If your goal was to be a golf pro, chances are you would hire a coach, take lessons, and start training. When I decided to enter a career in sales, my company put me through a nine-month rigorous sales training program. Three months were spent on product skills and six months on selling skills. Without a doubt the selling skills training was the most challenging.

Today’s focus is on training the skills aspect of selling. Why? Because even if your company has the greatest products in the world, if you don’t have the skills to meet the needs of your prospects, it doesn’t matter.

Let’s break skills part into two categories. The sales process (science) and relationship building(art).

Science or Sales Process

This is the process that your company uses, Basically, it comes down to technique and intent.

The Art or Relationship Building

This is about you as a person and how you carry yourself, sharing your character and personality and how you interact with others.

Which one is more important?

This is about you as a person and how you carry yourself, sharing your character and personality and how you interact with others.

In my opinion, it’s the art. Process is important based on your company’s go to market strategy, but people buy from people they trust and like. To back that up, the most important competencies needed in the business world are people skills and emotional intelligence.

Below are two of the most important people skills you’ll want to build:

1.  Building conversation. This is where we learn how to communicate by asking questions to find out information. But once you find out the information, we need to build the conversation to go deeper to better understand where the customer is coming from and where they want to go. We get better at this with experience and building our emotional intelligence. What it really comes down to is listening to the customer and understanding their needs and putting their needs first.
2. Become a better listener. The problem with most salespeople is they prepare what they want to say next, instead of listening while the customer is talking. Listening is strategic – where is the customer wanting to go, and empathetic – how the customer feels about the situation and about us. It’s a balance. To dig deeper, we need to listen and reflect the key words the customer is using. If the customer says they’ve been looking for a solution for a year, use this follow-on question, “What seems to be missing that has taken that long to find the right solution”?

Sales is an incredible career choice for many. It’s exciting, competitive, and rewarding. Every customer and every situation are different. It can be so fulfilling when we fine tune our craft and achieve the results that our company gives us. Remember selling is serving.

Use these tips to help you with your sales training, remembering why it is so important. We only learn when we repeat and practice. So, when you get your heart in the right place and you’re passionate about helping customers, you become an ideal supplier and partner.

Here’s to great selling.

©Stu Schlackman