What is sales ability? Explaining the 5 characteristics of a person and how to improve them!
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2024 5:56 am
Improving your "sales ability" is important to increase the success rate of your company's products and services. So what exactly does sales ability mean? In this article, we will explain in detail the overview of sales ability, the five characteristics of a person with sales ability, and how to strengthen your sales ability. This is a must-read for those who want to improve their sales ability and achieve even better results.
Table of Contents
What is sales ability?
Five characteristics of a person with sales ability
How to strengthen your sales ability
Conclusion
What is sales ability?
The appearance of proposing a service to a customer
Sales ability refers to the skill of building, maintaining, and developing relationships with customers, continuing to sell your company's products and services, and contributing chinese singapore b2c cell phone number data to the profits and growth of the company. However, sales ability is not simply defined as "the ability to sell." There are "five common characteristics" among sales-skilled personnel. We will explain each in detail in the following sections.
Five characteristics of a person with sales ability
Business people with sales ability
1. Listening ability
Listening ability is the skill of clarifying the problems and needs of customers by asking appropriate questions and accurately understanding the situation the customer is in. Salespeople who sell well are often said to be "good listeners" and "good at drawing out the other person's story," which shows that they have good listening skills. In order to conduct proper listening, it is not enough to just repeat questions. It is necessary to research and analyze the other party's company and industry in advance, and to make hypotheses about what problems they are likely to have, what and how your company's services and products can solve them, as well as the flow of the conversation, before entering into a business negotiation.
On the other hand, sales are formed through communication with the other party at each moment, and are like "living things," so it is dangerous to force the other party to follow a hypothesis that you have prepared in advance. A hypothesis is just a hypothesis, and no matter how carefully you investigate, there is a possibility that it will be wrong. Even if the hypothesis is wrong, it is important to use it as a guideline for listening and to flexibly proceed with the business negotiation according to the flow of the conversation. A person who can respond in this way can be said to be a salesperson with good listening skills.
2. Problem discovery ability Problem discovery ability is the skill of finding out what the real problem the customer is facing is based on the information obtained through listening. For example, let's say the other company has an issue where "there are no applications from the desired talent, and recruitment is not progressing as expected." In this case, first understand the current situation and consider possible factors that could be the cause. When looking for the cause, you may find issues such as "the cause is the selection of recruitment media, and the posting destination is inappropriate" and "the recruitment page on the site does not sufficiently appeal to the company's appeal."
Other causes may be found such as "not understanding the market value of the desired talent and not being able to offer appropriate employment conditions." It is difficult to come up with a solution to a "vague" issue such as "not being able to recruit the desired talent," but if you can identify the bottleneck that is causing it, you will be able to prepare appropriate countermeasures and measures.
However, not all customers have a fundamental understanding of their company's issues. Even if they do, they may not be able to verbalize them well. Therefore, it is important to dig deep into the customer's vague issues and support verbalization. By doing so, you can break down the issues to a level where you can think of specific points and proposals that your company should consider, as well as things that the other company needs to consider. These skills are the "ability to discover problems" that successful salespeople have in common.
3. Proposal Ability
After discovering the real problems of the customer, you plan specific strategies and tactics for those problems. The skill of presenting the plan in a way that is easy to communicate and understand to the customer is "proposal ability".
In order to win a deal in sales activities, you need the skill to clearly summarize what the real problems and issues are, what the appropriate solution is, and why you came to that conclusion. Of course, it is important to have a story that is easy for the other party to understand, but it will be more persuasive if the content uses absolute indicators such as numbers rather than unclear quantitative presentations.
In addition, there are cases where negotiation (prior human consideration) is also necessary as necessary. For regular business negotiations, it is not uncommon for a proposal to be made to the person in charge first, and only in the final proposal that is officially accepted does the person in charge of the negotiation appear.
Even in such cases, make the maximum preparations that you have determined to be necessary based on materials for the decision maker and previous interactions. The outcome will depend on how well you can do this.
Table of Contents
What is sales ability?
Five characteristics of a person with sales ability
How to strengthen your sales ability
Conclusion
What is sales ability?
The appearance of proposing a service to a customer
Sales ability refers to the skill of building, maintaining, and developing relationships with customers, continuing to sell your company's products and services, and contributing chinese singapore b2c cell phone number data to the profits and growth of the company. However, sales ability is not simply defined as "the ability to sell." There are "five common characteristics" among sales-skilled personnel. We will explain each in detail in the following sections.
Five characteristics of a person with sales ability
Business people with sales ability
1. Listening ability
Listening ability is the skill of clarifying the problems and needs of customers by asking appropriate questions and accurately understanding the situation the customer is in. Salespeople who sell well are often said to be "good listeners" and "good at drawing out the other person's story," which shows that they have good listening skills. In order to conduct proper listening, it is not enough to just repeat questions. It is necessary to research and analyze the other party's company and industry in advance, and to make hypotheses about what problems they are likely to have, what and how your company's services and products can solve them, as well as the flow of the conversation, before entering into a business negotiation.
On the other hand, sales are formed through communication with the other party at each moment, and are like "living things," so it is dangerous to force the other party to follow a hypothesis that you have prepared in advance. A hypothesis is just a hypothesis, and no matter how carefully you investigate, there is a possibility that it will be wrong. Even if the hypothesis is wrong, it is important to use it as a guideline for listening and to flexibly proceed with the business negotiation according to the flow of the conversation. A person who can respond in this way can be said to be a salesperson with good listening skills.
2. Problem discovery ability Problem discovery ability is the skill of finding out what the real problem the customer is facing is based on the information obtained through listening. For example, let's say the other company has an issue where "there are no applications from the desired talent, and recruitment is not progressing as expected." In this case, first understand the current situation and consider possible factors that could be the cause. When looking for the cause, you may find issues such as "the cause is the selection of recruitment media, and the posting destination is inappropriate" and "the recruitment page on the site does not sufficiently appeal to the company's appeal."
Other causes may be found such as "not understanding the market value of the desired talent and not being able to offer appropriate employment conditions." It is difficult to come up with a solution to a "vague" issue such as "not being able to recruit the desired talent," but if you can identify the bottleneck that is causing it, you will be able to prepare appropriate countermeasures and measures.
However, not all customers have a fundamental understanding of their company's issues. Even if they do, they may not be able to verbalize them well. Therefore, it is important to dig deep into the customer's vague issues and support verbalization. By doing so, you can break down the issues to a level where you can think of specific points and proposals that your company should consider, as well as things that the other company needs to consider. These skills are the "ability to discover problems" that successful salespeople have in common.
3. Proposal Ability
After discovering the real problems of the customer, you plan specific strategies and tactics for those problems. The skill of presenting the plan in a way that is easy to communicate and understand to the customer is "proposal ability".
In order to win a deal in sales activities, you need the skill to clearly summarize what the real problems and issues are, what the appropriate solution is, and why you came to that conclusion. Of course, it is important to have a story that is easy for the other party to understand, but it will be more persuasive if the content uses absolute indicators such as numbers rather than unclear quantitative presentations.
In addition, there are cases where negotiation (prior human consideration) is also necessary as necessary. For regular business negotiations, it is not uncommon for a proposal to be made to the person in charge first, and only in the final proposal that is officially accepted does the person in charge of the negotiation appear.
Even in such cases, make the maximum preparations that you have determined to be necessary based on materials for the decision maker and previous interactions. The outcome will depend on how well you can do this.