Knowledge, Skills and Attitude.

Success in Sales can be measures in a number of different ways, The number of sales you make, your percentage conversion, the profit that you contribute to your company, All are a measure of your ability to sell.

To achieve the require level of sales however, you need to have all the selling tools and techniques in your bag and more importantly - know how to use them.

How To Sell Coach

A simple but effective way to do this is with a Knowledge, Skills and Attitude Chart. This is also very useful if you're running sales teams and want to identify areas of training needs.

Here's how. Get a sheet of paper and at the top put the three headings:

Knowledge                               Skills                               Attitude

Down the left hand side, list each element of your sales presentation or the selling process. For example this may include the following:

• Area Planning
• Pre-call preparation
• Customer knowledge
• Product knowledge
• Opening the sale
• Open Ended Questions
• Establishing the need
• Features and Benefits
• Overcoming Objections
• Closing the Sale
• Following up the order
• Administration

As with any form of self-assessment, you have to be brutally honest. This is for you remember - nobody else. Just mark a tick or a cross in the appropriate box.
So what are you measuring?

Knowledge
Do you understand the processes and techniques?
Have you had the training?
Where can you get this knowledge?
Is there a course you can go on or a programme or book you can buy?
Who can you ask?

Having the knowledge is one thing but having the skill to apply and use it to best effect is something different.

So you know 101 ways to close a sale - but can you use them? Do you know which ones work for you? Do you know which bring you most success and which one to use in a giving selling situation to bring you most success?

Developing the Skill comes with practising and applying the Knowledge. Yes, you can practise the various sales techniques in a live selling situation by just making sales calls. Real life is always a wonderful teacher but by practising the skills through role play you can help avoid making mistakes, wasting sales calls (and therefore potential customers) or not presenting yourself as a sales professional to the client.

Find someone to role play with. Your Sales Manager, a colleague, and experiences salesperson whose opinion you trust and Practice, Practice, Practice until you are comfortable with that Skill.

Now that you have the Knowledge and the Skills to apply them but what is your Attitude to the Knowledge or Skill? People who are new to sales for example usually have the knowledge and have the right Attitude to use that knowledge but lack the skills because they haven't had the opportunity to put the knowledge into practice. Does that make sense to you?

Also I have met many sales people who can quote chapter and verse on how to do a sale. Put them in the training room and they'll deliver a perfect sales presentation. Put them in the field, on live calls and that's a different matter. Because they don't believe in a particular skill or technique - they don't apply it. Now it also has to be said that I have seen many exceptionally salespeople to don't do it by the book. And that is absolutely fine and they can to this as over a period of time they have worked out what really works for them.

Let's look at an example where the Attitude is wrong. "Sales people are bad at administration!" Are they? Well I've never met a salesperson who can't fill-in their expenses form. Why? Because they understand the importance of this to them.

If they don't understand the importance of completing an order form correctly so that the order can be fulfilled and the customer receiver the order on time and as promised - them clearly there is a training need there. The sale is not completed until the paper work is done but the salesperson needs to understand why. If the payment of their commission was based on the completion of the paperwork and not the getting of the sale, then the education process would be quick. But its better that they understand the why.

So try the Knowledge, Skills and Attitude Chart - it works!