Sales is not just about persuading a potential client to sign up for a service or buy something. They find and connect with potential clients, nurture leads, educate clients, and maintain client relationships. With such a complicated role, how can you improve your sales skills?
Online PostGrad discusses the different ways you can level up your sales skills and, with that, potentially push your career forward.
Important Sales Skills to Master
Sales sits at the end of the buyer funnel when people are already aware of the product or service a business sells. How do you persuade them to buy your product now without chasing them away?
Besides knowing the ins and outs of your product, these skills will help you improve your skills as a sales professional:
- Prospecting Skills
- Active Listening
- Closing Techniques
- Agility/ Resourcefulness
- Public Speaking
- Storytelling Ability
- Social selling
- Managing objections
Along with your knowledge of the sales process and techniques, these skills will allow you to think on your feet and deliver your sales message effectively.
Strategies to Improve Sales Skills
Here are doable methods to learn or improve your skills in sales:
1. Practice Learning Agility
As a sales professional, it’s important to become a lifelong learner. Seek opportunities to learn new skills throughout your professional life. You can maximize your effort to expand your knowledge by practicing learning agility.
Learning agility is the ability to learn, adapt, and relearn new ideas or skills and then apply that to a real-life situation. Learning agility develops an open mind toward new ideas, helping you avoid becoming complacent with old ideas.
Training learning agility will allow you to be more comfortable using knowledge and previous experiences to navigate unfamiliar situations. With this skill, you’ll be able to assimilate new sales skills faster and generate innovative ideas during your work.
2. Keep Reading and Researching
Learning new skills may start with informal methods of learning, such as reading. You can stay ahead as a professional by simply reading up on the latest news and ideas in sales.
Reading in itself will enrich your knowledge and skills in sales, which you can then apply to your practice. However, the ideas you get from materials may also become a jumping-off point for new skills you can explore.
3. Take Advantage of Your Company’s Training
Most respectable organizations offer training to enhance their employees’ skills, especially when there are new developments in the field. More often than not, asking your supervisor or training department how to improve sales skills will point you to the most accessible and cost-effective way to add skills to your arsenal.
Another platform to look for educational seminars is professional associations. Associations of sales professionals host seminars and fora which you can join to gain additional knowledge in the field.
4. Take Online Courses
Although the professional’s go-to for skill and career expansion is a postgraduate degree, you can also get similar benefits from online short programs.
Online courses follow a comprehensive curriculum that can be completed in a short period, for which you will receive a certification. With sales short courses in the Philippines, you can focus on enhancing existing skills or target new skills that can help you become a better sales representative.
5. Roleplay with a Trusted Colleague or Mentor
Researching and attending short courses is one thing, but these cannot guarantee that your sales skills will improve. You need to practice what you learn to make sure that you’ve understood them thoroughly and know how to apply them effectively to real-life scenarios.
An effective way to practice sales skills is through roleplaying. You can simulate a pitch with someone you trust wherein you can apply your new skills. Your colleague or mentor can then give you feedback on your approach and about what worked and what didn’t.
Alternatively, you can practice with a friend or family member to simulate pitching to a potential customer.
Roleplaying is effective in sales because it allows you to practice your skills in reality rather than spend your time theorizing. This way you can guarantee that your strategies are effective for real people.
6. Use Technology to Your Advantage
All industries have experienced the impact of technology, and professionals have a lot to gain by embracing technology’s role in the sales process.
So, how can you improve your sales skills through technology?
Firstly, familiarize yourself with technological developments that directly affect the sales process. For example, you can explore prospecting tools to help you make the prospecting process efficient.
Secondly, seek ways to apply sales strategies and techniques to new technologies or vice versa. You can explore potential uses of chat GPT in sales functions and what strategies you can support with it.
7. Practice Empathy
A common misconception is that sales is about talking until your prospective client concedes and buys your offer. However, that is not the case — at least not anymore. Great salespeople understand that sales is about collaborating with your client to find a solution for their needs.
At the root of sales is the ability to stand in your client’s shoes and understand not just their needs but also the reasons for their hesitation. Doing so will help you craft a pitch that fits their profile.
Likewise, it can inform your attitude. Practice active listening so you can genuinely understand your client’s pain point. So, if you are met with objection, you don’t immediately jump to defense, but rather be prompted to ask questions or conduct research to learn their pain points.
Improve Your Sales Skills with Online Post Grad
Sales is not just a skill relevant to salespeople. Anyone who speaks with clients conducts sales to some extent and thus, would benefit from asking themselves, “how can I improve my sales skills?” every now and then.
Professional growth requires dedication and consistent effort. Support your effort to learn new sales skills with guidance from experts at OEd Post Grad. Enroll in a short course to expand your skills in sales and enjoy flexibility and affordability.
Inquire about our continuing professional development opportunities today.