thought of as critical sales skills, but in today’s market they are totally outdated skills—you just don’t need them anymore. In this video I will explain some very crucial sales skills that are truly necessary for today’s selling world.
Click the video below:
Three Must-Have Sales Skills
#1. Able to engage. Get your prospects talking to you before they can shut you out. They’re thinking of a million things when you first start speaking to them. You must get through that clutter and engage the prospect.
When salespeople say things like, “I’d like to set up a call to learn more about your business,” what they are really doing is setting themselves up for rejection. Your prospects don’t want to set up a call so you can learn about their business because that’s not their goal. We need to engage them before we can ever ask them to share their business challenges.
#2. Able to listen. Once the prospect is engaged and talking, you must be a listener. Recall when you first began selling, and your prospects started talking, and you thought, “Oh man, what am I going to say next?” You must already have the questions you’re going to ask figured out way ahead of time, long before that phone call or meeting.
#3. Willing to hold your ground. In today’s market this is probably the most important skill, yet the least appreciated. So many salespeople believe that the customer or prospect “is always right,” but this is completely false. Prospects are often wrong. They may not even know what they need or want, and/or they don’t know what’s most important to them.
It’s our job to keep them in line, to help them figure out where they need to go. A great salesperson must be tough and be willing to call a prospect out when that prospect is off base. I do that all the time, and what you will find is that your prospect will actually appreciate it; they’ll see you as an expert, someone who really knows what he or she is talking about, someone who’s not afraid to lose the sale.
You can’t move fast and forward with your sales by relying on outdated skills that just do not cut it in today’s world. You need to implement the three skills just discussed.
I want to hear from you which of those three skills you feel that you most have to work on. I challenge you to reflect upon which skill you want to be concentrating on and developing over the coming months. Be sure to just share below in the comments section and I will get to as many comments as I possibly can.
(1) Trying to get thru the Gate Keeper, Contact the Main decision maker (2) Customer Uses Internet to compare Pricing on What you Are Offering on Promotional/marketing Products (Internet not Charging For Freight And Set Up Fees, Etc.).
Those are some great areas Dave. I will make a video on gatekeeper strategies shortly. There is clearly a lot of demand there.
Great information Marc! I truly believe that #1 is the most important ice-breaker that can take you to Step 2: Initial Meeting. Majority of us do not know how to transition the conversation that leads into engaging the prospect to peak their interest to want to know more about what you do and how you can help them. Of course without giving them too much information upfront. Hence leading them to want to know more by scheduling an appointment to discuss further or requesting more information to learn more about your services. This is a weakness I would want to perfect for sure.
Well put William. The more we can actually engage prospects, the more we will sell.
Mark;
Thanks for your video today, and for your most welcome emails and tips. I would appreciate any additional comments on How To Engage at the beginning of the conversation.
Keith
Hi Keith, glad this is helpful. Here is a great video that deals with this exact subject of engaging a prospect at the beginning of the conversation: http://www.marcwayshak.com/do-you-have-a-sales-strategy-for-a-new-economy/
Hope that helps.
Getting the prospect engaged is difficult for me. I think my approach may sometimes put the target in a defensive position. My biggest challenge is battling the prospects’ status quo. The competition is secondary to this.
Well put Terry. This is a very common challenge. I suggest, you try to really tone it down and start with the approach in this blog: http://www.marcwayshak.com/do-you-have-a-sales-strategy-for-a-new-economy/