The road to selling success for your business

If Atlassian Software can sell $100m of computer software without a sales team and Mentos Sweets can boost their profits by cutting back their product lines and sometimes recommending their competitors’ products, perhaps building ‘non-sales’ selling skills in your team can pay-off for your business too!

In his book ‘To Sell is Human’, Daniel Pink points out that selling is no longer the domain of the sharp suited, target driven sales force. Research demonstrates that we all sell and that 41% of our lives have us selling time, effort and attention, whether to our colleagues, buyers, friends and family… and what’s more, when asked, many suggest that such ‘non-sales’ selling skills are vital to their success.

1) Assess the time your team spend on ‘non-sales’ selling – it will be more than you think, and it will make them appreciate the value and importance that this ‘non-sales’ selling has to their overall performance.

2) Help your team build the skills of Attunement – watch what happens when you tune into your buyer’s perspective and drop the need to have all the power. Instead of extrovert/introvert, be an ‘ambivert’ – these are most successful at non-sales selling.

3) Help your team build the skills of Buoyancy – use a self-questioning ‘Bob the Builder’ method of self-talk to help your team learn that rejection is temporary, and that optimism increases your chances of success.

4) Help your team build the skills of Clarity – find the problems that your buyers did not even know they had. Help them cut through the information overload by asking the right questions.