Sales Mistake No 3: Failing to actively develop sellers’ sales skills

This week’s mistake in our “Top Ten Sales Mistakes” series is, to quote from Monty Python, “stating the bleeding obvious”, though given the number of times we observe it, perhaps it isn’t so obvious at all. We’ve put it on on our list because it’s incredibly damaging to sales results.

Number three on our list is – Failing to actively develop the sellers’ sales skills.

Try this acid test. When a member of your staff reports a sales success, ask them what was it that they did that resulted in them being successful. When they lose a sale, ask them what they could have done differently that might have led to a successful outcome. In both situations, if they can’t quickly give you some specific actions, an answer about process, the chances are they don’t understand what they are doing. And if they don’t fully understand what they are doing, they will not have control over the sales dynamic.

Sellers who are knowledgeable about the sales process should be able to give you answers like:

“I didn’t get to speak to the decision maker because I hadn’t fully mapped out their buying process”, suggesting a problem with the qualification process.

“I don’t think I’d managed to get the buyer to understand the full cost of not making a decision”, a failure to ask sufficient “implication” questions when exploring the current situation.

“I knew I’d got the sale when I got them to explain how badly their current supplier was delivering the service”, a great start to the problem/current situation stage.

“I asked an early trial-close and the buyer closed it for me there and then” recognising how to manage the closing/agreement process.

Without constant attention to developing sellers’ sales skills, the potential to improve sales performance will be severely restricted. Whether this is achieved through training, coaching, or mentoring, developing the capability of sales staff is one of the key responsibilities of sales management. Look out for your sales managers (or yourself) becoming buried in writing reports and collecting sales stats, when their time really would be much better spent on accompanied calls and developing their sellers sales skills.

This sales mistake shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. It is one that is fairly easy to fix, and one that delivers measurable results very quickly. To paraphrase CJ from The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin, “I didn’t get I am today by not developing my sales staff”.

If you’d like to review what you are currently doing in this area, or perhaps explore options for re-invigorating your existing processes, do give us a call.