4 Skills from the Sales Playbook to Apply in Any Career
In the business sector, the sales division helps fuel growth and strengthens customer loyalty. To be successful in sales, there are a range of communication skills and tactics used to cultivate a new audience of customers, attract them to your brand, and continuously work to align your customers’ needs to your product or service. Sales techniques are effective at developing new business, but many of the essentials are useful outside of a formal sales role.
Jason Alexander, Entrepreneur and Managing Partner of , one of New England’s leading staffing and recruiting companies, explains:
“There are very few corners of your professional future that wouldn’t be impacted by carefully honed sales skills. Regardless of whether you plan to pursue a career in sales, developing strong skills will have a profound impact on your career.”
Let’s explore some of the leading sales skills and how you can apply them in your own career!
Negotiation
When it comes down to it, negotiation is a strategic conversation that aims to find common ground when there’s not full agreement between two or more people. Often, each side will need to make a compromise in order to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome. In real estate or car sales, the buyer and the seller are negotiating, a price that they’re both satisfied with. Those who sell software may negotiate terms of their agreements with clients, such as startup costs and ongoing maintenance. Sales aside, negotiation plays an important part in the way professionals in all industries communicate. In the workplace, you and your colleagues negotiate workload, responsibilities, standard operating procedures, and more. Negotiation can occur cross-functionally between two departments that have differing views, competing priorities, and misalignment on project timelines.
It’s inevitable that some negotiations may not run smoothly as others; however, with preparation you can practice navigating negotiation with more ease. Here are some questions and prompts to consider to make negotiation less uncomfortable.
- Who is your intended audience? What is the best way to have a conversation: email, in person, or otherwise?
- Think about what your end goal is for the conversation.
- Do your research to prepare.
- If your original idea is met with resistance, consider alternatives that could prove to be a win-win situation for everyone.
Ideally, by negotiating, an outcome can be found that is mutually beneficial for both parties.
Problem Solving
The art of selling, simply put, is the ability to solve your customers’ problems. Runners who are experiencing pain may have a problem with their shoes, and top sportswear brands are ready with a solution: new sneakers. In sales, you work to understand the underlying source of customers’ problems so you can position your product or services as the most convenient and effective solution. Outside of sales, problem solving is just as valuable and professionals who can demonstrate their ability to anticipate issues and find creative solutions can gain a competitive edge. In an office setting, administrative assistants often find efficiencies that help streamline operations. If they’re tasked with setting up a large meeting, they may use Microsoft Outlook advanced settings to poll meeting participants on a convenient time to convene, rather than tracking availability manually. When sharing important documents with the management team, they may find a new way to organize them centrally so the latest version is accessible to all. In each scenario, the administrative assistant found creative solutions to everyday professional problems.
With problem solving, these skills are often developed through hands-on experience and a dash of trial and error, but there are various techniques you can use to strengthen them.
- Map Out Your Process
Within your daily routine, if there are processes that are clunky, map it out step-by-step. This can help you pinpoint the steps that could be better organized, allowing you to better understand where you can make improvements. Through this process, you’ll illuminate potential solutions and be able to achieve a more streamlined flow.
- Consider “What If…” Scenarios
The best way to avoid problems is to anticipate them. When approaching a workplace task or project, think through the various hurdles you could encounter. If you’re doing a presentation at work, what questions could the managers ask? If you’re collecting feedback for an important report or document, how will you manage the timeline if you don’t have all responses by the deadline? Taking time to analyze these scenarios and make a game plan for how you might address them will leave you feeling better prepared to jump into problem solving mode.
- Monitor Progress
Don’t let your excellent problem solving go to waste: document any lessons learned so you can refer back to them should a similar issue arise. Often, challenges in the workplace are cyclical. At many companies, there’s a busy season. For some, it could be the end of the fiscal year and for others, perhaps it’s the holiday rush. During these peak times, managers often have competing priorities and problems can arise. If you document these pain points, you can proactively make adjustments to avoid the same outcome in the future.
Persuasive Communication
While sales professionals use persuasive communication when closing a deal, people in other career tracks rely on these skills just as frequently. For example, cover letters and resumes are persuasive communication tools that every job seeker uses to convince an employer that they’re right for the position. Any interaction that calls upon you to influence others—whether it’s influencing colleagues to adopt a new software or convincing your manager to take your recommendation—requires effective persuasive communication practices. Being persuasive may not come naturally. For some, just the word “persuasion” carries a negative connotation; however, this is a mischaracterization. Every collaboration has an element of persuasion in order to meet your goals, so it’s important to develop this skillset. Here are a few tips:
- Know Your Audience
To be truly persuasive, you need to have a deeper understanding of your audience. What is their motivation? What are their concerns? Once you reflect on these areas, it can help you tailor your message to their specific needs and motivate them to take the desired action. - Align Your Goals
When you frame your message in a way that shows mutual benefits, your audience will be more receptive. Let’s say that you work in customer service and you experience poor sound quality when speaking with customers by phone. You’ve done your research and identified a phone system that will be more reliable, but it’s a significant investment. If you focus purely on the features and benefits of the new system—even if they’re incredible—the hefty price tag could derail your recommendation. However, if you work to quantify the amount of time and money the company is losing on dropped phone calls and dips in customer satisfaction, your recommendation becomes more compelling. By aligning your needs (a reliable phone system) with your manager’s needs (controlling cost while providing great service), you’re able to persuasively communicate your suggestion. - Offer Proof
To help lend credibility and trust to your message, incorporate “proof.” The customer service rep. recommending a new phone system will include financial data to support their position. A job applicant may include examples of their work or a letter of recommendation from a past employer. If your company wants to attract new customers, they may include reviews from Yelp, Google, or Facebook on their website to show credibility. Each of these gestures helps build trust and the ability to persuade becomes much easier when there’s a layer of trust between both parties.
Presentation Skills
Sales professionals frequently give presentations about their company’s range of products and solutions. A well-crafted presentation that can clearly and effectively align customers’ needs with the company’s services is a powerful way to generate new business.
Solid presentation skills are an asset in any field. PowerPoint presentations are a staple in most office settings, but their effectiveness can vary greatly. Here are few presentation tips from the sales world that can be used in any profession to get results:
- Don’t Give PowerPoint all the Power
We’ve all been in meetings when as soon as slides are projected, the group gives the slides their full attention rather than the presenter. Be strategic about how you develop your slides so the information requires your insight and contributions so you stay in the driver’s seat of your message, instead of your slides. - Be Interactive
Try to develop presentations that get your audience involved. Whether it’s through open-ended questions or two-way discussions, interactive elements will make your audience feel more connected to your presentation. - Refine Your Message
Avoid information overload and focus on a short list of key talking points. Any more than three main ideas can make a presentation too complex to be interpreted effectively in a short time frame.
Conclusion
Non-sales professionals stand to benefit from sales-centric skills in a variety of ways. Their versatility offers relevance in a range of fields. From human resources to nonprofits, management to human services, professionals who can apply skills from the sales playbook in their own career can enhance their communication and get better results in collaborative working environments.