Being good at sales is reliant on many aspects. One of which is building up your own set of specific sales skills like communication, active listening, negotiation, social psychology and closing.
But not all salespeople have the skills to become a top performing salesperson. To be able to do that and to propel your career into a future where your highest ambitions become a reality, you still need to dedicate your time and effort to improve on these skills.
And the first step toward accomplishing that, is to identify and recognize specific signs that show you what you’re doing wrong, and what might be holding you back from becoming a great salesperson.
So, without further ado, here are:
17 signs that Sales Skills Are Holding You Back
1. You have a great business idea. But when you attempt to explain it to people, they don’t understand.
This can be devastating to some people, and can take a toll on their will to succeed. Because, coming up with the next great business idea and selling it to strangers is hard. you need to invest a lot of time in preparation and to thoroughly think about your presentation. And you just can’t risk losing all of this effort and hard work. You need to be absolutely sure that your idea is well received and understood.
This can be easily dealt with by working on your communication skills. It is a crucial point that I talk about a lot on my YouTube Channel. You can check out the video that I made about Communication Skills – 4 Ways to Improve for a more in-depth look.
2. You’re excited to sell your product or service. But when you start pitching it, people usually look confused or get bored quickly.
The solution to this is to become someone who’s intriguing. Someone who sparks the interest of everybody in the room. And retain it till the very end.
You can watch my video on How To Not Be Boring where I talk about the 5 tips that anyone can learn and apply to become a more interesting and captivating person.
3. If you are the one doing most of the talking during a client meeting, pitch presentation or general conversation.
In your desire to convince somebody. You might think: “Well, I need to be able to talk really fast”, or “I need to be saying really smart things”. But what if I told you that there are more important weapons that you can use to persuade somebody. They are your EARS. And you actually have two of them and only one mouth for a reason. Unfortunately, most people speak more than they listen.
People do NOT want to be sold something. They want to BUY. And you are there to help them make a purchasing decision. Understanding this is key to answer the question: “How do you convince or persuade anyone?“
4. When a prospect gives you an objection like “I’m not interested/I’m busy/It’s too expensive/Let me think about it”, you either don’t know the best way to respond or, sometimes, you even become defensive.
It’s probably the most common sales objection every salesperson gets. Especially, if they are operating in a highly saturated industry.
For customers, it is just a default response. It’s just something that they will say without thinking about it, to avoid explaining to you the whole situation. And it’s going to be up to you to uncover the reason behind this.
In my video Clients Say, “I Am Not Interested.” And You Say “…” I explain exactly why customers may give you this answer, and how you can find out how interested a potential client really is in your product or service.
5. If you speak more in statements, rather than questions.
This is not a good sign. Because, giving statements more than asking questions will prevent you from getting the information that you need to be able to close the client. But not all questions are created equal. Open-ended questions are always best. They give you the opportunity to study your clients and understand them better.
To help you ask the right questions each and every time, I made a video about this topic: 10 Smart Open-Ended Sales Questions
6. You know that you provide great service, and your clients should be giving you referrals. But you just don’t seem to get enough of them.
Even though constantly generating referred leads is tough, getting more referrals is the ticket to sales success. They help establish a level of trust that makes it easier to set appointments and have productive business discussions.
You need to make them part of your culture. Talk about them on the phone, through email, on social networks and ask for introductions whenever you get the chance. Without being too official or formal.
7. Clients or prospects look at their phone or watch several times while you are speaking.
Maintaining your clients’ interest can be difficult sometimes. And when people start looking at their phone or watch a lot, they are showing signs of losing interest in what you have to say. And you need to understand why this can happen.
One of the reasons why your clients may not seem all that interested, is that you may be talking about something that is not relevant to them. This is why it is so important to determine what the customers’ specific needs are in advance.
8. Prospects disappear frequently and don’t answer your calls, texts or emails.
Being ghosted, prospects stopped responding to your emails and answering your phone calls. It’s a challenge that all salespeople face.
To prevent ghosting, you need to anticipate it and be proactive about it. Have a certain set of scenarios that you can apply depending on the situation. Finish every conversation with a next step instead of leaving it to chance. Finally, follow up promptly, because the professional world moves quickly and it’s super busy.
9. You often get many excuses from prospects like “I need to discuss this with my boss/ I need to think about this/ Let me get back to you in a few weeks”.
These are sentences you don’t want your prospects to say. Because, what it means is that they will not think about it, and they will probably not get back to you. It’s a smokescreen that your prospects use to avoid giving the real reason. And what you need to do, again, is to smoke out the real objection by asking the right questions.
10. When cold calling, you hear “How did you get my number?” many times.
This is Objection Handling 101. Because, you will hear this a lot. And it is something that I see pretty frequently in the sales trainings that I run.
In order to handle this, you need to be able to take unbiased critique of what you are actually doing and identify the reason behind why you are hearing “How Did You Get My Number?” a lot.
11. When presenting visuals, you end up speaking a lot, your slides are full of words and you end up rambling or rushing sometimes.
A good presentation should allow you to increase conversions. In my video Best Sales Techniques and the SECRET to NO MORE closing you’ll find that to make a killer presentation, it needs to follow a simple three-part process that will help you better structure your presentation, effectively use visuals, apply the 80/20 rule to retain the maximum amount of useful information and, at the end, I will share with you the SECRET that will eliminate the need for you to do any type of closing.
12. During a client meeting, the client often crosses their arms (and keeps them crossed for a while!).
When a client crosses their arms, it usually means that they are closed for arguments. This is a classic gesture of defensiveness. To learn how to deal with it you need to have excellent non-verbal communication skills and be very responsive to non-verbal cues.
13. When meeting with multiple people, you are not sure how to direct your attention or who exactly is in charge.
How you manage a meeting that will include multiple clients or prospects at once can be a good indication of your leadership abilities. These are skills that will showcase if you can successfully facilitate motivation, information sharing, direction on key issues, mentoring and even a little refereeing if necessary.
14. You follow up maybe around 3 times with a prospect before you stop, forget or become discouraged.
One of the most important qualities of a successful sales engagement is persistence. According to a research done by Telfer Study on behalf of VanillaSoft:
“80% of sales are closed between 5 and 12 follow-up contacts”
This goes to show that consistent follow-up and determination yield concrete results for sales professionals.
15. Many prospects tell you that you are a “great salesperson”, or “you have great sales skills”. But they still refuse to buy from you.
This is just another smokescreen used to hide an objection. To get customers interested and excited about what you have to offer, you first have to win their trust. Because, customers buy from people they like and, more importantly, from people they trust.
16. When a prospect asks for a discount, you usually just drop the price.
Everybody wants a deal. Especially your prospects. The price of your product or services is one of the most important decisions. Customers tend to think that the more things or services cost, the more they are worth. Simultaneously, customers always want to get discounts. But you should always remember: Rates are related to the quality of your offer and to the value of your perceived brand.
17. You’re not exactly sure of your conversion rates (number of calls vs number of meetings/ number of meetings vs number of closed sales).
Conversion is the main metric in measuring the success of a business. It is a key element in your success too, as a salesperson. Because, after all, you want to actually turn your prospects into buyers. That’s why you should know exactly what your conversion rate is and what are the best ways to constantly optimize it in order to improve sales.
These are common signs that can show up at any point of a salesperson’s career and that you will surely encounter, if not already. So, If any of them sound familiar to you, then it’s time to step up your sales, communication and persuasion game with Sales Society.
Courses include The ART of Following Up, Body Language – Uncover What’s Really Happening, Closing Techniques, Negotiating For Win-Win Scenarios and much more. You can benefit from private feedback sessions where you can send me a recording of your live calls and you will receive my feedback on top of 3 areas of improvement for you to focus on, to see the biggest improvements in your sales. And to top it all, there are Giveaways in the form of sales tools, 1:1 coaching sessions and valuable resources, every month.
