{"id":5850,"date":"2020-10-15T13:38:46","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T18:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/?p=5850"},"modified":"2020-12-04T18:59:39","modified_gmt":"2020-12-05T00:59:39","slug":"top-sales-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/top-sales-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"The Top 3 Sales Skills You Aren&#8217;t Practicing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every sales rep I know is constantly looking for ways to up their game.<\/p>\n<p>And while it\u2019s often about employing some awesome new tech tool or learning the latest closing technique, you can get a lot more out of your prospects and clients simply by getting a ton more out of the basics.<\/p>\n<p>With this in mind, I sat down with Joseph Fung, CEO of <a href=\"http:\/\/uvaro.com\/\">sales bootcamp Uvaro<\/a>. He\u2019s a repeat founder who has been building and selling software for decades, and he shared with me the three top <a href=\"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/sales-skills\/\">sales skills<\/a> reps should be constantly practicing and building on.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_cBnNU7VIRY\" width=\"560\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Really Strong Research [1:06]<\/h2>\n<p>We all research our prospects to some extent \u2013 but how many of us are really getting as much out of our research as we possibly can?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost sales reps don\u2019t go deep enough, and really strong research skills are often overlooked,\u201d says Joseph.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you focus on discovery, questions, salesforce, then you lose track that the more you know about the market and the more you know about the buyer the more successful you\u2019ll be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So how can sales reps upskill their research?<\/p>\n<p>According to Joseph, it\u2019s less about a technique, and more about a frame of mind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of people come to the problem thinking about personalisation,\u201d he says. \u201cHow quickly can I get the company size, the name, the title, so I can personalize my pitch? But really good research skills go deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When researching, Joseph says sales reps need to remember the following.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Understand the job of the person you\u2019re selling to<\/strong>. Understand their persona. What are the tasks they need to do? If you\u2019re selling to HR what does a HR professional need to do?<\/li>\n<li><strong>The industry the company is in. <\/strong>If they make machines, look at what is happening in the manufacturing industry. What are the trends? What are the patterns?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Their market.<\/strong> Who do they sell to? Let\u2019s say they sell machinery to airports. What\u2019s happening in airports in their market?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Next, sales reps must take the mindset of being curious and developing an opinion, Joseph advises.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s imagine you\u2019re selling to a HR professional at an airport \u2013 if you know what\u2019s happening in their market, you have an opinion on it, and you\u2019re being curious about it, you\u2019re going to take your deals way further because you suddenly have way more street cred than other sales rep they chat with.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Seeing People as People [3:12]<\/h2>\n<p>Your contact might be the leader at a magnificent software company, but at the same time, there\u2019s so much more to life than what they do on the job.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOften, sales reps see someone as just the role, if they\u2019re calling into just a CEO or a CFO, they let that set up a barrier,\u201d Joseph says. \u201cBeing really good at seeing someone as a real person and treating them as such can help your sales conversations move forward much more effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How can sales reps go about this?<\/p>\n<p>Of course there\u2019s the low hanging fruit: the sports teams, the hobbies, the favorite musicians.<\/p>\n<p>But according to Joseph, a great technique is to dig into the story behind your company\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/sales-discovery-call-questions\/\">discovery questions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re a sales rep, your sales leaders will give you really good discovery questions,\u201d he notes. \u201c&#8217;Hey customer, you\u2019re thinking about this and it\u2019s impacting you this way, right?&#8217; \u2013 well, take the time to unbox that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sales reps should ask themselves: Why is that actually likely to be important to them?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a person, why do those things really matter to them? You have a great asset in your discovery questions, so don\u2019t just memorize them, take the time to dig into them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Reps should also practice learning about things that don\u2019t interest them, he says, because \u2013 let\u2019s face it \u2013 not every topic is going to thrill you, but it could be a great conversation starter that allows your contact\u2019s humanity to emerge, even in the most corporate setting.<\/p>\n<h2>Being Authentic [6:18]<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cEveryone says [be authentic] as a platitude, but if you can actually hone that skill, taking your personal interests, and baking that into the way you sell \u2013 it can have such an amplifying effect on your activities,\u201d says Joseph.<\/p>\n<p>He explains that if sales reps are passionate within their roles, they\u2019re going to see \u201cway more\u201d success than those who treat it as if it\u2019s <em>just<\/em> a job.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFiguring out your why, your passion, and then baking that into your work is super critical, and it separates out the good reps from the great reps.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>How Can Sales Leaders Measure the Impact of These Skills? [7:54]<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cMeasuring someone living their why, living their purpose, that\u2019s a really tough thing,\u201d says Joseph. \u201cThere are a few things you can do to help out, such as increasing research before reaching out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He underlines that a \u201creally good measure\u201d is the conversion, from reach out to discovery, or from discovery to the next step.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConsistently, across the board, what we see is that groups that do really good research have a higher conversion rate,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd so when you fold those together, by holding your team accountable to that conversion rate, from a <a href=\"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/sales-discovery-call\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">discovery call<\/a> to your next demo to that next meeting, that conversion rate will help you assess that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to working on more personal items, Joseph recommends that sales leaders simply have their teams record them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things we see great teams do is measure success, not just in closing the deals, but in terms of meaningful milestones,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo in terms of wins, thank yous, kudos, gratitudes &#8211; that can be as easy as a Slack channel where you share those wins and stories. Or it can be in your <a href=\"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/sales-engagement\/\">sales engagement<\/a> tool, what you choose to mark as a success.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first step, he says, doesn\u2019t have to be tricky. By simply getting your team to think about and track their own metrics, you\u2019re on the way to some super useful sales insights.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Visit <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/uvaro.com\/\"><strong>Uvaro.com<\/strong><\/a><strong> to find out more about what they can do. Alternatively, reach out to Joseph via email at <\/strong><a href=\"mailto:joseph@uvaro.com\"><strong>joseph@uvaro.com<\/strong><\/a><strong> or on <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/josephfung?lang=en\"><strong>Twitter<\/strong><\/a><strong> or <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/josephfung\/?originalSubdomain=ca\"><strong>LinkedIn<\/strong><\/a><strong> \u2013 he\u2019s always happy to chat.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every sales rep I know is constantly looking for ways to up their game. And while it\u2019s often about employing some awesome new tech tool or learning the latest closing technique, you can get a lot more out of your prospects and clients simply by getting a ton more out of the basics. With this &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[55,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Joseph-Fung.jpeg?fit=3840%2C2160&ssl=1","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v15.5 - http:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>The Top 3 Sales Skills You Aren&#039;t Practicing<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/top-sales-skills\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Top 3 Sales Skills You Aren&#039;t Practicing\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Every sales rep I know is constantly looking for ways to up their game. 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He has over 15 years of marketing experience and has led the digital marketing strategy for companies like Salesforce, Mint, Intuit and many other Fortune 500 caliber companies.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\"]}]}<\/script>\r\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"http:\/\/wp.me\/p85zFH-1wm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1015,"url":"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/consultative-selling-definition-techniques-examples\/","url_meta":{"origin":5850,"position":0},"title":"Consultative Selling: Definition, Techniques, and Examples","date":"02\/28\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"According to buyers, the three most important elements of a positive sales experience are a sales representative who 1) listens to their needs, 2) isn\u2019t pushy, and 3) provides relevant information. That\u2019s not too much to ask, right? 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