This will be personal to each business. However, an overarching sales skills definition is the specific set of sales skills (prospecting, cold calling, nurturing, engaging, presenting, negotiating, closing etc.) and knowledge (product, markets, trends, business etc.) a salesperson possess to enact the exchange of value between a buyer and the vendor.

 

Sales Skills Reflect the Business Environment

 

Sales skills will always reflect the prevailing environment and the buyer’s acceptance of how they interact with the purchasing process.

Let’s compare the sales skills of a door to door salesperson with a modern sales professional when it comes to sales prospecting. For the door to door salesperson it would start with the knock on the door (not too aggressive), their opening lines, the handshake, the smile, their body language, how they were dressed, the opening pitch etc. For the modern sales professional doing sales prospecting what are the skills you would expect?

 

Future Sales Skills Definition

Some of the traditional skills still hold true, however skills such as ability to research, use of data, multi-channel activity, nurturing relationships and value exchange have replaced many of the interruption sales skills employed by the door to door salesman. This is being driven by social media, data, connectivity, educated buyers and technology that requires a transformation to how many companies sell. These changes will require sales skills that go way beyond the traditional selling tactics.

 

Skills that make buying easier. Research shows that the educated, savvy and connected buyers want the whole buying process to be easier more rewarding, informative and fulfilling.  Business needs to consider what sales skills salespeople are being trained on that reflects this new reality.

 

Buyers want to engage for longer term value that goes beyond the product. They want to do business with sellers who really understand the “what, why, and when” of their needs. Selling will become more collaborative and intelligent.

 

To bring this extra value to buyers, companies need to invest in sales training for salespeople so they can educate and nurture customers on needs they do not know they have. Yes, social media, social selling, inbound marketing and digital connectivity is making it easier to engage with customers more cost effectively. But do sales skills and sales techniques reflect the current environment is a good starting question.

 

Sales Skills Definition for Sales

 

• Salespeople need to have empathy and ability to really understand a customer’s needs.

 

• The skill to engage comfortable with a customer at their level and on their terms.

 

• Ability to add value to the customer at every stage of the process, leaving aside self-interest.

 

• Skilled at active listening along with asking discovery questions to uncover business challenges.

 

• The salesperson can create a vision for the value that their product will bring to the customer.

 

• Can build rapport, tell stories and sell their personality, because even in this digital world, people still buy people.

 

• Business acumen, the salesperson has a genuine interest in how business works.

 

• They are trained to know that sales negotiation is a process not an event, so they constantly use the 3Ps of selling – Prepare, Probe, and Propose.

 

• Is credible and understands how to build credibility and add value to a customer’s life.

 

• Has the sales skill to pinpoint, quantify and communicate clearly the value their proposed solution will bring to the customers business.

A sales rep who doesn’t perfectly understand the product they’re selling is a completely ineffective rep. Product training should be one of the very first things you teach new reps – they should be able to explain in detail how each product works, what business value it offers, and the reasons it appeals to your company’s ideal customers. This will help ISRs (Inside Sales Reps) craft their sales pitch effectively, and ensure they highlight each product’s strongest features. Deep product knowledge is honestly one of the few things that separates the top 1% of reps from the rest

Once ISRs have the product knowledge to sell, it’s time to do some prospecting. However, while many sales leaders have their quota-carrying reps also do early cold-calling, From a unit-economics perspective, it is obviously considerably more cost-effective to have your Sales Development Reps (SDRs) do cold calls, while your quota-carrying ISRs should be doing more sophisticated prospecting – what is called “strategic prospecting”. This means searching for referrals through existing connections to new prospects that fit the target buyer or ideal customer profile. It’s also important for reps to go back to Closed-Lost opportunities with whom they already had previous conversations and try to revive them. Another strategic prospecting activity is to ask for referrals from existing customers, and even talk your investors (VCs) for referrals to their portfolio companies. All of this is fair game for the quota carrying ISRs to do prospecting.

ISR’s have a disadvantage over outside sales in that they’re not meeting with prospects face-to-face. This means they have to work harder to build a connection with busy and sometimes hostile strangers over the phone. Some sales reps already have a natural ability to create an instant rapport with a prospect, and only have to finesse it. Other reps can learn to research prospects in advance and find common ground to empathize with the person on the other end of the line. Whether you’re chatting about sports, attending the same college, or just the weather, rapport should not be underestimated.

In order to set mutual expectations and to make your prospects more comfortable, sales reps should learn how to create a Buyer-Seller Agreement, aka “Upfront Contracts”, to set the tone for all calls and meetings. These are verbal agreements at the beginning of the sales process that outline expectations for both sides. For example, a sales rep can ask a prospect, “Is it OK to ask a few questions about your business and then I will show you a demo of our product to see if there is a potential fit for both of us?” It allows the prospect to feel comfortable and understand what is coming next, so no one feels ambushed by the next step. It also allows the sales rep to open up a two-way street in the selling process so that both parties get to a win-win conclusion.

Most sales reps feel comfortable talking to prospects, but listening is another story. ISRs need to become proficient in active listening, or listening with a strict focus and asking intelligent follow-up questions. People can usually tell if you’re really listening to them, rather than just thinking about what you’ll say next – and most people appreciate a good listener. Great listening skills can help reps empathize with prospects to learn more about their business and pain points. With that knowledge, they can then sell more effectively and offer a better solution.

On the phone, the tone of voice, volume and pace of a sales rep’s speech are surprisingly important sales skills. In sales, how you say things to a prospect matters more than what you say. According to Sandler Sales Training, only 7% of communication relies on the content of what you say, whereas 38% of communication is about other attributes of communication such as tonality, etc. As you may have heard before, it’s not what you say but how you say it. Reps should try to subtly mirror a prospect’s tone of voice and style of talking – if a prospect is more formal and polite, speak similarly; if they’re more informal and joke around, do the same. This helps prospects feel familiar with you and relate to you more easily to create rapport. Reps also need to speak clearly, not too quietly, and not in a monotone. You need to let your emotion and personality shine through, so that the person on the phone knows you’re a human and is interested in talking to you.

ISRs need to start off every sales conversation by asking questions during the Discovery phase to analyze a prospect’s business needs (i.e. Needs Analysis). It’s important to not just throw random features and benefits at the prospect hoping something will stick. In fact, I tell ISRs to stop sharing all of your product’s capabilities all at once. This is a bad tactic. Instead, you need to delve deep to discover your prospect’s business pain and how your product can help them solve it by asking qualifying questions. These questions help you determine what you should share about the benefits and value in your product based on what is going to be most important for them. Beyond the Discovery stage of the selling process, over time, ISRs will need to qualify prospects for Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline, Competition and Buying Process in order to get all the key criteria that will help them get to the purchase. Being good at qualification is critical to be a successful ISR.

The most effective ISRs are able to make the most of their time, with more dials and more connects than other reps. The key to being highly productive is using good time management skills. You need to train each rep to sort through leads to find the most promising ones, and not waste too much time on a deal that isn’t going anywhere. You can use analytics to identify the industry, business size, and other characteristics of ideal leads, and share the information with your team. It’s vital to make the most of the hours in the day to bring in more deals per rep.

Great sales reps practice the art of proactive “Objection Prevention” and not merely “Objection Handling” and can thus reduce some of the most basic objections by way of how they approach a sale. Train your reps to be strategic and think ahead by studying what typical objections come up in most cases. For example, there is no reason to get to a point when a prospect can say, “I don’t have a need for this” or “Call me again in a few months”.

It is possible to be proactive and address a common objection before it even comes up.

Even the best reps can’t prevent every objection, so it’s important to help your team prepare for objection handling when they do hear one. Reps have to be on their toes so that the sales process doesn’t end abruptly, and they lose the opportunity at the deal. Reps need to learn to sincerely understand the prospect’s problem, ask for more information, and offer clarity to help the prospect overcome their objections. You should do extensive role play and training to help prepare your team for this.

For many B2B products, the demo is critical to starting a sales process. Sales reps need to not only understand the product but must be able to show off its capabilities to a prospect effectively through a demo. Demos are challenging in that reps need to first discover what benefits will be most important to solving a prospect’s pain and highlight the business value of those features during the demo. Throwing too many features at the prospect is a bad tactic and can overwhelm and confuse them. This is another skill that you should practice with your reps, so they can practice their demo presentation, and clearly be able to show off the product.

Great ISRs can get a prospect to commit to a deal fairly quickly. The key is making sure the right people with the right approval power are bought in to the process as the sale progresses. Reps must continually ask questions, assess the prospect’s needs and reinforce what the prospect is interested in buying. Reps should ask “Is this helpful? Is this how you envision it?” and more. By forcing a prospect with buying power to acknowledge again and again that you’re offering them real value, it helps push them to commit to a deal.

Now that the ISR has convinced the prospect that their company needs the product, it’s time to close. Managers have to train reps to push prospects, ask for the order and get it signed fast. A lot of prospects will try to push the closing date back a few weeks or a few months, and your rep may be trying to reach a monthly or quarterly goal for the team. In this case, reps have to establish a timeline, and push the prospect to sign using a compelling event. This shows how the prospect is missing out on revenue by not having the product in place now. With the right combination of pressure and value offered, reps can learn to close deals sooner.

Many of us forget to thank customers and to continue building and maintaining the relationship after the sale. Firstly, it’s important to be appreciative for the business regardless of whether the customer will buy from you again. This is just common sense and common courtesy. And those sales reps who are genuinely appreciative are the ones who typically grow professionally and become masters of their craft. Furthermore, you don’t want your customers churning later and going to a competitor. Additionally, your customers can and will refer you to other customers. Finally, even ten years later you can still go back to the individual to whom you sold years ago, and they may still become a customer even when both of you are in a new and different company. Relationships really matter; it’s that simple. Yet some reps don’t engage in post-sale with their customers. This is a key area at which I encourage all ISRs to get really disciplined.

Negotiation is a method by which people settle differences. It is a process by which compromise, or agreement is reached while avoiding argument and dispute.

In any disagreement, individuals understandably aim to achieve the best possible outcome for their position (or perhaps an organization they represent). However, the principles of fairness, seeking mutual benefit and maintaining a relationship are the keys to a successful outcome.

Specific forms of negotiation are used in many situations: international affairs, the legal system, government, industrial disputes or domestic relationships as examples. However, general negotiation skills can be learned and applied in a wide range of activities.  Negotiation skills can be of great benefit in resolving any differences that arise between you and others.

In order to achieve a desirable outcome, it may be useful to follow a structured approach to negotiation. For example, in a work situation a meeting may need to be arranged in which all parties involved can come together.

The process of negotiation includes the following stages:

1. Preparation
2. Discussion
3. Clarification of goals
4. Negotiate towards a Win-Win outcome
5. Agreement
6. Implementation of a course of action

Before any negotiation takes place, a decision needs to be taken as to when and where a meeting will take place to discuss the problem and who will attend.  Setting a limited timescale can also be helpful to prevent the disagreement continuing.

This stage involves ensuring all the pertinent facts of the situation are known in order to clarify your own position.  In the work example above, this would include knowing the ‘rules’ of your organization, to whom help is given, when help is not felt appropriate and the grounds for such refusals.  Your organization may well have policies to which you can refer in preparation for the negotiation

During this stage, individuals or members of each side put forward the case as they see it, i.e. their understanding of the situation. 

Key skills during this stage include questioning, listening and clarifying.

Sometimes it is helpful to take notes during the discussion stage to record all points put forward in case there is need for further clarification.  It is extremely important to listen, as when disagreement takes place it is easy to make the mistake of saying too much and listening too little.  Each side should have an equal opportunity to present their case.

From the discussion, the goals, interests and viewpoints of both sides of the disagreement need to be clarified. 

It is helpful to list these factors in order of priority.  Through this clarification it is often possible to identify or establish some common ground. Clarification is an essential part of the negotiation process, without it misunderstandings are likely to occur which may cause problems and barriers to reaching a beneficial outcome.

This stage focuses on what is termed a ‘win-win’ outcome where both sides feel they have gained something positive through the process of negotiation and both sides feel their point of view has been taken into consideration. 

A win-win outcome is usually the best result. Although this may not always be possible, through negotiation, it should be the ultimate goal.

Suggestions of alternative strategies and compromises need to be considered at this point.  Compromises are often positive alternatives which can often achieve greater benefit for all concerned compared to holding to the original positions.

Agreement can be achieved once understanding of both sides’ viewpoints and interests have been considered. 

It is essential to for everybody involved to keep an open mind in order to achieve an acceptable solution.  Any agreement needs to be made perfectly clear so that both sides know what has been decided.

From the agreement, a course of action has to be implemented to carry through the decision.

Many people assume that there’s just one, “perfect” style of negotiation that we should all be aiming for.

In fact, there are several approaches to choose from. It’s important to vary your style to suit the subject – and significance – of each negotiation you enter into.

Think about what you’re trying to achieve, how important “total” success is, and how willing you are to compromise. Also, bear in mind how much you need to maintain an ongoing relationship with the other people involved.

1. Goals. What are you trying to achieve during the negotiation? And what do you think the other person’s goals will be?
2. Trades. What might you be able to ask for, and what would you be prepared to give away?
3. Alternatives. If you really can’t achieve your goals, what would be your “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA) Your position will be more secure if you have a number of options, so it’s worth putting plenty of effort into addressing this point.
4. Relationships. How have negotiations gone with this person in the past? Just as importantly, what kind of relationship do you want with them in the future?
5. Expected outcomes. What precedents have been set? Based on those, and on any other evidence you have, what seems to be the most likely outcome of this negotiation?
6. Consequences. Is this a big, one-off deal, or one of many smaller negotiations? What do you and the other party stand to gain or lose?
7. Power. Who holds the power here? How might this affect the negotiation process?
8. Solutions. Taking all of these points into account, what do you now consider to be a fair outcome – one that you can put forward with confidence?

The term distributive means there is a giving out or a scattering of things. By the nature of the business, there is a limited or finite amount of what’s being distributed or divided. Hence, this type of negotiation is often referred to as “The Fixed Pie.” There is only so much to go around, and the proportion to be distributed is limited but also variable.

How often has somebody shouted out, ‘Who wants the last piece of pizza?’ Everyone looks at each other, then the pizza slice, and two or more hands rush to grab it.

In the real world of negotiations, two teams enter discussions with the goal of claiming as much value as possible. The seller wants to go after the best price they can obtain. The buyer wants to pay the lowest price to achieve the best bargain. It’s really just plain old, good old-fashioned haggling.

A distributive negotiation usually involves negotiators starting talks with no pre-existing relationship. This type of negotiation also involves being unlikely to develop a long-term relationship. Simple, everyday examples include buying or selling a car or a house. Purchasing products or services are simple business examples where distributive negotiation bargaining is often employed. Remember, even friends or business colleagues can drive a hard bargain just as well as any stranger.

Let’s say we’re dealing with someone unknown to us, and it’s a one-time only occurrence. We really have no particular interest in forming a relationship with them. Except for the purpose of the deal itself, there is no real benefit in investing in the relationship. Therefore, we are generally less concerned with how the other person perceives us. We are also less concerned about how they might regard our reputation. Our interests and the other side’s interests are usually self-serving.

Distributive Bargaining Basics

• Play your cards close to your chest – Give little or no information to the other side. The less the other negotiator knows about our interests, the better our position. This can include why we want to make the purchase, our preferences, or the point at which we’d decline to deal. Expressing eagerness or need reveals a weakness which could be exploited.
• The opposite is equally true – Try to obtain as much information from the other side as you can. Any further information uncovered is potential leverage to negotiate a better deal.
• The only information you should give away – The only information we should reveal is the fact we have alternative options. This includes other sellers we can purchase from at a competitive price. Reminding the seller of their competition shows our willingness to walk if necessary. It also lets the seller know there will be no negative consequences for us.
• Make the first offer – Whatever the first offer is will generally act as a negotiation anchor. This then becomes the point on which the rest of the negotiation will revolve. Try to make the first offer to ensure discussions set off in your favor.
• Be realistic – Being too greedy or too stingy will likely result in no agreement. So, keep expectations realistic.

Integrative negotiations require a more developed set of business negotiation skills.

The word integrative means to join several parts into a whole. Integration implies cooperation, or a joining of forces, to achieve something together. It usually involves a higher degree of trust and a forming of a relationship. Both teams want to walk away feeling they’ve achieved something that has value. Ideally, this means each team getting what they want.

In the real world of business, the results often tilt in favor of one side over the other. This is because it’s unlikely that both sides will come to the table at equal strength when talks begin.

Nonetheless, there are many advantages when both teams take a cooperative approach. Skillful mutual problem-solving generally involves some form of making value-for-value concessions. This is usually in conjunction with creative problem-solving.

Generally, integrative negotiations involve looking to the future. They also tend to involve forging long-term relationships to create mutual gains. Reaching a mutually beneficial outcome is often described as the win-win scenario.

Integrative Negotiation Basics

• Multiple Issues – Integrative negotiations usually entail a multitude of issues up for negotiation. In contrast, distributive negotiations generally revolve around the price or a single issue. In integrative negotiations, each side wants to get something of value while trading something which has a lesser value.
• Sharing – To fully understand each other’s situation, both sides must realistically share as much information as possible. This helps each side understand the other’s interests. You can’t solve a problem without knowing the parameters. Cooperation is essential.
• Problem Solving – Find solutions to each other’s problems. For example, offer something valuable to the other side which is of lesser value to you. If you can make this trade while realizing your objective, you have integrated your problems into a positive solution.
• Bridge Building – More and more businesses are engaging in long-term relationships. Relationships offer greater security and the promise of future success.

 

Both types of negotiation described above are used in business and personal lives. Sometimes, these two usually distinct forms of negotiation can even overlap. By understanding these negotiating types, we can be better prepared in different situations.

When we continue to learn, we can improve both our personal and professional relationships and skills. By knowing how we can utilize the negotiation process, we can harness the power of persuasion.