Black Sales Journal

In the last post, we discussed several skills that you’ve got to have, or acquire in order to be the best in your organization, or in sales in general (Black Sales Journal 7/9, Must Have Sales Skills – Don’t Be Without Them Part I).

You can make it without some of them, but to be the consummate sales professional, you need appropriate amounts of each of them.  These skills don’t come easy, but they are ultra-important.

Must Have Sales Skills Part I

We already covered the following skills in Part I as was mentioned above (Black Sales Journal 7/9, Must Have Sales Skills – Don’t Be Without Them Part I):

• Interviewing Skills
• Responsiveness
• Communications
• Networking Skills
• Relationship Development/Building Skills (Deep Enduring Relationships)

You need these, but you also need a few more.  We will concentrate on the ‘vital’ ones.

Must Have Skills Part II

The first group of skills was important, and this group is just as important.  Put the two together, and you have a skill set which is admirable.  Put these skills together with the attributes that were discussed in the post, Black Sales Journal 7/5 Customer Facing Attributes You Can’t be Without, and you are building a professional sales persona that has longevity and serious income potential.

• Durable Sales Skills
• Strong Organizational Skills
• Presentation skills
• Negotiation Skills

Durable Sales Skills – Too many take these for granted as they think they are easily attainable.  Fact is that every sales professional should have some real sales training.  Whether their company sponsors it, or the sales professional looks for it on their own. Many black sales professionals that I have spoken to avoid the sales training if it not supplied to them automatically as they question their longevity in this profession.  Recognize that they are not natural, and these sales skills are learned…yes learned.  Skills such as probing, supporting, providing proof sources, and closing to mention a few, are attainable or can be strengthened.

Strong Organizational Skills - I know sales professionals who are ultra organized, and know some with literally no organizational skills.  A quick word to the wise, the more organized you are, the less work you will have to redo.  With this in mind, the easier your life will be.  I fell in the middle of that spectrum, and had to eventually learn to be better organized.  I watched sales professionals who had a ‘handle’ on everything to such a degree including strong expense management, enviable prospect management and prospect follow-up.  They had it all together.  You need this skill if you don’t already have it.

Clean and Confident Presentation Skills – This is very doable with practice.  Giving a presentation to a customer or a group of recipients is an art that deserves practice, and everyone can tell when you are on top of your game.  An ability to read your audience and know when your point gets across or is a hopeless endeavor is important.  Skip the ‘uhs and the ‘you knows’ and deliver a flawless presentation that others will recognize as professional.  Presentation skills are important as you can see in the sales of any product.  When you are confident, you win (BSJ 5/31/2012 The Confidence Game, Why You Have to Win It!)

Advanced Negotiation Skills – When you attempt to bring in the ‘big fish’ there is seldom an easy catch.  Every customer recognizes that when large dollars are involved there is no better use of a buyer’s time than negotiating a price or a fee downward, or attempting to get more services for the dollar.  In each one of these cases the person who touches the customer, the sales professional, is the one that normally has the responsibility to respond to the request.  Knowing how to ‘bracket’ an offer, and how to recognize the gambits that buyers and representatives have to come out with the best outcomes is important.  Additionally, knowing when to respond and when not to are important as is indicated by the post, BSJ 1/12/2012 When Negotiating, Silence is Your Secret Weapon.

There Are Other Skills!

Of course there are other skills, but those shown in Part I and Part II are at the top of the heap.  Black sales professionals who have these skill sets will be outfitted to be premier performers.  Couple these with the attributes mentioned above (Black Sales Journal 7/5 Customer Facing Attributes You Can’t be Without) and you have the requirements for success.  Add to this the desire, mental toughness, and persistence and you will have a professional in the making.

Work at it, and always be the best!

Your comments are welcomed.

Great sales people have attributes that other professionals, and even some other sales professionals don’t possess.  These attributes make a difference, and give you the ultimate edge.  We will cover three today, and a few more next week.  Internalize these attributes and move to be the consummate sales professional.

1.  Insightful Customer Empathy

The best sales professionals realize that the customer’s plight will spell their success.  Having an insight into the concerns and feelings of the customer may take a little more energy, yet can result in the type of relationships that are enduring and profitable.

Stephen R. Covey said it best in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” (Habit 5).  It has been said many other ways, but this one is the easiest to internalize.  The more knowledge you have about the customer, the more qualified you are to help that customer.  Knowing and understanding gives you the basis for empathy.

The easiest way to think about how your interaction affects the customer is to put yourself “in the shoes” of your customer.  As a customer, you want to have solid communications and a sales professional servicing your business that understands your business, and your businesses situation.

This professional does the following:

• Seeks to understand your customer’s needs and priorities, and is genuinely empathetic because they do understand.
• Knows the customers goals and objectives and works to get fulfillment
• Clearly communicates with the customer, then follows with correspondence for monitoring and clarity.
• Avoids using technical language and jargon that your customer may not understand.
• Allows the sales process to proceed naturally, and does not exert unnecessary pressure.

Empathy allows you to recognize the importance and gravity of many of the issues in the customer’s world, and how they are affected.  It increases the urgency on some matters and decreases it on others, and that allows you to know, as the client knows, what is most important.

Care must be taken not to be artificial in showing empathy, as if your buyer thinks that you are feigning empathy, it will almost seem patronizing. [Read – Black Sales Journal 10/13/2011 – Empathy – Put Yourself in Your Customer’s Shoes]

2. Unshakeable Credibility

Credibility is a requirement of the sales profession.  If you don’t have it, you might need to cultivate it.  Without it you may be in the wrong profession.

As you may have seen in BSJ 4/16/12 – Credibility, You Can’t Buy It, You Have Got To Earn It, one of the most effective tools to help establish credibility is proof sources such as letters of recommendation, accreditations, certifications, and other indications of your professional nature and ability to help customers.  Credibility will help give you confidence.  Armed with these, you can answer the questions about experience, age, and knowledge.

If you are new in the sales occupation, you will eventually have these questions so take the opportunity to prepare your portfolio to house these important items:

• Letter from prominent customers singing your praises
• Certifications and designations indicating technical ability and knowledge
• Your reasons why you should be the customers sales professional

These will help, but the most important display is your own demeanor.

If you are new, you may not have all of these items, but whether a novice or a vet, you still need to look confident and composed no matter what the situation.

Never appear smug but do recognize that you want to portray that the ‘solution’ just walked into the room.  You don’t want to be ‘worshipped’, only believed.  Make solid eye-to-eye contact and put down your electronics, retreating to a reliance on your personal skills.  Remember you listening skills and your ability to deliver solutions…. then sell (BSJ 6/20/2011 -Deliver Solutions…Then Sell).

Regardless, all a Black sales professional can do is to exude confidence, be ultra prepared, and armed with as much ‘ammo’ in the form of proof sources to deal with perceptions that you might have basic faults.

I always think about being on time and not starting out a meeting with an apology.  Way back then, or even before it, I realized that you start from a weaker position if you are ‘begging’ someone’s pardon as the meeting is starting.

3. Enduring Mental Toughness

Many years ago (not that I am sensitive about my age) when I was playing college basketball, I was exposed to an opposing coach named Gene Smithson.  At that time he was the assistant coach at Illinois State University.  He then went on to coach Wichita State University.

His mantra was  “MTXE” or “Mental Toughness Extra Effort”.  What the heck was he trying to do with MTXE?  It was his effort to bring resolve and a take-no-prisoners attitude to his players at both schools.  You should recognize that attitude as a necessity in the sales arena as well.

Mental Toughness is a sales requirement. Whether it is B2B or B2P, there is much to break you down in the world of sales.  Now, throw into the mix that the 3Ps (Perceptions, Preference, and Perceptions) sometimes play a role.

Facing adversity and winning is what all good sales professionals seek.  As a matter of fact, many do it all of the time.  Those who have strong self-belief, unshakeable focus, and consistency of effort while maintaining professional technique and high levels of desire and determination are whom we interpret as winners. Sales professionals who win consistently are usually examples of mental toughness.

When you are mentally tough, nothing stops you from doing your routine; nothing stops you from your 10 or 20 calls per day.  It is what you do, and if they all result in a “no” answer, you realize that there will be more yes answers tomorrow.

In prospecting it is making the additional five prospecting calls per day, with the recognition that the next call could be the “pay dirt” that moves the day from the normal success of scoring on 1 for 10 calls to the very successful 2-3 appointments. There is no area that extra effort will have more impact than the process of sourcing prospects.

You need to build your mental toughness.  If you can recognize that much of the ‘rejection’ that comes during the sales process is not personal.  It just may seem hard to believe this when it is happening to you.  Mental toughness will get you there.  [Read Black Sales Journal 4/21/2011 Mental Toughness, Extra Effort]