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5 Ways to Keep Your Selling Skills Sharp

Sales is a competitive business. Your income is directly tied to how well you do, and you could lose traction at work if your performance doesn’t match your peers. Whether you are looking to take on more responsibility and more prominent clients at your job or you just want to sharpen your sales skills to earn more money, you have to work at it.

Here are some of the top ways that you can keep your selling skills sharp.

Relearn Your Industry

No matter what you sell, it’s never a wrong time to re-educate yourself about the nuances of your industry. If you’ve been in business a while, you may have unintentionally isolated yourself from new trends or best practices. Conversely, if you are new to your line of work, you may not know everything you could about the field. Either way, relearning your industry will help you get ahead.

Improve Your Product Knowledge

You might know everything there is to know about the features of the products or services you sell, but what about the way they stack up to competitors or how they solve customer pain points? For you to convince people of your brand’s value, you need to be able to articulate how your product is unique and use specifics. Simply saying that yours is the best is not a sales argument, it’s a playground fight. The best salespeople in the world can make a convincing case for their products or services on the spot, and they can deliver their pitches in 30 seconds or less.

Educate Yourself

You may also want to take steps to educate yourself about sales techniques. Something as simple as reading about best practices from your peers, listening to a podcast, or attending a conference will help you see ways that you can improve your sales skills. In some cases, going back to school or taking an adult education class will help you reach your goals best.

Find Support Systems

Support systems can also be a good source of learning or coaching. They can include people who act as mentors who help you understand your opportunities for improvement as well as peers who talk about sales strategies with you or a supportive spouse who listens to your successes. However, support systems can also include technology.

You can use application-based support systems to remind you when to follow-up with customers. They can also crunch your sales numbers and deliver actionable insights, like that one of your big customers always accepts your call when you phone before 11 a.m. while another is more likely to sign a deal on a Friday than a Monday.

Explore Direct Sales

Some support systems come in unusual forms, like direct selling. In many cases, direct sales work can help you feel more confident in your work life while reinforcing the skills that help make the sale.

Amway is one opportunity. This direct sales company has been around for decades and training would-be salespeople for just as long. As you learn how to sell Amway products, you will be able to make extra money while honing your own sales abilities.

Conclusion

When you are in sales, you have to keep your skills sharp. Staying on top of your industry, improving your product knowledge, and educating yourself is a good start. However, you can go even further with the right support systems, including direct sales training.

Tribulant Software

I am the owner at Tribulant Software and I have a great passion for WordPress, development, blogging and the Internet in general. Building useful plugins to improve WordPress’ functionality is my goal.