Do you know if you’re NOT all that good when it comes to selling?

By Suzanne Burgess

Being aware of what you’re not good at in the sales process is an excellent starting point for future self-development.

For example, a few years ago I was battling with conducting a thorough needs analysis when in front of a prospective client. I always felt a little on the back foot in these situations. It was only when I recognised this shortcoming and set about researching some techniques, working on my approach and mentally preparing a comprehensive list of questions to ask, that I managed to address something that had been holding me back. I now feel confident in my ability to truly get to the bottom of a client’s problem, which essentially sets the stage for all my future sales process activities.

What is it that you’re not good at? Qualifying leads? Presentations? Writing proposals? Preparing for appointments? Sometimes we use the excuse that ‘we don’t like doing something’ as a reason for less-than-spectacular sales results, but more often than not it’s just a case of not knowing how to do something properly.  Selling skills can be learned, but simply listening to an expert share ‘the how-to’ for two days means absolutely nothing unless YOU  are prepared to implement, adopt, practise and hone those skills on your own, and not just because your sales manager is on your tail. Quite often your CRM’s pipeline management system will show you where your bottlenecks are.

Spend some time this week thinking about one selling skill that you think you are not quite on top of. Then hold yourself accountable to work on that skill.  It could drastically improve your sales success ratio.