“How you sell, matters. What your process is, matters. But, how your customers feel when they engage with you matters more”. Tiffani Bova

FACT: Without sales, there would be no business to manage!

DILEMMA: Salespeople are expected to hit the road, screen or keypad without the fundamental tools they need to attract, persuade, negotiate and successfully close the deal. Did you know that employee turnover in sales divisions is on average 35% compared to 13% in other industries?

INTERPERSONAL BEFORE FUNCTIONAL

Before delving into business’s key sales functions, let’s dissect ten soft skills paramount to successful sales professionals. (Recruitment Tip: Keep these in mind when hiring your next batch of interns or experienced candidates)

1. Internal Locus of Control – The extent to which people see themselves as responsible for their own success or failure, not using or blaming external pressure, disappointment or crises to validate non-performance.
2. Initiative – To adapt when ”things do not transpire” according to normal scripts, trends, guidelines and training.
3. Empathy – The aim is to help/assist/offer value to the client first and foremost.
4. Accountability – Sales is a science-based on metrics, ratios and numbers. A salesperson has to take ownership and responsibility for their activities. Delivering on client expectations.
5. Optimistic Realism – In sales, keeping a balance between optimism and realism is crucial. Sometimes you need to pick yourself up by your bootstraps if deals fall off or business is stagnant.
6. Emotional Intelligence – The key here is the extent to which the individual empathises and comprehends the emotions and motivations that underlie human behaviour. EQ is the ability to ‘read people”, identify nuances, and pick up on sales cues from the client.
7. Communication Skills – The best salespeople are naturally eloquent in writing, speaking, and reasoning abilities, with an assertive nature, but diplomatic approach.
8. Organised – Sales functions are diverse; some are more important, others more urgent. Fighting fires all the time is not conducive to sales targets. Focussing on admin activities as an excuse to not cold call/see clients, is a recipe for failure. If they cannot plan and stick to a plan, deals won’t happen.
9. Confidence – Clients are extroverts, introverts, and everything in between. Charisma is important however, sales aggression is frowned upon. Confidence is the cushioning between a fight or flight response
10. Intellectual Curiosity – A great salesperson will always question more, the why the when, the what, the how. They know to assume nothing in a sales environment

eSTUDY’s Sales Accelerator programme covers the key personal and interpersonal skills required to succeed in sales coupled with practical exercises to address areas of development (by the way, we don’t call them weaknesses anymore).

SALES SNAPSHOTS, COURSE NUTS AND BOLTS

Take a skills snapshot of your current sales team. Do they know how to discover what the customer really wants? Do they know how to deal with objections? Do they have the skills to persuade and negotiate their way to success?

The ten key themes of a sales process could look something like this:

1. FYC – Find your client
2. KYC – Know your client
3. IYC – Interest your client
4. SYC – Show your client
5. PYC – Persuade your client
6. NYC – Negotiate your client
7. CYC – Close your client
8. SYC – Service your client
9. AYC – Amaze your client
10. UYC – Upsell your client

The Sales Accelerator programme consists of 17 courses that cover the sales process’s fundamentals, essentials, and supplementals.

Whether they are greenies or old hands, learners will discover how to cultivate profitable relationships, create masterful pitches, circumvent objections, handle complaints and ‘’cement’’ a client recurring client portfolio for the long term.

IT GETS PERSONAL TOO

The toll that sales may take from a personal ‘’management of self’’ aspect, is often disregarded in training programmes. Not the case with the Sales Accelerator – students will discover how to improve their communication, enhance productivity, make better decisions, and solve issues with proper oversight and resilience.

UPSKILL AND RESKILL FOR THE WIN

Customer expectations are constantly changing and evolving. The competition is lobbying for the same clients, and external market forces (life in the time of Covid-19) exasperate the necessity for upskilling and even reskilling one’s sales force.

The benefits of a robust sales training programme are undeniable:

• Consistent Sales Language

A sales team that follows a consistent modus operandi and learns new sales techniques as a unit has better opportunities to develop a unified and effective “sales language”.

• Stronger Client Relationships

Being in tune with customer needs and communicating value propositions to the client for them to realise the connection between their needs and the product/service on offer.

• More Predictable Outcomes

A sales team that is lacking in sales adeptness and industry knowledge leaves too much to chance. Reskilling and upskilling via effective training may uncover more revenue and enables the sales force to deliver more consistent outcomes

A TARGETED SOLUTION?

The Sales Accelerator programme from eStudy, offers value to new and experienced salespeople alike.

Managers and team leaders who liaise with clients will benefit from this programme, whether in a sales or services setting. For customer-facing employees, taking this course would be a no brainer. Even employees in a marketing environment will value gaining insight into the customers and sales process connection.

Set your interns and employees on a journey to sales finesse, with this unique training initiative. Get in contact with us for a detailed briefing and start accelerating your sales results.