Tag Archives: Selling

How Do You Improve Sales Skills? Four Points

Situation: A company is staffed by a team that is not made up of salespeople, per se, but individuals who have grown with the business and who understand the customer. The staff is divided into teams who serve the company’s customers but with differences in effectiveness. The CEO seeks advice as to how they can best increase their selling level. How do you improve sales skills?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Comparing the teams, what are the differences in effectiveness in sales?
    • The individual with the most classic “sales” personality struggles with sales.
    • An individual with an HR background who knows the customer well is more comfortable with sales and is the highest producer.
    • There are instances of hoarding of information which could improve sales, but this is more frequent within teams than between the teams.
  • Dale Carnegie Sales Courses are a wonderful resource that can improve the skills of individuals both with and without a formal background in sales.
  • Engage in customer research to understand and know the customer.
    • Ask the sales leads in each team head up this research.
    • Their task will be to share their observations about customers and develop new strategies for approaching and meeting the needs of different customers.
    • This sharing should be both within the teams and between the teams.
  • Consider a sales coach.
    • Ask colleagues and search the Internet for a local resource.
    • Look for a consultant who specializes in working with individuals to overcome sales blocks, as well as to develop individualized sales styles that are effective for each person.

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How Do You Succeed in Turbulent Markets? Seven Suggestions

A CEO is concerned about a possible downturn in the company’s market. They have survived the Great Recession and want to assure that they continue to survive future downturns. How do you succeed in turbulent markets?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • In turbulent markets, companies do everything that they can to reduce costs. This includes just-in-time ordering – regardless of lead times which they view as the supplier’s problem, delaying orders until they have confidence that they can sell what they order and produce, being miserly with cash, and demanding lower prices – even if supplier costs are rising. Dealing with each of these requires a steady head and creative solutions.
  • Spend as much time as possible meeting with important vendors and clients. Maintain the dialogue. They need you as much as you need them – without your products and services, their business is compromised, too. Spend time finding and cultivating the right relationships in client companies. Most of the time, this will NOT be the purchasing departments, but higher ups within the business units who are being pressed by their superiors to generate sales and revenue.
  • Pushing harder does not work in turbulent markets. Too many others are doing this.
  • Change your message – what used to work does not work now. Adjust your message to the times and adapt your message to your customer’s needs.
    • People want choice, and to do business with those whom they can trust to deliver.
    • Develop good case studies and testimonials – stories that your customer can share with others in their company.
  • Adjust your sales approach – look at SPIN Selling (Status, Pain, Implication, Needs-Payoff).
  • Don’t cut sales and marketing – focus it on the sectors that have cash and who are using the current market to grow. These people will continue to buy.
  • Look at what worked for you in the last five years – this situation is similar.
  • Look at your communications through the eChannels – if your competition is there, you should be too. For example, explore LinkedIn.

Special thanks to Jennifer Vessels of NextStep for her contribution to this discussion.

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