{"id":76128,"date":"2020-05-29T17:22:21","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T11:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpledocs.wpengine.com\/?p=76128"},"modified":"2021-04-13T12:55:29","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T07:25:29","slug":"5-sales-skills-to-standout-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revv.so\/blog\/sales\/5-sales-skills-to-standout-in-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Hone These 5 Sales Skills to Standout in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Great salesperson possesses numerous skills which make them effective and efficient. Current uncertainty in the economy has made selling more challenging with prospects, and customers also going through a tough time.  So instead of focussing more on selling, sales teams across the globe are now focussing on building strong relationships with customers and prospects. This calls for a salesperson to maintain a sales skill set that goes beyond the tool expertise (Quoting, CRM, CLM) and focusses more on enhancing the sales soft skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be on top of your game<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here are some sales skills listed to focus on and relevant resources and courses to help you work your way through them.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prospecting <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sales prospecting is a critical part of the sales process. It helps you build the pipeline of potential customers. But with a dramatic shift in customer behavior during the last few months has made the sales teams to relook their prospecting strategies. For prospecting to be effective amidst the pandemic, salespeople need to develop specific approaches depending on i) industry they belong to and how severely it\u2019s impacted, or ii) the region that they were operational in.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Active listening <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sales teams are the eyes and ears of any business. Interaction of a salesperson with existing customers and prospects gives a broader view of the market and helps in identifying trends or changes in customer behavior. Active listening presents you with insights that allow you to put yourself in your customer\u2019s shoes and grasp a broader view of the impact of the current situation. This will ensue discussions to help mitigate the impact on business and support customers in the best way possible.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business acumen <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This is one sales skill that you need now more than ever. A salesperson should be skillful enough to use business-level information (like reading a financial statement) to navigate sales conversations around relevant pain points or understand trends and patterns that affect customers and take timely and judicious decisions. With good business acumen, you can chase the right prospect and expect conclusive results (in terms of conversion from prospect to customer) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time management and planning <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is critical that a day is planned, managed, and utilized in the best possible way. Every salesperson gets the same number of hours to work. Setting clear goals for yourself could be a good start and then prioritizing your tasks as per the requirements. An untimely response or delay in sharing critical customer documents can result in businesses losing deals. Having a sorted time-table and calender can make the overall working experience more convenient and easy to manage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alternatively, you can also use document automation tools like Revv<\/a> that comes with features like centralized repository, 1000+ legally vetted templates, eSignature<\/a>, native APIs and Zapier integrations<\/a> and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increased and better communication<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Strong and effective communications are the foundations for building a long-lasting relationship. How you communicate with your customer is very critical. The tonality of your sales emails should be and can be adjusted as per the ask in any situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the on-going pandemic situation, businesses have been severely impacted. So it\u2019s important that you are being considerate of the situation by being empathetic and not tone-deaf when approaching prospects and customers. The way you communicate can be a make or break factor in establishing a trustworthy relationship with your customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This holds true even for internal communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaboration had become one of the major challenges of any organization, especially now. While the whole idea of using messaging platforms was to lessen email communication, DMS and messages can become a distraction or even result in workplace anxiety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what are your alternatives? Keep messages brief. Use @mentions or notes<\/a> wherever possible. Set up automated workflow automatio<\/a>n wherever possible. And, finally, set the right expectations especially if you are working on different time zones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Resources to refer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n