Why We Fail When We Try to Learn Selling Skills

Think of how many sales books, cassettes, and podcasts there are and yet the selling skills of American salespeople are still inadequate.

Is it possible that no one has really taught us how to learn these aforementioned selling skills? I think so.

There is one easy and profoundly effective way to learn any kind of skill and that is to break it into sub-skills.

For example, in sales you must learn the skill of prospecting for new business. You can’t just go learn that skill though in a two-hour seminar because it requires many, many subsets of other skills that you must learn.

For example, you must learn the skill of “Positioning.” You must learn the sub-skill of creating a safe environment so the prospect doesn’t lie to you. You must learn the skill of getting invited in (instead of begging to get in).

And you must be good at the sub-skill of delivering your message in a way that causes someone to want to hear more about it. That one right there is what trips most people up.

Do you want more sub-skills?

What about the inner game skill of detachment? If you get too needy and hungry and desperate for a sale when you’re calling a prospect, do you not think that comes through to them? If you’re detached and feeling abundant about the chances for your future, you take on a more relaxed tone which allows the prospect to relax.

My recommendation would be to take the 5-10 selling skills that you really need – – for example if you’re in account management then prospecting probably isn’t one – – and break those down into a series of 5 to 7 sub-skills.

After you do so it may seem like there’s a lot of work to do. And there might be. But until you can break skill sets down into bite-size chunks, you can’t work on, selling skills effectively.