What separates good salespeople from great ones?Let’s be real, it’s probably not their mastery of the CRM nor the number of prospecting emails they send each day. Those skills and tasks are important, but they don’t close deals.

销售团队的销售代表sales goalsquarter after quarter have a few things in common — soft skills. These are the abilities a salesperson has to build relationships, encourage productive conversation, and provide an exceptional customer experience.

The great thing is, there are no hard-and-fast rules for how soft skills should be developed, and many times, they aren’t taught in a formal training session. So, how do you learn soft skills? Through exposure and practice.

In this article, you’ll develop an understanding of the seven soft skills successful salespeople use and how to acquire them to boost your sales performance.

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Let’s look at the seven soft skills every rep needs to get ahead — and more importantly, how to develop them.

1. Growth Mindset

Let’s say that you’re fantastic at building rapport. Do you believe rapport-building is one of your innate skills — or do you believe you developed it through hard work, practice, and external feedback?

If you choose the second answer, you possess a growth mindset. People withgrowth mindsets believe他们可以加强自然才能,并随着时间的推移发展新的能力。另一方面,具有固定思维方式的人将自己的技能视为固定的。他们的手是被交易了,就是这样。

如何发展成长心态

To turn a fixed mindset into a growth mindset, change the way you perceive failure. Don’t think of failing as embarrassing or shameful — view it as a learning experience. When you’re not afraid to screw up, you’ll have the bandwidth to bounce back and try again. Even better, you’ll gain something new from every challenge you tackle. (Of course, that doesn’t mean you should be complacent about failure. If you’re making the same mistake three-plus times, take a cold, hard look at why you’re not improving.)

Consider using “yet” to describe skills you haven’t mastered. Psychologist Carol Dweck — who invented the意识到成长的概念— says this word has the power to dramatically boost confidence.

For instance, rather than thinking, “I haven’t been able to meet 120% of my quota in a month,” you’d think, “I haven’t met 120% of my quota in a month… yet.”

(WatchDweck’s entire talk有关更多提高信心的技巧。)

2.适应性

When a salesperson is good at listening to and implementing feedback, their name typically skyrockets to the top of the leaderboard and stays there. After all, they’re combining the strengths of a great rep with the insights, wisdom, and experience of their manager. That’s a winning combo.

Plus, the expectations of sales reps are constantly evolving. Buyers are much more sophisticated than they used to be — and what worked in 2001 definitely won’t fly in 2021. To keep processes and strategies up-to-date, great salespeople need to be able to adapt and be coachable.

How to Develop Adaptability

Step one is simple: Take five minutes every day to reflect on what went well and where you could improve.

根据哈佛商学院高级讲师马克·罗伯格(Mark Roberge)的说法highly coachable repsare always analyzing their performance and looking for weak areas.

Of course, the most important factor of adaptability is how you respond to feedback from your manager, trainer, or mentor. Remember to stay open-minded and follow through on their comments and suggestions even if you don’t like them. If their advice works, you’re in better shape than before. If it doesn’t, you can stop using it. It’s a good outcome either way.

Finally, communicate with your manager. It’ll be much easier for them to gauge your progress and give you valuable information if they’re always in the loop.

3.移情

能够想象自己在潜在客户状况的能力可以将平均销售代表变成明星表演者。当您对潜在客户的想法和感觉有一个好了解时,您可以将消息传递定位到他们的特定痛苦点和动机上。您还将确切知道何时推动以及何时退缩。

另外,向买家展示您的身边有助于您克服仅对其配额感兴趣的激进代表的刻板印象。

How to Develop Empathy

奇怪,只是imagining yourself in someone’s shoes可以使您更加同情。因此,下次您开始与潜在客户一起工作时,请花两秒钟的时间在精神上穿上鞋类。

Otherscientifically-backed waysto boost your empathy include talking to new people, meditating, and active listening.

为了使您的回音清楚地表明,请使用以下短语:“我听到你”和“这听起来确实具有挑战性”。

4. Communication

Between talking on the phone, sending emails, giving demos, and speaking in meetings, most sales reps spend at least 90% of their day communicating. Having solid communication skills is essential. You must be able to clearly and persuasively get your ideas across — without going off on tangents or using buzzwords and meaningless phrases.

您还应该始终牢记听众。如果您以与您的潜在客户相同的方式与销售经理说话,那么出了点问题:毕竟,他们的目标,欲望和背景信息截然不同。

How to Develop Communication Skills

Watch or listen to recordings of yourself. You’ll inevitably notice verbal tics or confusing statements that you completely missed during the actual interaction. Every time you do, make a quick note of the issue so you can avoid it in the future.

Reviewing your conversations also gives you the chance to analyze your prospects’ reactions. For example, maybe your method of handling objections seems to work at the moment, but you realize those same objections came up again during the next call. Unfortunately, what you thought was a clever counterpoint didn’t translate. Once you’ve found the weak spots in your communication methods, you can adjust accordingly.

5. Humility

完成这句话:“面包”是“黄油”为“谦卑”是____。

Okay, “sales” probably wasn’t your first answer. But reps who can identify the right time and place for humility consistently knock their deals out of the park.

When you’re humble enough to reveal a vulnerability or admit you don’t know something, your prospects will immediately trust and respect you more. As a result, they’ll view you as a trusted advisor, or even a partner in their success (this is ideal).

How to Develop Humility

当大多数人realize they don’t know something, their gut instinct is to hide their ignorance or change the subject. Instead of doing either, simply say, “I don’t know.”

Worried the prospect will lose faith in you? Add: “But I’ll find out,” or “I’ll look into that right away.” (And then make sure to follow up.)

谦卑也取决于拥有自己的错误。当出现问题时,不要使用将责备转移给其他人或外部因素的语言。例如,您并没有说:“我们一定已经越过电线了,”您会说,“我忘了澄清我们何时见面,这在我身上。”

6. Emotional Intelligence

具有高情绪智力(EQ)使您成为主要关系建筑商。EQ有五个组件:

  • 情感意识:您对自己的心情和感受感到非常满意。
  • Self-confidence:You're self-assured and assertive but not arrogant.
  • Self-regulation:你能够控制你的反应外部事件。
  • 适应性:您很灵活,可以快速响应变化。
  • Influence:您可以帮助其他人看到您的观点,并做您建议的事情。
  • 领导:您可以有效地统一一群人并设定课程。

凭借高级式,实现目标要容易得多 - 因为人们自然想跟随您。

How to Develop Emotional Intelligence

Building EQ requires you to pay careful attention to your emotions at all times. Ask yourself, "What am I feeling right now? Why do I feel this way? Have I felt this same emotion recently, and was there a similar cause?"

Once you've achieved self-awareness, self-regulation will come organically. You'll be able to modulate your state of mind and responses.

You should also monitor the emotions of those around you. This can be challenging, as most people don't reveal all — or even most — of what they're truly thinking and feeling.

These questions will help:

  • “我如何形容这个人的心情?”
  • “他们的情绪与情况相匹配吗?”(例如,如果您只是解决了他们的反对意见,他们似乎很放松,还是仍然紧张?)
  • "Do their words contradict their apparent mood?" (Maybe they say they're not worried, but they're talking more quickly than usual and tapping their foot.)

这项练习将揭示您应该如何回应。您的前景似乎处于优势吗?问:“你想到什么吗?”客户心情很好?请求您需要的简介,或者如果您处于销售过程的最后阶段,则请求其业务。

7. Resilience

真正的弹性测试并不是您处理不良情况,而是您之后继续前进的方式。销售人员每天面临比大多数其他专业人员的拒绝。韧性和坚韧性是他们用来保持课程并面对逆境而实现目标的软技能。

Resilience doesn’t mean ignoring negative feelings or pretending a difficult sales call never happened. Instead, it’s important to在健康中处理这些感觉way that prevents burnout. Afterward, resilient sales reps can move onto the next call and give the prospect 100%.

How to Develop Resilience

这是随着时间而来的。您对拒绝变得越舒适,您将不得不使用下一个潜在客户重新开始感觉的感觉并重新开始。成功的销售人员知道,他们的下一个电话可能是他们的下一个封闭式交易,因此,这些潜在客户有机会见到您,您代表的公司以及您以最好的方式出售的产品。bob全站app

Pairing Soft Skills With Hard Work

Work ethic and soft skills go hand-in-hand. Understanding your product, industry, and sales tools will help you meet your sales expectations. Soft skills like communication, empathy, and resilience help you consistently exceed them.

本文中的软技能特定于销售角色,但可以转移到大多数其他学科。这意味着,如果您决定进入管理层甚至新部门,这些销售软技能将跟随您的职业成功之旅。

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Originally published Jun 18, 2021 1:00:00 PM, updated November 19 2021

Topics:

Sales Strategy