Why Do You Need Selling Skills?
If you have been working in marketing, you probably already possess key digital marketing skills. However, you should also work on your selling/sales skills, which train you to communicate with clients one-on-one. Salespeople know whether customers love, dislike, or are neutral toward your solutions, so you can optimize your marketing tactics accordingly. In sales, you have nowhere to hide, meaning you have to answer people’s questions and tackle their objections convincingly. Pros in the sales industry are prepared, no matter the circumstance, to prove to clients why their product is the best option for them. They hear “no” so many times and often talk to difficult people, situations that help them develop thick skin and perseverance. Content marketing to B2B is the same, as you put your ideas through the microscope before implementing them.
Lastly, learning salesperson skills teaches you what your company colleagues do daily and helps you build a better bond with them. If you’ve never had sales experience, you’re probably unaware of the unique challenges and pressure these pros face. At the end of the day, marketing supports sales, and sales can’t get their message out effectively without marketing.
Let’s see which essential sales skills you must have to become even better as a marketer.
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The 5 Qualities A Sales Pro Must Have
1. Forecasting Future Developments
An account manager shouldn’t only know how to close a sale. They must also respond swiftly to developments regarding their customers’ businesses. To do that, they have to stay updated on market trends and changes and have access to certain customers’ data. This way, they will notice slight changes with severe impact and can anticipate unpleasant situations. A sales manager’s skills also include proactivity, which entails addressing potential challenges before they derail a company’s plan. To master this selling skill, you must study each business comprehensibly and have a clear understanding of what they offer and who they’re targeting. This way, you know how each development and market change can affect them.
2. Collaboration
If you’re searching for how to become a good marketer, you may not find anyone advising you to evolve your selling skills. Collaboration is a virtue both marketers and salespeople should have, though. Sales experts usually spend a lot of time working on their own, talking to clients, and sending emails. However, they often communicate with one another to ensure alignment and united tactics. And let’s not forget about collaboration with other teams, like marketing, social media, and tech. For example, in their effort to find ways to improve sales performance, sales pros collaborate with email marketing specialists to promote products and services effectively. They also collaborate with marketing to create crafty promotions.
3. Digital Skills
What tools do sales experts use on a daily basis? Zoom, Engage, WebX, Microsoft Office, and Veeva are a few of the most popular sales tools that allow you to engage with customers and provide them with data. This means that you should know which digital, virtual, or in-person channels you should use depending on each case. Sales skills also revolve around gathering, analyzing, and creating documents including important data. For example, knowing the ins and outs of Microsoft Excel is necessary to create spreadsheets. In fact, using analytics and other crucial data during customer meetings is necessary to close deals and create trustworthy relationships.
4. Negotiation
Whether you are enforcing account-based marketing tactics or a wider approach, if you want to master sales you have to be an excellent negotiator. To achieve this, you have to do deep research regarding your client, their needs and challenges, and your competition. This method helps you tackle every objection, make the best offer possible, and lift yourself over your competitors. Also, you are aware of each customer’s boundaries and when negotiating turns into nagging and pressuring. Top sales skills aren’t about pushing people to their limits until they agree to your offer. It’s about providing something that turns their initial hesitation into agreeance.
5. Pitching And Presenting
Back in the day, PowerPoint was the number one solution when it came to creating presentations and making sales pitches. Nowadays, you need more selling skills than that, as there is a wide variety of other tools you can use. But that’s not the point. Regardless of the tool, you must be prepared to modify your pitch depending on the individual customer. Not every pitch is the same, and talented salespeople must know how to read the room and identify peculiarities. This sales skill requires self-awareness and emotional intelligence, as we’ll explain later. For instance, when you craft an SEO sales pitch example, you shouldn’t focus on too many technicalities and instead move people to the desired action.
8 Essential Selling Skills You Should Attain
1. Communication And Active Listening
These two traits are necessary in various sectors, including strategic marketing leadership. So, as a leader and sales expert, you must communicate honestly and transparently whether you’re talking to your colleagues or customers. The art of communication and active listening should be at the top of your selling skills. Why? Many salespeople think that overloading clients with information and pushing them to buy is the ideal behavior. However, to make a decent offer and project the right arguments, you have to know your customers. This practice begins from the initial stages when you qualify your new leads. Did you push them further down the pipeline when they weren’t a good fit? This probably happened because you didn’t listen to them.
So, ask questions and take notes of people’s answers. Analyze them carefully to figure out whether you should spend time chasing after them. Based on their pain points and needs, create personalized offers that address their issues and provide actionable solutions.
2. Product Knowledge
Why should anyone buy your product, and what is it going to offer them? Selling skills include deep knowledge of your product or service, how it operates, and what benefits it offers to clients. If you misinterpret your product’s usage, you may close a deal on false pretenses. Therefore, customers will be disgruntled and they may take legal action against you. Knowing your product helps you craft your unique selling point and target the right customers. You don’t want to attract the wrong crowd by overpromising or fake-promising.
Selling skills training prepares you for answering every question prospects might throw your way. When you know your product perfectly, you can devise ways it can help people solve their unique problems and offer consultations. During sales training, professionals usually receive information about a company’s culture, mission, and vision. Knowing all that helps with product marketing and sales enablement. This way, you maintain consistent messaging and target your ideal buyers.
3. Problem Solving And Adaptability
The goal of all sales experts is to close deals and retain their clientele, and your efforts should be accompanied by offering solutions to existing and future problems. First, sales skills allow you to tend to people’s challenges and highlight ways your product can help overcome them. But that’s not all. Salespeople should also forecast and anticipate future disruptions and prepare a course of action. This is one of the most crucial sales training topics, as it shows you how you can study the market and your customers’ niche to identify potential hurdles.
Something, changes happen as you’re pitching your solution and are in active communication with customers. In these cases, you have to be adaptable and shift your pitch accordingly. Adaptability helps when you have to decide which channel is optimal for communication. Not every client prefers the same channel, and you have to be agile to see which one suits different decision-makers. For example, some pros may prefer emails over calls.
4. Prospecting
The reason prospecting is an ideal tactic is because 82% of customers agree to meet after a series of discussions that began with a cold call. In all honesty, though, prospecting is a time-consuming and lengthy process. However, if done right, it can help you close many sales. To initiate your software sales marketing plan, start by building your target list. Which industries do you serve, and who is your ideal buyer? If you have any close relationships, start by approaching these prospects. Then, review your eCRM information to check whether a company and its employees have engaged with your website by downloading resources or sending queries.
The next unique selling skill to learn is crafting your offer. Personalize your message to fit each prospect’s unique needs and challenges. You don’t need to go into too much detail regarding how you can help them. Just mention a few general tips and offer other free resources. Then, it’s time to build your prospecting campaign in order to get meetings booked.
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5. Building Trustworthy Relationships
Another two sales skills to put on your resume are relationship-building and trustworthiness. B2B products and services have a much longer sales cycle than, let’s say, eCommerce goods. The best B2B customer service examples build trusting and loyal relationships with prospects before closing a deal. Customers want to make sure that you have the right solution for them and that you are the right person to offer answers. A sales consultant should possess the skill to create meaningful and deep relationships with decision-makers. Not only should you captivate them with your rhetorical ability but also provide useful information. The more valuable your discussions are, the easier you’ll build trust.
People tend to do business with those they trust. To achieve this feat, you should combine most of the sales skills we mention in this article, including active listening, emotional intelligence, and adaptability. The moment you gain someone’s trust, it is much easier to guide them further down the pipeline.
6. Emotional Intelligence
There is not one way to learn sales. It’s a path filled with selling skills, including emotional intelligence. This is part of your communication skills, where empathy and active listening are also pivotal. Sales EQ helps you understand people’s emotions, react accordingly, and influence them. Thus, you build meaningful and trusting relationships that flourish into long-term partnerships. Let’s say you are in the eLearning marketing field, and you want to promote your LMS. One client may express how worried they are about automation features. It’s in your hands to prove to them why your tool’s automation features are easy to navigate and that your onboarding process is smooth. Basically, sales EQ helps you understand the emotional drivers of decision-makers and offer them exactly what they need.
7. Data Analysis
The sales industry relies heavily on all kinds of data regarding the market and its customers. This information helps you target the right people and understand whether they are a good fit and how you should engage with them. Analyze their actions to identify behavioral patterns. Knowing how they act and make decisions, will help you nurture them and drive conversions faster. For instance, customers in your niche may be easily influenced during in-person conversations at events, while other niches may find greater success through webinars. Depending on your data, you can invest more time and effort into event digital marketing or webinar marketing.
8. Technical Knowledge
Sure, technological savviness is a sales skill you should possess to be successful. However, there are so many tools available, and the number grows every single year. A talented salesperson can browse and try out different tools and choose the most efficient ones. Instead of using multiple tech platforms that drain your energy, pick a few that give you exactly what you need. Let’s say you’ve purchased a tool that lets you know when clients are ready to buy by analyzing their email signals. But the tool only sends you a notification after you have already decided to close the sale. This is proof that this tool isn’t worth your investment.
Why Should Marketers Get Selling Skills?
We already mentioned a few benefits of acquiring selling skills even if you are a full-time marketer. What we haven’t mentioned yet is confidence. The future of digital marketing is competitive, and being confident in your sales and marketing tactics is a virtue your customers can sense. This way, you can convert them faster and boost your success rates. The better communication and closing skills you have, the more satisfied your clients are. That is also when they feel that you understand their needs and challenges. Lastly, sales capabilities promote your professional growth, preparing you for customer service interactions. While marketers don’t really communicate with customers face-to-face, it’s important to know what convinces someone to purchase.
The Most Famous And Influential Selling Figures
Also known as “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Belfort started his professional career as a broker, making cold calls and trying to sell cheap, unsaleable stocks. Then, he created his own company where his sellers pushed clients to buy unprofitable deals. This business was so successful that employees couldn’t handle them all. He even tried to hide the money in a Swiss bank. Finally, the FBI caught up to him and got a 30-year prison sentence.
Have you heard of the multi-level marketing system (MLM)? Ash was the one who birthed it. She invited her friends and colleagues to host parties, invite people from their close circles, and sell them their products. This was based on the idea that people are more eager to purchase something recommended by someone close to them. Ash’s company also offered incentives to sellers: a pink Cadillac to the best salesperson.
Carnegie was a super-talented speaker who led public speaking classes on how to communicate better. He wrote a book about the art of healthy communication, which still sells in bookstores around the globe. It is one of the best books people who want to acquire selling skills can read.
Feidner sold nearly $40 million worth of Steinway pianos. How? Many of her customers said that after meeting her, they started having musical ambitions. That’s what pushed them to buy something they never even realized they wanted.
Popeil was the star of the teleshopping world, with his company making over $2 billion in revenue. He was working as an in-store salesman when one day, he had the idea to create videos showing people what they could do with his products. And this was the beginning of a wonderful career in telemarketing.
Key Takeaway
Which term describes the seller’s ability and desire to sell goods and services? We would say a passion for communicating, collaborating, and solving problems. These selling skills are necessary to form a seller’s experience. Empathy, active listening, and emotional intelligence are also parts of a successful communicator who wants to be of use to their clients instead of being pushy. It’s like when you think of new content marketing ideas trying to market your product better. In a salesperson’s example, they listen, react, and offer the best option. Therefore, they build trusting relationships.
Sales skill training is an important asset for marketers who want to evolve and develop new talents. The examples we shared above can give you a sense of what determination and passion can do to a person’s career.
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