How Does Your Sales Team Stack Up?

Every day we are inundated with blogs and articles describing how selling has changed. The primary driver of this change has been the internet and the rise of “connected buyers.” Today, buyers have access to vast amounts of information regarding your products and services, as well as your competitors. The obvious implication for sales professionals is that they can’t just rely on providing product information. Instead, they need to position themselves as trusted advisors who can add value throughout the sales process. In other words, selling skills have never been more important.

To test this theory, I have implemented a simple verbal quiz that I use in the course of my conversation with sales leaders to help identify what skills are most important for their sales teams, and their assessment of sales proficiency in these key areas. What I have consistently found is that most sales leaders identify the same primary skills as being important and that the percent of their sales reps that are proficient are glaringly low even when they have veteran teams.

Here are the unscientific results of asking numerous sales leaders about their teams selling skills:

These results provide a good starting point for sales leaders who want to improve how their team sells. All of these skill areas are trainable and can be reinforced on a daily basis by managers who are proficient in sales coaching (download complimentary white paper on Sales Coaching for Improved Performance). Unfortunately, it is often assumed that these skills are too basic. Nothing could be further from the truth. Selling skills is one of four key competency areas for a successful sales professional. Can you guess the other three?