Category Archives: Sales Skills Articles

One of the basics of consultative selling is to ensure that you build a strong relationship with your customers. Despite doing this, your relationship can become strained when a problem arises because of something the customer has done that has subsequently caused them problems. The difficulty arises because the customer dislikes taking the full blame…

Sales people, because they are regularly in front of customers, need to know how to handle situations in which their company's image has been adversely affected. How you conduct yourself with your customers in the face of negative announcements, either in the press or "bad news" announcements made by your company is important. You need…

Studies of "successful" compared to "average" sales people have shown that successful sales people behave differently in the client meeting and as a result they are more skilled at uncovering the customer’s needs during the initial sales discussion. (more…)

I know a sales person, let’s call him John. John is an engineer who works for a company selling complex solutions. Despite being in sales, John’s real strength lies in engineering. Every month John visits his clients and potential clients and churns out proposal after proposal. Each proposal takes up a lot of John’s time…

Young children are not afraid to ask “why?” and often do so (to their parents’ annoyance) umpteen times a day. They only later learn from their parents, teachers and bosses that the question “why?” often makes people uncomfortable. So how can you ask "why" without causing offence? (more…)

How confident are you that the election will give you a sales boost for the remainder of  2017? If you’re not sure (and who can be!), now is your chance to put all of your abilities into action. Prove to yourself what fighting spirit and creativity you have at your command and mobilise all your…

Consultative selling is about as far away from pressure selling as it is possible to be. Consultative sales people are professionals who help their clients solve problems. It therefore follows that one of the most important skills for the consultative sales professional to learn is that of gathering information from a potential client in order…

All sales people must be trained to understand the body language signals that can be given off by their clients. These signals can reveal useful information that may not be fully verbalised by the client - either intentionally or unintentionally. (more…)

Young children are not afraid to ask “why?” and often do so (much to their parents’ annoyance) umpteen times a day. They only later learn from their parents, their teachers and their bosses that the question “why?” often makes people react defensively and can lead to unnecessary conflict. So how can we ask a potential…

Sales people often find paperwork tedious, much preferring to be out selling to customers than writing up visit reports. But report writing is an essential part of the job and the reports you produce provide the management team with valuable business information. (more…)