Soft skills for Sales Professionals:

Soft skills for Sales Professionals

Soft skills play a very important role not only in professional life but in personal lives as well. As the time has changes and nature and borders for business changed in earlier times if you ask to any sales professional, which skill sets  required to become a good sales person, they say you only two things one know your product and two go in field and bring business. There are lots of myths are prevailing in market about sales but sales is much more than these two aspects.

In present scenario, businesses, customers and sales profession itself are demanding more from sales professional to increase not only business acumen but also credibility of sales person. Apart from product knowledge and technical skills what else companies are not only looking in sales professionals but these skills are mandatory need in all the professionals in terms of soft skills. Let’s discuss all in detail:

1.       Common Sense:

Common sense is seriously now a day’s become so uncommon. Ironically, people today are getting literate but not knowledgeable, hence the basic common sense ignored by people and they didn’t even realize that by doing this they are going to loss so much. A person with ethics, values, truthfulness, trustworthy who have respect for others & self, commitment, sincere, rational, courageous and honest towards other people in their words and action considered as person with common sense. Analyze yourself on these guidelines and check out are you doing actions and making decisions with common sense or not.

2.       Personality with Commitment & Integrity:

Apart from technical skills (Product, Customer & Company knowledge) sales professional have-to-have a pleasant personality and when I say personality it means two things one is from inside, it is your knowledge, awareness, values & principles etc and second is your external appearance i.e. the way you carry yourself, properly dressed and well-groomed to make a positive impression in front of customers. Personality and your principles define self-confidence. As sales professional you have to dress professionally, don’t eat mouth fresheners and pan masala, never consume cigarettes, alcohol etc while meeting customers. It is strictly prohibited or else you will suffer a huge reputation loss.

3.       Communication skills:

One thing we all need to understand that any sales person needs to have good command over their regional language then Hindi and English. The reason for such a sequence is because the kind of customers you need to deal with are usually communicate in local language and to give them comfort zone we as a professional need to know about local languages.

Always be polite and assertive in your language while doing verbal communication and when it comes to non-verbal communication you need to focus on all these guidelines which you find in this article. Communication doesn’t mean only speaking; you also be very good listener too. Until you listen properly you can’t able to offer the best solution to your clients.

4.       Writing skills:

In corporate you need to do a lot of written communication not only outside the company but within the company too. You need to have good command over written communication as like drafting an email, writing letters and preparing reports etc. Written communication considered as your personality in corporate world it is equal to facing customers. So you can able to understand how much weight-age is given to writing skills in business world. Learn and upgrade your skill sets regularly.

5.       Learning skills:

It is universal fact that if you stop learning means you are not developing and hence it is a mandatory skill set which need of the hour not only now but it is there since the evolution of human race begins. Now, if we talk about importance of learning in sales profession the impact of which is directly propositional to your number of sales calls you close.  As a professional you need to know about technical skills i.e. about your product and services including technicalities of that along with market knowledge. Further, you increase your expertise in MS Excel and other basic activities related to computer it will definitely gives a positive impression in the minds of customers.

6.       Telephone skills:

As sales professional you have to meet new people every day and hence you need to communicate with different people with different mind sets not only in person but most of the times over telephone.  Being the professional you know the etiquette on how to make a call, take an appointment, how to pitch you products and services, negotiate and objections/grievances of customers on phone calls. Click here to know more on telephone etiquette.

7.       Punctuality:     

It’s really hard to understand this fact that today we are discussing punctuality as skill, we need to accept this that Punctuality is not a skill it is habit which everyone in the world has to practice. If you reach 10 minutes earlier to the venue you will be more relaxed, mentally stable, fearless, stress-less, you present well. All this makes a huge impact not only on others but you can explore things within you as well. There is a saying by Lao Tzu - “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it become your destiny.” Respect the time and you will achieve heights of success.

8.       Relationship building:

We are human beings and you know humans love to communicate in verbal or non verbal ways all the times. As professional of sales, you will be good in relation building professionally and able to manage the situation in a win-win situation for all present in the deal. So now how to do this is question the answer is pretty simple just never speak lie to customers, take rigorous follow ups, meet at least once in month in person with customers. Understand their needs and wants and try to help them by providing solutions to their problems, by doing this you find closing sales become just a byproduct.

So these are the few very important soft skills one has to practice in their professional level. There are lots of other skills too but in my opinion the above skills if you apply in your life you will surely enjoy the benefits in abundant.

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