Sales and Selling Skills
Whatever the size of your organisation, the chances are you need sales! It is the lifeblood of all businesses, as without customers to purchase products or services, a business certainly would not exist for long! Successful selling is essential and people in sales roles will be most effective if they have appropriate sales management support and sales skills.
In the very commercial world that we now live in, it has become increasingly challenging to sell and the customer is encouraged to be far more discerning and demanding - quite rightly so! Competition is fiercer than it has ever been and selling is a tough environment to operate in.
Individuals wishing to improve their sales skills are often interested in finding ways to:
- Develop a more sophisticated and strategic approach to selling
- Create and maintain a customer-centred sales model
- Understand their customers needs and wants better, so they can sell what is best for them
- Sell through excellent customer service, not just through persuasion
- Plan and prepare their sales process with a win-win mentality
- Cultivate opportunities to increase volume and margins
- Handle objections professionally and constructively.
A strategic approach to sales training is a reaction to the changing culture in sales. Customers react negatively to ‘being sold to’ even if they're ready to buy! We therefore need to create a ‘customer centred’ sales model whereby we become business consultants rather than salespeople. Sales is now about establishing and uncovering needs, then matching a solution for the customer.
"You don't close a sale; you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise." Patricia Fripp - Presentation Skills Expert
How to spot an effective sales interaction
Is the sales person:
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Calm, confident and prepared - have they researched the (likely) needs of their customers, so they can establish a strong rapport from the beginning?
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Using a structured process - do they steer the sales conversation gently, but seamlessly towards the purchase or sales agreement?
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Connecting to their customer - instead of selling to them, do they engage with their customer by ensuring that they uncover and address their interests and needs?
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Linking features to benefits - are they highlighting only the features with the benefits that are relevant to that particular customer? Do they avoid sounding like they're reciting a script?
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Handling objections professionally - are they acknowledging and validating concerns or objections, without becoming defensive or dismissive? Are they able to answer questions and counter objections without coming across as too pushy?
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Ending on a high - do they only close the sale when their customer is happy? Do they avoid manipulation techniques to get a quick agreement that the customer may live to regret?
Sales Skills Training from H2
Our sales skills training is designed to empower our delegates to become more confident and successful in their sales roles, by learning how to become more strategic and collaborative with their customers. We aim to strike a balance between presenting essential background information, and facilitating participative exercises and discussions that are both challenging and motivating, and that enable useful learning to take place that can be directly applied back in the workplace.
We can deliver presentation skills training virtually, or at a venue of your choice, for any number of participants.
Ready-to-Go Courses: Over the past 24 years, we've worked hard to devise and develop a range of courses that suit the broad needs of our customers. Ready-to-Go course titles relating to the topic of sales skills include:
- Sales Skills and Process
- Selling through Customer Service
- Sales and Telephone Skills
- Presentation Skills
- Communication Skills
- Influencing Skills
- Meeting Skills
- Negotiation Skills
Bespoke Courses: If you have something more specific in mind, we can design and deliver a tailored course for you. Following a short pre-course consultation, we'll put together a course programme that reflects your specified priorities, and that includes exercises based on real-life case studies/scenarios.
One-to-One Training: We also offer sales skills training for those who may benefit from the undivided attention of our trainer. These one-to-one sessions are entirely focused on the specific needs/interests of the delegate, and are extremely well received for achieving lasting learning and observable improvements.
No-obligation Quote
Please CONTACT US today - just give us a brief outline of what you're looking to achieve, the number of participants and the proposed location, and we'll get back to you shortly.