Why We Fail When We Try to Learn Selling Skills

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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).

Detachment relaxes the Prospect

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.

On Hiring Seasoned Sales Vets

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Many times I have heard a sales manager say, “We don’t need training here because we hire seasoned vets.” I always am amused at that statement.

I’m working right now with an organization that has 25 people in their salesforce, all of whom are between 25 and 40.

They did not hire seasoned vets.

They hire young ambitious talent who are interested in learning how to be better at what they do. And they are crushing the competition.

Recently, I administered the Hogan personality inventory to their 25 people. And almost universally, their Ambition levels were very high.

In this case an Ambition score determines the fuel tank of energy that a person has to get their job done – and do it well. Even the VP of Sales was surprised at the pattern of highly ambitious people that he and his management team had selected.

Young Talent

It was probably instinct more than anything and probably some of the less ambitious people were spit out of the system quickly because they couldn’t make it.

So you sales managers who are hiring season vets in their 50s – I need to be careful with this because I’m in my late 50s – you’d better be careful because your lunch will be beaten by highly ambitious groups of young people who understand social media, how to use Google for research, how to learn new skills that they don’t presently have, and how to use all of the technologies that help serve customers better.

Seasoned vets? Not for me.

Prospecting is Selling – So Don’t Get Needy

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In our sales training programs, we are consistently teaching people to “drop back” – don’t be so eager. Relax into the circumstance.

Had a coaching call with Lisa yesterday. Usually, Lisa is quite adept at this skill – what we call “staying behind” the prospect. But that’s when she’s “in the process” – not when she’s in pursuit of a first meeting,

She complained of her lack of results in landing those first meetings. When I asked her what she was saying when she called, I was shocked! Was this the same Lisa that was so savvy at leading the prospect through the selling system? How could she sound no needy? Sales person making cold calls

Circumstances Matter

When the circumstances change, we change. In this case, the circumstance was no longer her sitting in front of a prospect asking about their goals and objectives. It was her on the phone, “trying to get someone” to see her. And she changed her position. But she shouldn’t have.

Let’s face it. You are selling scarcity. Not because your product is scarce  (although it could be). But because YOUR TIME is scarce. If everyone in your territory decided to see you, you wouldn’t have the time. And then, you would begin a selection process of who you want to see and who you didn’t.

So why don’t you do that in the first place?

The Solution

When you call (if you must cold call), be skeptical. Hold back. Don’t be so eager. Say, “John, this is Lisa, and I have no idea of what I’m about to ask you would be acceptable.” Or some such phrasing that lets the prospect know that you are not going to pound them for an appointment. Sell scarcity because your worth it.

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How To Improve Selling Skills

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Recently, I’ve become interested in how elite performers become that way. There are the obvious things like studying the game they play or the craft they act in, there is the full practice and rehearsal, and there’s also the rituals they use to get ready for performances.

But often, it still gets down to skills. Do I have the skill set to compete and perform at an elite level?

I think the same thing is true of salespeople. Recently we launched a video series called the Sales How-To video series that you can find at sales-how-to-video-series.com. Also, one of the videos below is one we did on improving your skills. Hope you enjoy by all means sign up for the other 11.

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Sales People Hard To Find: So Says USA Today Article

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If not for the Duchess’s pregnancy, this story would have been on the front page of USATODAY.com.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/07/21/sales-job-openings/2568003/ (It actually was on the front of the hard cover.)

And it’s a good start to a dialogue we’ve seen building for years: the difficulty in finding good sales people.

But we need more.

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It seems that the profession suffers from villain-azation (my word.) There is a cloud over the profession caused by amateurs who give it a bad name. The fact is that there will ALWAYS be a place for good sales people in our economy.

And it’s most pathetic that more colleges and institutions fail to offer much in the way of a ‘field of study,’ let a lone a Major. My sense is that that change alone would begin to rebuild a profession that needs fresh faces.

Let’s keep the dialogue open. Of course, we’ll be talking about it on The Advanced Selling Podcast. And would love to hear your comments on what you would tell a 20 year old who might be cut out for sales. Tell him/her to go in? Or not?

 

How To Call High In Your Prospect Company

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We get this question a lot when we do seminars, conferences and sales training. How do I know who to call on inside a company? Usually the correct question is I have no idea because every company is different and every organizational structure is different so where do I begin?

I’m convinced that our inability to talk to the right people wastes tons of our time in the sales process, and costs us tons of revenue and personal income. You never get that time back.

Consequently, when we introduce the Sales How-To Video Series this month, which is a series of 12 short vignettes that every sales person on the planet should watch, we decided to put calling high in there is one of the segments.

You can find it below as well as a place to sign up for the rest of the videos which we think are important as you increase your business.

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Where Selling Skills Intersect With Social Media

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As our team here produces the Advanced Selling Podcast, by the way if you aren’t a subscriber you need to do that right now, we see the vast interest in how salespeople can use social media to improve their results.

It seems that we’re all trying to find the right balance between doing nothing and doing too much on social media. I will be the first to admit that I’m not sure I even have struck the right balance

Recently we did a video as part of the sales-how-to-videos.com series that I think might make some sense for you to watch. Here it is below.

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Do You Know The Leader Of Your Client Firm?

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This to be used with a previous post titled Don’t Call on Them Until You Know How To Talk to Them.

As I re-read that after it was published, I realize there was a separate topic underneath that article and that is just as important to front line sales people and account managers: Your willingness – and skill – in calling on the CEO of your client company. Read more

How To Build A Sales Force

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You sales managers will like this one. I know how much sales managers struggle with selection, recruiting, and retaining great talent in the sales position. So consequently, when we were introducing our Sales How-To Video Series, we thought we’d put a couple of videos in there for sales leaders and managers. And the one we find is the most common question is “how do I build a sales team that performs at high level?”

Obviously a four-minute video on this subject doesn’t do it justice but there are three things in the video below that we think might help you to get on the path to hiring, keeping and growing a high performance sales team.

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