10 soft skills salespeople must have and hone.
The hardest sales demand the softest skills.
Just about any salesperson can learn the hard skills – product and industry knowledge, research and negotiation tactics or pipeline management.?
But not everyone knows the soft skills that land sales. Even fewer salespeople bother to learn, improve or hone these essential skills.
Buyers connect with people who master soft skills. Buyers struggle to relate with salespeople who strictly master facts and data.
More sales are won due to proficiency in soft skills than because of perfection in hard skills.
A salesman needs to have these 10 soft skills:
No. 1: Relationship-building
To have it:?Notice I didn’t say “rapport-building?” Nearly any salesperson can build rapport by talking about common interests and complimenting buyers. The best salespeople use rapport-building as tool to build relationships. They move from the seemingly mundane to important business conversations and decisions. You must help buyers connect important needs and wants to the relationship you are building.
“Clients respond to people who they perceive understand their position and are on their same wavelength”
To hone it:?Relationship-building is built on trust and a true desire to know and help people. You can only help people when you?understand who they are and what they want. That comes from listening to learn, not to respond. And yes, salespeople need to practice listening to learn: Listen like a friend. Take notes. Clarify. Share positive stories.?
No. 2: Empathy
To have it:?Empathy and sympathy are often used interchangeably, but they aren’t the same. Empathy is putting yourself in buyers’ position, either understanding how they feel because you’ve felt it, too, or working to understand and feel from their perspectives. Sympathy is feeling sorry for others, but not necessarily feeling the same pain. Proving your empathy is a strong relationship-builder.?
To hone it:?Imagine yourself in buyers’ shoes (literally) – how they see and experience the situation they face. Ask yourself:?How does that make them feel? What choices do they see? Who is important to them and how does this affect them?
No. 3: Curiosity
To have it:?Without curiosity, you will struggle to build rapport and relationships, and find empathy. You need to be curious – not nosy or intrusive – about other people. Curiosity, at its best, is the desire to know and understand more about others so you can have a complete relationship.
To hone it:?Ask questions, but not just?discovery questions?to uncover needs and challenges. When you talk to customers, ask how they feel about the things they reveal – challenges, triumphs, everyday personal and professional experiences.?
No. 4: Self-control
To have it:?Sales is exciting. It can be difficult to slow down, curb enthusiasm and sometimes?just shut up. You want to be great? You need self-control so you can listen more.?
To hone it:?Keep track of your talk time. If you talk more than three minutes straight (keep a time piece in sight, if necessary), stop and?ask buyers questions?to gain control of your excitement and regain perspective on buyers’ needs.
No. 5: Emotional intelligence
You need emotional intelligence for two reasons: to understand and control their emotions and to understand and respond appropriately to customers’ emotions. Emotional intelligence includes four capabilities:
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You need to be able to pick up on prospects’ emotions so they know how to move the conversation forward. For instance, if they’re happy, it might be a good time to ask for the sale. If they’re frustrated, it’s better to problem-solve and move along.
No. 6: Adaptability/Flexibility
To have it:?Adaptability and flexibility demand physical and emotional intelligence. Sales is not an exact science. Things seldom go as planned. You need to be able to quickly get over it (emotional response) and adapt to overcome it (physical response).?
“Using the same approach with all prospects and clients is the same as playing the lottery.”?“The chances of getting it right are extremely low. Flexibility in thinking and behaviour creates awesome salespeople.”
To hone it:?While having a Plan B is helpful to become more adaptable and flexible, it doesn’t always help because B often falls apart, too. Honing these soft skills is mostly about recognising other ways to accomplish goals and being willing to bend in different ways to get there.??
No. 7: Optimism
To have it:?You need to see the glass half-full. Sure, it’s important to consider what can go wrong (that’s part of being adaptable and flexible), but the best salespeople are optimistic. You should see opportunity where others see no hope. Optimists recognise the good in a bad situation. They seek the best in others.??
To hone it:?Optimistic outlooks are often the result of positive self-talk. Find?a personal, positive mantra. Practice random acts of kindness. Surround yourself with positive people, and steer clear of the negative types.
No. 8: Creativity
To have it:?You need to be creative mostly because you are problem-solvers. The more creative you are, the more likely you will continuously solve prospects’ and customers’ problems. You do far more than make a prospects’ problem fit in their solution. Instead, you seek and create one-of-a-kind solutions.??
To hone it:?Practice looking at customers’ issues in the bigger picture. Visualise their goal and what it would take to achieve it. Then reverse engineer to find the means – often out-of-the box means – to achieve it.?
No. 9: Integrity
To have it:?Salespeople with integrity are honest and reliable. You must admit when you’re wrong, take responsibility for mistakes and work hard until you make things right. Customers won’t do business with salespeople who don’t have a high level of integrity.
To hone it:?Honesty likely comes easily. Reliability can be built with a personal double-check and alert system: When you say you’ll do something, make it a calendar item and create reminders and alerts to get it done. The hardest part of integrity for many: admitting when you’re wrong. It takes practice to first, recognise your mistakes, and second, admit to them. As long as you make things right, it’s always a positive approach to identify and admit mistakes.?
No. 10: Grit
To have it:?We’ll use this one word –?Grit?– to cover a few essential soft skills. you must be full of ambition, self-motivation, perseverance and passion. You must work well under pressure and don’t take success for granted. You need strive to excel in and out of work, and fill your days with meaningful tasks that show initiative.
To hone it:?One of the best ways to build and maintain grit is to keep long-term goals that you’ve confirmed are worth working toward. Focus on the little wins – and rewards – that move you toward the evolving, long-term goals.??
Hope you found this useful. Sales in Indian companies has never taken off. The sales profession is not given much importance and most salespeople do not have any formal training. They crave for guidance but there is just no one to help. Would you like to change that and help these salespeople? Here are the two things you can do.
Do let me know if you want me to write about anything specific, I will be happy to share my thoughts.