Conversational Selling Skills – The Three Characteristics of All Top Salespeople

We’ve all heard it:

”If you want to be great at selling you’ve got to become a great presenter, and a strong closer.” I disagree. The ability to clearly and concisely present your ideas, product, or service is necessary. And, in most instances, we do need to be able to ask for the business (close). But while both of these are nice to have, you can succeed in sales even if you aren’t the best presenter or a power closer.

If you want to succeed in the world of professional sales, there are three traits that are essential:

• Interviewing – If you want to be great at sales you need to become a great question-asker. Selling is all about asking the right questions. In fact, if you ask the right questions, and listen to the answers, your prospect will tell you everything you need to know in order to help them choose to become your customer.
• Listening – Most salespeople are horrible listeners. We think we get paid to talk, but in truth salespeople earn their money by asking questions and actively listening to the answers. Active listening is different from the listening most of us do, most of the time. Active Listening is listening like your life depends on it.
• Storytelling – All great salespeople are great storytellers. We need to tell a story that paints a picture, in the prospect’s mind, of them already enjoying our product or service. And we need to tell another type of story to help our prospects get past the fear of making a mistake when buying a product or service. These stories are an essential part of selling.

If you want to make a lot of money in sales, focus less on presenting and closing and more on the three essential skills: Asking questions, Active Listening, and Storytelling.