Of all the skills a salesperson needs to learn in order to increase their sales, which one do you think is most important? Let's take a look at just some of the skills a salesperson needs to possess and then discuss the one that I think is the most important. We will see if you agree.
Of course, you need to prospect for new clients. If you don't become at least average at the skill of prospecting, making a living as a sales professional gets to be a pretty tough gig.
How about great presentation skills? Yes, this is an area that will serve a sales professional, especially a Salutary Sales Professional, well. You want to deliver a message that is important to your client and there are many good ways to do this, but since this is not the main message today, we will move on.
Can I ask you a question? Do you need to know how to ask your clients insightful questions? Well, yes, I would suggest this is a skill that sales professionals really need to polish. It will also serve them well.
Ah, rapport building! This is a really important skill for salespeople to master, right? There is no doubt that building rapport is a skill that can, and should, be learned by anyone that wants to be considered a sales professional.
"Closing" the sale is high on the list of most sales managers as to a skill that should be possessed by sales professionals. By the way, let's get rid of the word "closing" in sales. I would hope we have evolved pass this point by now in the sales profession. Ask for the sale. What the heck are you closing? Nothing. What are you starting? Hopefully a long-term, mutually beneficial business relationship. I get a kick out of salespeople stating they are "power closers." Makes me want to lose my lunch. Definitely not the approach used of a Salutary Sales Pro.
Now, all of these skills are important to polish as a sales professional, and I would bet there are thousands of articles and books written to address each one of these skills individually. But, we have not mentioned the most important sales skill of all. The one that is probably talked about the least and should be mentioned the most. The one skill that will really help you excel in sales and as a Salutary Sales Pro. Have you guessed it yet? The most important sales skill is, did you hear it? Yes, you're right, it is the conscious act of increasing your active listening skills.
Calvin Coolidge once said, "No one ever listened themselves out of a job." I am here to tell you that "No one ever listened themselves out of a sale!" Think about it. Have you ever heard a client, family member or friend tell you they didn't purchase from a salesperson because "they listened so well. I just couldn't by from them!" Not a chance. You may have heard the salesperson didn't listen, but I can honestly say that I have never heard anyone say that a salesperson listened to well!
Listening is a lot harder than most people realize, believe or not. But if you are in sales, what do you want to get from your client? You want to get their story. How do you get that? You provide them with a story and then ask them what they have going on in their place of business. Then you listen. But, we can't listen to our customers the way we listen to our spouses, kids or other relatives (whom we should listen to even more intently than our clients!) which is to say we many times listen to them with one ear. We also generally listen to reply rather than to understand.
In the book "What Great Salespeople Do" by Mike Bosworth and Ben Zoldan, it states: "Everyone wants the chance to tell his or her story, but it's hard to find someone who will really listen." Isn't that the truth! You have seen the glassy eyed looked that others give you when they should be listening. Maybe you have given that look to others yourself.
There are a lot of "listening blocks" in the world today, and we will hit on those in our next post, but I wanted to leave you with this story. One event that happened while I was selling electronic security systems in which my listening skills were put to the test.
We were installing a fire system in a twelve-story building and drilling a hole in the floor of a janitors closet to run wires between floors. This was an old building and the blueprints were not always accurate. Well, there was no water pipe on the blueprints, but there was one between these two floors. The technician burst the water pipe, filled the bottom of the elevator shafts with three feet of water and burned up equipment in two different dentist offices. Needless to say, not a fun day. So, the owner of the company I worked for went to speak to the Vice-President of the realty company that owned the building. They got into an argument over whose company was at fault, whose company had more integrity and left each other in a pretty sour mood.
The order from my boss was to go back the next day, speak to the Vice-President and save the account. I thought to myself, this was going to be impossible. So, before I arrived in his office, I decided to sit and listen to this man until he stopped talking. What I didn't realize at the time of that decision was that it would be 30 minutes! Yep, sat there for 30 minutes pretty much getting my backside handed to me. He complained about the cost of the damages, the mess, the reputation of my company and the way he was treated by the owner of my company. I literally didn't say a word for 30 minutes (if you knew me you would realize how hard this was for me!) And at the end of this tirade, he finally asked me what I thought and what my answer was to this situation.
I simply said, "I agree with everything you have said." He was stunned. I told him that I agreed that the mess was an inconvenience, but that there was nothing either of us could do now other than to get it back in order as soon a possible so the tenant's of his building stopped complaining. As to the cost of the damages, that's why we have insurance companies. Whatever they decided as to the percentage of damages incurred by each company, we would live with. That no, the owner of my company should not have argued with him. And lastly, I told him that any dealings with my company from this time forward would now be handled by me. If I didn't follow through with providing the service we agree upon, "fire me." He looked at me and simply said, "ok, you can keep our business."
See, no one had listened to him. No one gave him a half-hour to get out all the frustration that he was feeling after having his elevator shafts full of water and ten floors of tenants calling him to complain, not to mention the dentist's who had to reschedule appointments and get their equipment replaced. It was a long half-hour, but it was worth it. We ended up putting fire systems in two additional office buildings they owned.
Active listening. That is one skill you will want to polish. Watch for my next post to get some tips on how to do just that.
Good Selling!
No comments:
Post a Comment