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What sales skills should your sales team have, and how can they be strengthened?
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It all depends on the company's current context and the sales profiles you're looking for to strengthen or develop your sales team. If you're looking to develop your business by acquiring new customers, you'll be looking for a "hunter" profile with good prospecting and closing skills. On the other hand, if the role involves managing and developing an existing perimeter, and therefore account nurturing, you're more likely to go for a profile with strong interpersonal skills. Find out more about the sales skills you need to build a successful sales team, and how Sales Enablement can help you strengthen them.
Why are sales skills important?
The development of sales skills is crucial to the achievement of sales reps objectives and the success of a company. They are even more so when the salesperson has to successfully complete an appointment and sell his or her product/service! Many companies complained in 2023 about the shortage of qualified talent, and 50% of the sales force (McKinsey) does not have the skills to succeed in the coming years. The B2B sales environment has become increasingly complex, and sales techniques have been modernized. The emergence of new competitors on the market and the lengthening of sales cycles do nothing to help the situation. If salespeople do not upgrade their skills and receive regular training, they will under-perform, and this will have a negative impact on their company's results.
What are the core competencies of sales teams?
L’art de la vente nécessite une combinaison harmonieuse de plusieurs compétences. On peut classer les compétences commerciales dans 2 catégories : les softs skills et les hard skills. Elles doivent être complémentaires pour améliorer la performance commerciale de l’entreprise.
The soft skills of a good salesperson
1 - Attitude
Attitude refers in particular to the ability to forge ahead in all circumstances. It will develop a salesperson's self-confidence and his or her ability to develop a positive mindset whatever the ordeal he or she is about to face. This attitude helps him to create opportunities for himself, to rise above setbacks, to question himself and to persevere.
2 - Active listening
Active listening is an engaging form of communication in which the salesperson strives to understand the buyer, put himself or herself in the buyer's shoes and establish a climate of trust. This trust requires empathy and appreciation, demonstrating to the buyer that he or she is being listened to more attentively than by anyone else. By being passive during the meeting, the salesperson misses out on important information and may find it difficult to bounce back with the right questions.
3 - Relational skills
A salesperson who knows how to adapt to each type of personality, and how to create a bond, will find it easier to tip a sale in his or her favor. His or her ability to communicate naturally in meetings, to build relationships with prospects/customers and to maintain them is a determining factor in success.
4 - Assertiveness
For a salesperson, being assertive means striking the right balance between his or her interests and those of the buyer. He must be proactive in his relationship with the buyer, seeking out points of agreement as well as sticking points, while knowing how to be directive without arousing negative emotions in him.
5 - Resilience
The sales profession is not an easy one. Receiving a rejection from a prospect, or most of the time not receiving a response at all because your buyer suddenly becomes unreachable, sending e-mails, making phone calls, or prospecting without being heard and getting feedback - it's all part of the job, but it can be difficult to deal with on a daily basis. By being resilient, salespeople can overcome these difficult moments and face up to the challenges while maintaining a positive attitude.
6 - Situational intelligence
Situational intelligence means knowing how to use the right sales arguments at the right time, depending on the person you're talking to. Skills such as emotional intelligence and intuition enable us to adapt to new situations.
The hard skills of a good salesperson
7 - Know your product and the competitive environment
Knowing your product and its characteristics, and understanding the advantages and challenges it addresses, enables the salesperson to present it well, to effectively unfold the sales pitch and to answer all the buyer's questions. Knowledge of the market and competitors also enables the salesperson to adjust his or her sales strategy, subtly highlighting competitive advantages and anticipating objections in order to counter them more effectively.
8 - Mastering sales techniques
By mastering different sales techniques (CAB, SONCAS, SPIN SELLING...), sales reps can better prepare for their meetings, structure their sales pitch and take a more persuasive approach to their arguments with the buyer.
9 - Building customer loyalty
Knowing how to create and maintain a relationship of trust plays a key role in building customer loyalty. While the CSM department maintains a direct relationship with customers to support them in using the product and develop their satisfaction, the sales person cultivates this relationship with the decision-maker, or sometimes the project owner. In this way, they assume a strategic role that aims to encourage upsell and cross-sell, while ensuring customer retention.
10 - Be comfortable with the company's technology stack
Sales techniques have evolved, and with them the salesperson's tools. To be effective, salespeople need to know how to use a number of software applications that are essential to their activity: CRM software (Salesforce, Dynamics, Hubspot, Zoho, Sugar...), Sales Enablement applications, prospecting tools (Sales Navigator, Lusha, Prospectin...), automation tools (Lemlist, Pardot...) and appointment tools (Aircall, calendly...).
11 - Taking advantage of Social Selling
Le Social Selling consiste à utiliser les réseaux sociaux pour entrer en contact avec des prospects, tisser des liens avec eux et identifier des leads potentiels. L’objectif ici est d’adopter une démarche authentique de partage d’informations, afin que le prospect comprenne que le commercial ne cherche pas uniquement à obtenir quelque chose pour son entreprise. En partageant du contenu pertinent pour son audience, le commercial peut renforcer sa crédibilité, apparaître comme un expert sur un sujet et créer des relations bénéfiques pour son entreprise.
The different sales profiles and their sales skills
1- Breeder profile
Le commercial « éleveur » est celui qui sait faire fructifier une relation commerciale sur le long terme. Son objectif est de créer une relation client pérenne et de favoriser l’upsell et le cross sell sur ses comptes. Nous sommes en présence d’un profil orienté vers le « relationnel », capable de tisser des liens de confiance et d’être à l’écoute des besoins de ses clients.
2 - Hunter profile
The sales "hunter" is recruited as part of a team to open up new accounts. Their main objective is to win new contracts for their company. They are true experts in prospecting and closing! Sales techniques hold no secrets for him, and he masters his argumentation perfectly. We're dealing with a highly motivated profile who likes to take on new challenges and achieve his goals.
3 - Hybrid profile
The hybrid salesperson combines the "breeder" and "hunter" profiles. This is a profile that knows how to win new accounts and develop them. They have a strong appetite for opening contracts, and understand the benefits of developing long-term relationships with their accounts.
How to boost sales skills with Sales Enablement?
The average salesperson stays with a company for between 3 and 5 years. But developing the skills of your sales force is crucial, not only to reduce turnover during this period, but also to improve your competitiveness in the marketplace. If sales reps employees do not feel they are learning and developing within the organization, the company risks losing more than 60% of its entire workforce within four years (G2 Learn). Even more important when it comes to improving a salesperson's poor performance, only 30% of sales managers surveyed rated their sales training as "effective" (Media Fly). Sales Enablement is proving to be a formidable training tool for :
1 - Accelerate the skills development of new entrants
Exposure to training content plays a key role in the development of sales skills. The greater the exposure, the more effective the training! The Sales Enablement application continually exposes the sales force to training content and makes it more accessible, as training is at the salesperson's fingertips (PC, tablets, smartphones) and available even in offline mode.
2 - Ongoing sales force training
Former efficacement les commerciaux de manière continue représente un enjeu majeur pour les directions marketing et commerciales. Cet enjeu est clairement souligné par Harvard Business Review, qui indique que 84 % des formations à la vente sont oubliées dans les trois premiers mois. Le format Quiz intégré à l’application de Sales Enablement permet de remédier à ce problème ! En effet, l’accès au Quiz sur tous types d’appareils encourage le commercial à s’évaluer en permanence, que ce soit en déplacement, avant un rendez-vous client ou simplement pendant une pause au bureau. Tous les moments sont propices à la formation, il est donc essentiel d’adapter le processus en conséquence ! Les éléments de gamification (badges), le scoring, la personnalisation des niveaux et les notifications présentes dans les Quiz permettent à la direction de stimuler l’usage et de rendre l’apprentissage plus ludiques.
3 - Improving the salesperson's confidence and pitch
Salesforce estimates that 72% of sales reps are afraid of failing to reach their targets. While there's a lot of work to be done around sales training, this figure is indicative of the sales force's lack of confidence. The Training format offers sales reps the opportunity to train at their own pace, while gaining confidence in the subjects they are learning. With the pop-up system present on sales presentations and the associated audio content, the sales force appropriates the right pitches on the content presented to customers, and learns to use them at the right moment to sell more effectively.
4 - Reinforce product/service knowledge
sales reps are unable to answer more than 40% of B2B buyers' questions about the product they are selling (Allego). A combination of training courses, training programs and quizzes is the winning recipe for boosting sales reps knowledge, successfully launching new products/services and ensuring that the sales force sells more and better in appointments.
FAQ
What is a sales skill?
A sales skill is an ability or set of abilities that a salesperson possesses to effectively perform tasks related to the sale of products or services. It encompasses a wide range of abilities, from persuasive communication to knowledge of sales techniques, necessary for success in the sales field.
What are sales skills?
Sales skills are diverse and can be classified into two main categories: soft skills and hard skills. Soft skills include aptitudes such as attitude, active listening, interpersonal skills, assertiveness, resilience and situational intelligence. Hard skills include in-depth knowledge of the product and the competitive environment, mastery of sales techniques, customer loyalty, familiarity with technological tools and Social Selling.
What are the most sought-after sales skills on a CV?
The most sought-after sales skills on a CV vary according to the context of the company and the profile of the salesperson you're looking for. If you're aiming for a "hunter" type profile, skills such as the ability to take on new challenges and question yourself, resilience, and an unshakeable will to surpass your objectives are necessary.
Differences between hard skills and soft skills in sales?
Hard skills and soft skills are complementary for a good sales profile. Soft skills represent human competencies, while hard skills are indispensable to the sales function. The main skills of a good salesperson include cross-functional skills, ranging from technical skills to management skills, and from managerial skills if supervising a sales team, to the communication skills needed to be at ease in front of the customer.
How can you develop your sales skills?
The Sales Enablement application is by far one of the best software programs for accelerating your skills development, providing continuous training and fun learning through Quizzes. You'll gain confidence in your sales pitch and be able to sell more and better in face-to-face meetings.
