An elite sports coach can identify important skills that an athlete needs in order to become a top athlete. This is the basis for further developing the individual. How can sales learn from this to develop the selling skills of salespeople?
Very rarely do you hear an elite sports coach say "when I was a successful athlete I did this....let me show..." .
A sports coach instead starts from the athlete's current situation and coaches specific parts to build up skill after skill. A sales manager needs to use the same technique to develop the salesperson's selling ability.
The first step is to understand what skills are essential to becoming a top seller.
What skills lead to sales success?
There is a lot of literature that describes what a top seller is. They need:
be strategic
be trustworthy
have a competitive instinct
be enthusiastic and proactive
have customer understanding and be goal-focused....etc
Many of these descriptions are correct but do not give us insight into HOW to accomplish this.
However, there is research that has looked at what behaviors lead to specific skills seen in top salespeople.
What to start with?
Think about what skills/behaviors you think are important to a salesperson's selling ability.
Note! We have seen in the research that there is a bias in a self-assessment. It is believed that certain skills lead to increased sales ability, but this is not the case.
Try to find skills or behaviors that lead to sales success. Write them down. Talk to others. Find consensus within your organization.
Once the list is complete, evaluate each skill against each individual in the sales organization. Do it on a four-point scale: (1) no skill (2) Basic skills (3) average (4) advanced/expert.
Now for the fun!
Act like the sports coach. Train your salespeople - skill by skill - by using structured and planned sales coaching.
It is also important that you measure the seller's sales ability. Read more about how you can do it. Measure sales ability .
Good luck developing your sales skills!
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