17 Selling Skills You Should Prioritize For Your Team

Whether you’re selling to local SMBs or Fortune 100 executives, your sales team needs a variety of skills to thrive. But some skills are crucial in every situation. Here are 17 sales skills you should prioritize for your team to improve their performance.

Salespeople need to have excellent communication skills in order to build trust and relationships with customers, elicit information about their pain points and objectives and make recommendations that create value. This includes verbal and written communication, which can take the form of conversations, emails or other documents.

A primary reason customers purchase goods and services is to solve a problem or meet a need. Salespeople need to understand what problems customers are trying to resolve, ask well-thought-out questions and listen (instead of talking), and connect a product or service to those stated or unstated needs. This is also known as understanding buyer personas and the challenges they face.

Prospects want to work with salespeople who can demonstrate real insight early in the process. One of the best ways to do this is by providing them with new ideas and perspectives, which helps establish you as a trusted advisor and encourages prospects to reach out for advice. This is called insight selling and is the #1 sales skill that distinguishes Top Performers from The Rest.

When a prospect pushes back on your sales process, it can be tempting to cave and jump into old-school pitch mode. However, you should be willing to stand firm and stick with your sales process. In fact, if you’re able to hold your ground and keep your process consistent, it can actually increase the likelihood of a sale. online marketplace