For the last few weeks, we’ve been knee-deep in in-house sales training courses with a few of our clients. We’ve also been helping to design sales training material for these clients. It has been a wonderful experience – we love teaching and training on sales.
In our sales training sessions, we focus a great deal on business communication, and communication in general. This is because, in our opinion, whether or not your sales efforts work is ultimately controlled by how well you can communicate. Effective selling is all about using first-rate communication abilities. Abilities such as listening, and intelligent questioning.
For example, if you’re making a sales pitch but you are preoccupied with some thought, you will not be able to focus and listen to the prospect. Listening is a fundamental communication skill. Whenever you pay attention to others you might learn something about the subject that you simply wouldn’t have known otherwise. You might uncover a necessity (a need that the customer has) or some other vital piece of information that you them you’d have glossed over otherwise.
Not listening can kill a potential purchase. Every customer is unique and wants to be treated that way. When you concentrate on you or something else instead of the customer’s queries, you stand to lose them. They might not be phrasing their question in precisely the “right” way, but when you respond simply to what you believe they’re asking, you might turn away otherwise perfect clients. Should you really listen to ensure that you are able to probe into what they’re really asking, you’ll engage the individual and move them a little closer to purchasing.
Proper and sincere communication develops trust, it develops associations, it develops a profits pipeline! So the next time you are getting ready to create a sales presentation, keep in mind that effective selling is, essentially, effective communication.
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