3 Important Sales Skills

Whether you have a sales force working for you, or do all the selling yourself there are 3 core sales skills required to succeed. These skills are entirely within your control. Once you own these skills you hold the potential to achieve whatever you want in sales.

The first core sales skill is the ability to focus on small steps. Contrary to what most sales people are led to believe setting big outlandish sales goals does more harm than good. If you can't believe it you won't achieve. Plus you trigger unnecessary negative internal dialog.

Focus on the next one small thing you can do to move toward what you want to accomplish and only that one thing.

For example, a lot of new sales people are told they just have to make a bunch of cold calls and if they do they'll get the results they want. Well, we both know that's not what happens. What really happens is you enthusiastically make a bunch of phone calls, you talk to a few people, and experience some pretty rude interactions, and end up with almost no appointments for your efforts.

In this situation you're focusing on the prize of closing a specific number of sales. However, that end is far beyond your means. You have to get step one right before you can ever get all the other steps right and close the sale.

Realistically the first small step is getting one person to agree to speak with you on the phone. That's right just getting one person to speak with you is the first small step.

The second core sales skill is commitment to daily progress. When you think about the things you've succeeded doing in the past and compare those successes against your failures there's a key distinct difference. Typically, we give up on doing things when we don't quickly experience progress. That means you have to commit to making certain you experience daily progress from the beginning.

Understand progress does not necessarily mean earning sales from day one. Going back to the small steps remember progress is measured in terms of small actions that produce measurable results. So if you were new to sales or new to the business progress could mean identifying the first 10 potential buyers you'll contact and developing a clear message.

The third core sales skill is self-responsibility and self-accountability. No one but you is responsible for your success or your failure. That means you should never expect anyone to do things for you. You are responsible for learning, practicing, adapting, and implementing the skills you need to succeed. The more ownership you take the greater your success and commitment to taking the actions required to succeed in sales.