In sales you must be able to, as Jack Nicholson once said, “handle the truth”.
Great sales people have one thing in common – they actively seek feedback. If you can’t handle critical feedback, then your ability to make new connections, prospect, build great relationships, and hit targets will become severely limited.
Put simply, without feedback sales professionals are encouraging mediocrity.
But this goes beyond just having a thick skin and being able to last an appraisal with your sales manager without feeling downbeat. The very best sales professionals actively seek feedback. They go searching for it, motivated by their appetite for success. They know that they will only improve and develop a winning selling strategy through understanding more about themselves, their universe and their clients. Learning in sales, as in all aspects of business and life, is a journey that never ends.
So, with this in mind, how do the top sales performers stay just that, “top performers”?
Here at Natural Training (the sales training experts), we have devised a simple little Sales Skills Audit. This is the plan that allows sales professionals with ambition and drive to better themselves on a regular basis.
Yes, feedback from customers, prospects and leaders is important, but so too is taking responsibility for our own development. Remember our blog about the University of Me? This runs along the same lines, doing what it takes to develop your selling strategy and stay in front of the competition.
The Sales Skill Audit:
There are 17 steps to getting honest with yourself and find out what you’re really like as a sales professional in key areas. How can you make the rest of 2013 a year where you can finish up with an extra 20-30% in each of the following categories?
To get started, rate yourself from 1 to 5 (1 being the weakest and 5 being the strongest) in each area. Use this as a map to define the places where your sales ability lets you down.
- Time Management
- Self-motivation
- Prospecting
- Telesales
- Cold Calling
- Preparation
- Getting through gatekeepers
- Questioning
- Probing
- Listening
- Pitching
- Objection handling
- Closing
- Negotiating
- Persuasion
- Conflict management
- Account management
Sometimes sales professionals are great at the practical stuff, the doing stuff. Getting out there, shaking hands and making friends comes so naturally to them. The problem arrives when they get back into the office and actually have to manage the account. Poor organisation lets them down; they miss meetings and fail to maintain the energy that the prospects experienced at the start.
Or, the final pitch is biggest challenge for the sales professional. Whether it’s the pressure of the presentation that lets them down, or the desperation to close, this is the problem area that will always prevent the individual from developing and progressing.
How do you get feedback? And, more importantly, how do you take feedback? Whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, the top performers will absorb information on their own selling style and use it to propel themselves forward. It’s quite simply their fuel to keep moving and developing…
Once again, click here to get more information on the Natural Training Sales Audit.
Why not get in touch? Our trainers can use the results of these audits to offer bespoke training and coaching to help build effective sales professionals with all-round ability. The audit allows individuals to:
- Identify areas of weakness by being honest and open
- Target these areas with training and development
Get in touch with Natural Training today to discuss.
Remember, we have our new book, The Natural Sales Evolution in stock with Amazon! Go online, order your copy, you will have it in a day or two, just CLICK HERE.
