“If you have the right vision and take the right steps, then success is inevitable.”- Bob Collymore.
When you talk to salespeople, you will discover that most of them had never considered sales as a valuable option when they started out their careers.
The challenge that you are experiencing right now as you think of whether or not to pursue sales as a career is that you are only thinking about careers that fit your educational background.
Before you decide whether or not to pursue a sales career, here are 4 skills that you will need to develop.
Growth Mindset
As mentioned before most salespeople never thought of pursuing sales as a career. They just happened to find an opportunity and they decided to follow it. Interestingly when you ask them if they regret doing sales most of them will answer no.
Sales will challenge you to:
Know how to engage with customers.
Be creative in problem-solving.
Step out of your comfort zone and network at events/online.
Adapt and refine your prospecting tactics
Meet your sales target.
When you look at your confidence level before you start selling versus after you sell, you will notice a massive improvement. This is because you have been able to learn and practise a lot of things that you thought you were incapable of.
There are many challenges that you are going to encounter in life and in your sales career therefore, a growth mindset is a must-have for you to be able to achieve your goals.
2. Resilience
Resilience enables you to cope with challenges, adapt to change and think of creative ways to solve a problem.
Working on your resilience skills will help you navigate tough times when you can’t seem to close a sale, when your boss is setting high expectations or when you are experiencing moments of self-doubt.
3. Emotional Intelligence
Sales requires you to be able to understand and manage your emotions regardless of the other person's behaviour towards you.
You will meet clients who are easygoing and clients who are tense. It is up to you as a professional to develop your emotional intelligence so that you can serve both of them effectively and efficiently.
4. Proactiveness
As a salesperson, you need to be a self-driven individual who takes ownership of their sales process and their results by constantly educating yourself on effective sales techniques and methods.
A proactive salesperson needs to:
Research and plan on how to engage with customers.
Build trust by establishing value and thought partnership.
Understand the customer's pain point.
Have data to drive conversations and decisions
Ask for feedback from customers about the product/service.
Once you own the sales process and your results, you can be able to identify where you are struggling with and you can now seek coaching with the aim of improving your process and meeting your sales quota.
All these skills can be learned through practice, guidance and intentionality.
If you are looking for a place to kickstart your sales career, here is how we can help.
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