The last several months I have been conducting workshops on sales training and helping design sales training programs for several companies.
It's been wonderful, as I have a passion for teaching others how to sell successfully and sell with integrity.
If you have read any of my other blog posts, you are aware that I focus a lot on business communication and communication in general.
It's because I believe that everything that works, or doesn't, is ultimately about communication.
And this is especially true in sales.
Successful selling is about using first-rate communication skills.
Skills such as listening, questioning, not interrupting, suspending judgments, assumptions and more are what make someone successful in sales, and these are business communication skills.
Think about it a minute.
If you are in a sales interaction and you are thinking about what you want to say next, you can't be listening to what your client or prospect is saying.
Listening is a basic communication skill.
When you listen to others you may learn something about them that you wouldn't have known otherwise.
You may discover a need or something important to them you would have glossed over or simply not heard if you were thinking about other things.
In fact, if you deeply listen to them, you may change what you were going to say next or the focus of your conversation altogether.
Failing to listen can kill a sale.
Every customer is unique and thinks that their question is too..
When you focus on your response rather than on their query, you might give them the answer from the manual but not pick up the nuances of what they are asking.
They may not be phrasing their question in exactly the "right" way, but if you respond only to what you think they are asking, you may turn away clients who are a good fit for your services.
If you actually listen so that you can probe into what they are really asking, you will engage the person and bring them a bit closer to buying.
If you quickly respond with a pat answer, they may say, "Thanks and goodbye" - forever.
Nothing is more important to other human beings than feeling heard and listened to.
It builds trust, it builds relationships, it builds your sales pipeline! So next time you are getting ready to make a sales presentation, remember that successful selling involves using business communication skills.
Today I focused on the skill of listening, but all the communication skills are important if you want to be a rock star salesperson.