5 Essential Skills for Sales Professionals

Danielle Cobo  0:05  
The dream job with Danielle Cobo podcast is designed to empower women to turn life's biggest challenges into their greatest strength. To address the confidence gap and why women often struggle with visibility. Guests, I talk about how to find your voice, create your seat at the table, and how to be an amazing ally to other women in the workplace. I am a career coach, keynote speaker, corporate trainer, military spouse, and mom to young twin boys, I have experienced as a fortune 500 company leader who guided a team to number one in the nation, having a thriving career and a balanced life is within every woman's reach. And the time is now.

Today, we're gonna be talking about the five essential skills for to be a top performer in sales. But before we get began, I'm going to tell you a little bit about what's been going on in my world. I have recently been chosen by the Dallas professional women community to be their career transition advisor, as well as I've joined as the committee for the Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce for the Workforce Development Committee and military advisory committee. So I had been very busy and getting involved in the community and really focusing on empowering our workforce, and women with the tools to accelerate their career. So I'm very excited and I will continue to share some of the successes along the way. In today's episode, we're gonna be talking about the five essential skills for a top performer in sales. And it starts by a growth mindset because a growth mindset and continuous investment and personal development are keys to success in sales. 

The first step to growth is to learn. That's why investing in your personal career development is essential. To reach the next level in your career, you must never stop learning. In sales, you have to think and approach your business like a business owner, it's easy to feel like you're being pulled in a million different directions, you're often bombarded with so many different distractions. It's hard to keep focused on what really matters in life and in business, making an impactful difference while also building your business. So I've experienced success firsthand in medical sales, I've earned four back to back President circle as an individual contributor, which is a territory rep. And I lead the historically performed poor his performing team to number one in the nation within two years of being a first time manager. So as a career coach, I focus on career acceleration, sales performance and company culture. I've taught 1000s how to achieve the same success through one on one coaching, corporate workshops and speaking engagements. So it doesn't matter where you are in your journey, you can achieve the same success when you invest in your personal development and stay committed to your goals. 

So here are the five essential skills all salespeople ought to be developing to be successful. The first confidence, lack of confidence is common issue that can hold people back from achieving their goals. Confidence is essential for success in any field, but it can be challenging to overcome and maintain, it can feel like you're stuck in a cycle and often self doubt and fear come to play. Everyone has the potential to be confident when you have the skills and strategies you need to identify and overcome your limiting beliefs. Your ability to transform your self doubt into drive, motivation, and confidence relies upon you identifying and overcoming your limiting beliefs. So when you're able to learn these tools, it is the key to success and happiness and all areas of your life. When you're able to get confidence in your career it can create a ripple effect in all areas of your life and you're just more likely to be a joy around. There's a couple episodes in this podcast where I really take a deep dive in to confidence and then of course if you are looking to build confidence and these are the some of the tools that I provide, in my one on one coaching as well as corporate workshops in keynote speaking.

The second essential skill to develop to be a top performer in sales is strategic business planning. Sales people are constantly looking for ways to be more successful and it's no secret that having a well thought out business plan is key to success in sales, but it can be hard to know where to start or how to quantify your risks and results. It's not enough just to work hard in sales. Without a clear plan of action, you're likely to spin your wheels and not make much progress. You need a process to help you focus on what's important and get measurable results. Strategic business planning is the key to success in sales. By analyzing what's worked in the past and setting SMART goals which are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound goals, then you will know precisely what it takes to achieve your targets. And with a focus plan, you will achieve work life balance and within reach. When you have an accountability partner, you're 60% more likely to achieve your goals. And there's a couple episodes within my podcast where we talk about how to set yourself up for success when it comes to goal setting. So I invite you to check out some of those episodes. And then of course, I have a crush your quota workbook that you can download, where we go into taking a deep dive into goal setting. And then when you're looking for that one on one coaching, and where to spend your time and what steps work and what steps don't. To set yourself up for success, I offer that in my one on one coaching my corporate workshops and speaking engagements. 

The third essential skill is resilience. So sales is tough, but you're constantly stuck when you're constantly rejected and have to keep going even when you feel down. It's easy to get discouraged in sales. Most people give up after a few rejections but that's where the real winners separate themselves from the pack. That's when resiliency is key to success in sales. It's it's not about how many times you get knocked down. It's about how quickly you get back up and keep going. Successful salespeople are adaptable and never give up on themselves. So when you have the tools to be resilient, and I my motto is turn life's biggest challenges into your greatest strength. You can weather any storm, and I have a podcast episode that specifically that's going to be going into resiliency, I have definitely overcome my fair share of challenges throughout my life, where I have had my clothes stored and trash bags, and I was moving around from area to area while I was working full time job and going to high school. I've also overcome postpartum depression, where I talk about how I regain my confidence through that period of time, my life. And that's also in a podcast episode if you want to tune in to that one. And then of course, I also have an episode where I really talked about some of the challenges and the tools that I learned to create morning routines and build up resiliency when my husband was deployed for a year. And at the time, our twins were two years old, and I was leading a team for a fortune 500 company. So I will be taking a deeper dive into resiliency when it comes to some of the articles that I'm gonna be publishing as well as some of the podcast episodes.

We will be right back to today's episode, there is one thing you can count on in sales, and that your quota will continue to increase as your business grows. Sales is tough, and salespeople are constantly looking for ways to be more successful. And it's no secret that having a well thought out business plan is key to success in sales. But it can be hard to know where to start, or how to quantify your results. Without a clear plan of action, you're likely to spin your wheels and not make much progress. To be successful, it's essential to have a process to help you focus on what's important and get measurable results. I've experienced success firsthand, learning for back to back President circle and lead a team to number one in the nation. Now my clients are achieving the same success maxing out their comp plan and finishing at the top. With the support of a sales performance coach, you can achieve the same success too. We work together to transform self doubt, to confidence, analyze and quantify what has worked well in the past to accelerate those results. Set Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and time bound goals, then build a business strategy to exceed your goals. How would you feel if you were empowered with the tools to thrive in sales without sacrificing your personal life? I invite you to go to my website Daniellecobo.com. That's COBO, Daniellecobo.com and schedule your free career discovery session with me today. Now back to today's episode. 

Okay. And the fourth essential skill is adapt ability. So sales is unpredictable field, you never know what's going to happen in a meeting or during a sales call. One of the things that makes sales so unpredictable is the fact that companies are always going through changing. They might be expanding or downsizing, changing their key strategic initiatives, launching new products, or discontinuing products. And this can be difficult for salespeople to keep up and be prepared for anything. Adaptability is essential for any successful sales per person. So being able to adapt to any situation, you'll be better equipped to handle whatever comes your way. You've probably been in a situation where you weren't sure how to handle a request or from a customer, and it threw you off your game. Even worse, this can lead to losing the sale. So this can be difficult when you're unsure what the customer or how they want it delivered. So salespeople need to be able to adapt on the fly in order to meet the needs of the customers. With adaptability training, you learn how to handle any situation that comes up during a sales call or a meeting, you know how to read your customers understand their needs and delivery, what they're looking for, even if something hasn't gone down before. So some of the things that I work with when I'm working with my clients is we talk about how to adapt to the ever changes, especially when it comes to territory changing and how that affects your customer list. And then also, when you're launching new products is a very different type of strategic approach. Then if you're looking at retaining business, there's a strategy behind everything. And so that really changes and it's essential that when you're able to adapt to these changes, that's how you can be successful in sales. 

And the fifth is communication. It is no secret that good communication skills are essential for success in sales. But many people struggle with this. Sales people often make the mistake of leading with product features and benefits without taking the time to understand customer pain points. This can lead to miscommunication and lost sales opportunities. Being concise on the solution to address their exact needs is key to good communication. Active listening also helps build trust and credibility with potential buyers. This framework will really set yourself up for success. And that is the first ask to uncover ask questions to uncover needs and pain points. Listen and withhold yourself from listening to immediately respond. Often people are quick to immediately respond, and without truly understanding the question by active listening. I always say be comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses, even saying something along the lines? Like that's a great question. Let me think about it a little bit. The other part of that framework is clarify that you understand their pain points and goals. So when you ask a question and then you listen, then respond back and saying, I want to ensure that I understand some of the challenges that you're experiencing so that I can provide some better solutions for you. Can I please clarify what that is? The next is explore with additional questions. Typically, I've found through my experience and 15 years in sales is the third objection is when you get the core to the problem. So you know, the first objection is often this surface level. And so it may be price. But when you really dig deep and say okay, well what else? What else? What else?

Typically, the third objection is when you get to the core of the problem. And the other one is acknowledge the next step is acknowledge their, their concerns and any objections and then respond with solutions to address their immediate needs. So when you're able to adopt a growth mindset and continuous investment in your personal development, that will set you up for success to thrive in sales, and achieve your goals. So never stop learning. If you want to be successful in sales, always, always always invest in your personal development. And one of the candidates I've always made to myself and what has set me up for success is I create smart goals and part of my development is continuously investing in personal development. So I carve out an hour every single day to learn and grow. And then I take courses every single year and I attend seminars. So this most recent past year, I took a six month leadership development course, as well as I have attended several conferences as well. So when you really are able to adapt a growth mindset and your continuous investment, and your personal development, that's how you'll be able to adapt and be resilient and continuously set yourself up for success to achieve your goals. So if there's anything to leave me with, it's never stopped learning. I invite you there are several episodes within the dream job with Danielle Cobo podcast where I take a deeper deeper dive and some of these essential skills. So I invite you to look back at some of these episodes, and you'll be able to take a deeper dive in these. 

So thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. To receive your free career accelerator and crush your quota workbooks with actionable steps on how to accelerate your career. Go to Danielle cobo.com. To learn more about my services, including keynote speaking, corporate workshops and one on one coaching. I invite you to go to my website, Danielle cobo.com and schedule a call with me. And one last favor to ask. The best compliment is a review. Please take a quick minute to share on iTunes or Spotify. Why you enjoy tuning into the dream job with Danielle Cobo podcast. Thanks for tuning in and create an intentional day