Black Sales Journal

Think of the best sales professional that you have ever seen.  Think of what that individual does that sets he or she apart.  Some are personal attributes (SeeBSJ 7/5 -Customer Facing Attributes You Can’t Be Without), some are preparations, and some differences are skills.  Skills are attainable, and can improve with practice, preparation, and a desire to be the best. Let’s touch on the most prominent of those skills in this post.  Yes, the best sales professionals have to be intentional about improving skills and skill sets, as these are the ones that what will make them better sales professionals.

Tools That Change Careers!

Skills are the tools that you need to become as complete as possible.  You can have some of these without having the proficiency to make them count, so acquiring the skills and improving on those that you have are both important acts. Here is the skills roster:

• Superior Interviewing Skills
• Unquestioned Responsiveness Skills
• Solid Communication Skills
• Strong Networking Skills
• Effective Relationship Development/Building Skills (Deep Enduring Relationships)

Superior Interviewing skills – Interviewing skills are important to get the job, and you need to get the job before you can be successful at it.  Master interviewers use a combination of telephone interviews and in person sessions to get comfortable with a candidate.  You want them to get comfortable, and so I suggest the following articles to help you:

Black Sales Journal 1/5/11 Mastering the Telephone Interview Black Sales Journal 9/12/12 An Interviewing

Essential – Communicate Why You are Successful Black Sales Journal 7/7/11 Want to Stand Out in An Interview – You Already Do!

Getting them comfortable includes sharing all positive aspects of ‘you’.  These posts will help, but the most important thing will be how you behave during the interview, so practice, practice, practice.

Responsiveness – Yes, it is a skill! – If you are sales professional responsiveness needs to be your tagline.  It is that part of your ‘tool chest’ which will separate you from your customer’s previous sales professional, and potentially from any in the future. Read these post for deep explanations:

Black Sales Journal 6/16/2011 – Responsiveness – The Objective of the Sales Professional

Black Sales Journal 1/16/2012 – What is the Content of Your Sales Character?

The Black Sales professional has to be most responsive to get the preference that comes with a solid, rewarding relationship.  Never allow your relationship to suffer the chasms that happens in many relationships, which gives opportunities for others to interlope.  Respond with alacrity to customer requests and get the answers they need.  Don’t hide behind your voice mail because your customer needs you.  Change processes and habits to meet the needs of the customer, it will give you the edge for life.

Effective Communications and Listening Skills – Your ability to communicate is crucial to your success.  This is an area that many take for granted and do not ‘practice’ on to the degree that they may need to.  You will not know what your customer needs if you do not have superior probing and communications skills, including listening skills to get out the key information that you need.

Black Sales Journal 11/7/2011 -  Uh! Umm! Make Communications a Strength Black Sales Journal 11/17/2011 – Are You Listening to Your Customers?

Black Sales Journal 3/12/2012 – Are You Asking Your Customers for Feedback?

These items will help you as your skills in this area, yet I will also suggest role-play, videotape, and even the occasional mirror to help you hone your skills.  You cannot avoid being a good communicator if you want to increase your chances of success.

Networking Skills That Fill Your Sales Funnel – You might believe that not everyone can network, but I guarantee you it is a skill that can be learned and even mastered.  Networking is much like speed dating, you get in and out, and get the requisite information to allow a much more impactful meeting at another time.  You are selective, and at the same time ‘throwing a wide net’ in hopes of finding potential customers.

Read these to learn more:

Black Sales Journal 2/21/2011 – Networking for the Black Sales Professional

Black Sales Journal 10/10/2011 – Entrepreneurs – 6 Areas to Focus On

Black Sales Journal 12/19/2011 – 2012 Has Started Already- Three Ways to Increase Your Prospect Base

The ability to network effectively is important for b2b and b2p, and is a skill that is well defined.  In practice working a room is one thing, but in truth it is an art.  The utilization of an effective ‘elevator pitch’ (Black Sales Journal 8/11/2011 – Know Your Elevator Pitch) and efficient and organized notes on who you engaged and talked to are important.  Good networkers are almost always leading the pack on prospect origination.

Effective Relationship Development and Management - You have heard me say on numerous opportunities that the relationship, in most product and service sales, is everything.  The customer is your ‘reason for being’ and you need to make sure that developing deep, enduring relationships is your goal.  It is a skill, and an art that takes times and an understanding of the process.

Read these for more information:

Black Sales Journal 6/18/12 – The Raw Truth About Your Business Relationships

Black Sales Journal 6/24/12 – Why Can’t Johnny Sell?

Black Sales Journal 1/13/11 – Deepening Your Customer Relationships – The Holy Grail for the Black Sales Professional.

No one item will help you more than to have the type of relationships that are built on mutual trust, credibility, and value.  Be astute as to the your customer’s needs and what you might be able to do to add value.  Master the relationship!

Here is a start, and I will continue next post with more skills that change the game.

Take time to master them. Read Monday for Must Have Sales Skills Part II!

Your comments are welcome.

It is not fun hunting for sales positions.  Although you may not consider it intriguing or exciting, it is a necessity for those who are starting their careers, need a change, or are in a situation where there are shortcomings.

The Internet makes a part of your job search a much more efficient task if nothing else.  Your objective should be to do much of your search with a reasonable amount of effort; the Internet makes this possible.  I would never suggest that you should avoid search consultants or even the print media, yet the Internet is a good way to start.

What to Look For

I suggest that you access as many job sites as you are comfortable working with.  Some sites are devoted only to sales positions while some have all types of positions with an ability to sort down to sales positions.  All of them are chocked full of opportunities.

Here is what you are looking for in a site when looking for sales positions:

• No Fees for Access or Membership. Most will give you this.  In the case of a site that charges a fee, you should be able to access jobs to determine the quality and type of jobs listed before remitting a subscription fee.  Some sites for high earning positions do look for some type of fee, albeit reasonable in most cases.
• The Ability to Sort Easily – The functionality of the site is important.  You are doing this to make your job search broader, but also easier.  The ability to sort also helps you find sales positions that are geographically relevant.

Sales Bulletin Boards

Many sales positions are displayed on Internet sales bulletin boards.  The site may have a blog about sales positions and the sales environment, but the feature that draws candidates to the site would be the possibility of finding a new position.

Here is a short list of some of the best actual job sites for sales professionals that serve the United States:

Salesheads.com

- This is a very good site with strong sorting and plenty of positions.  A must access site.

Salesjobs.com

- This is a solid site with decent sorting and quality positions

Jobs4sales.com

- This one is a fair site with less sorting horsepower than salesheads.com and salesjobs.com.  This site also seems to have fewer positions on file.

The Ladders – Sales-jobs

- For accomplished sales performers and jobs over $100,000.  Also can give access to some of the top sales executive search consultants.  Good site mechanically, but to get full access, you will pay a fee.  The fee will seem minimal if you get a position, but it is not free.

Monster.com – Sales Jobs

- This site is affiliated with Monster.com. It has solid jobs and great mechanics.

There are many other sites, and you must take care not to waste your time, as you will be entering an electronic resume (typing) at many of these sites as opposed to submitting a written resume. This takes time. And takes away from other job-hunting activities.

Some other sites that includes are as follows:

• Indeed.com (www.indeed.com)
• Simplyhired.com (www.simplyhired.com)
• CareerBuilder.com (www.careerbuilder.com)
• PowerSalesJobs.com (http://powersalesjobs.com/b/)

Sales positions can also be found in other unsuspecting sites such as:

• Craig’s List (www.craigslist.org)
• Foundemployment.com (www.foundemployment.com)

Many of the organizations above show all of their jobs for free.  The Ladders, which specializes in upper level sales jobs, will ask a for membership fee.  The Ladders stocks higher paying positions essentially advertised at $100,000 and up.

In almost all cases you will type in a ‘virtual’ resume including some salary expectations. You will do so by typing in your information. It is cumbersome, yet very common, and necessary.  These resumes are for the sake of qualifying, and do not have the structure for you to add your full list of accomplishments.

You will also still need a solid written resume’ to give you the edge.  It must accentuate your accomplishments.  The listing of jobs will show a chronological history, but the listing and enunciating of accomplishments in these jobs will show your successes as well as your capabilities.  That is extremely important.

Employer Placed Ads

In many cases the employer will place their own ad. This will look like this in the search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo) results:

The first and third search result shown are employers looking for candidates to respond directly to their site.

I just want to differentiate these from “paid searches” where the company soliciting for candidates pays the party that shows the advertisement (Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others whenever you or someone else clicks on the advertisement.  Those ads are usually on the top but sometimes on the bottom, and are shown as paid by colored shading, or the words such as ‘sponsored’ or ‘Ads by Google’.  An example of this is below:

I point this out because you should know the nature of the site you are visiting to apply for job.  Some are from employers, some are from job boards, and the motives are little different in each one.

You will notice many employers searching to find the employees themselves. It is more economical for them to do it on their own, although in many cases they do it while looking with the help of sales job boards and even search consultants to cover the market more broadly. This is big business.  It is important to get the right person in the position that is very expensive to ‘churn’ sales professionals.

There is no doubt that the Internet gives you an assist when it comes to seeing the breath of job openings in the area that you desire. It is invaluable.

Always be efficient!

Your comments are appreciated.