Digital Sales Training Blog

Developing competitive sales skills focuses on being prepared to perform under pressure, in any type of situation or environment.

You know an annoying salesperson when you see one. They aren’t trying to be annoying and are most likely well-intentioned but they have forgotten the most important part of selling: Being helpful.

Think of a “salesman”. What kind of picture did you envision? Most of us probably conjure up an image of a sort of caricature. The qualities of this fictitious being are usually boisterously exaggerated - they’re loud and talk a lot, they have a response for everything, they can be pushy or even aggressive, they won’t take “no” for an answer, and are wonderful at changing the subject every time you ask a poignant question. Hopefully you don’t have any of those qualities, but if you ever see yourself or someone on your team slowly transforming into this cliché, here are four secrets of what makes a great salesperson. Follow these rules to get back on track to the road to success. Listen It’s easy for anyone to get caught up in what they have to say, especially when there’s a pitch that’s just begging to be delivered. A great salesperson takes the time to focus on their prospect’s needs. They listen to what the needs, desires, and current problems that require solving are and then pitch their offering as a natural solution. Because their pitch is tailored to what the prospect is actually looking for, they come off as much more helpful and overall more knowledgable. Over-deliver

What does it take to get someone’s attention? Think like a digital ad unit. In digital marketing, each ad unit, whether it’s “intrusive” or subtle, is competing with everything else on the page to get the user’s attention. When you look at the ad against a blank piece of paper, the ad may stand out, but in the context of a crowded web page and in the mind of a distracted user, the ad may disappear into white noise. Put the right ad in front of the right person at the right time - with a message that is right for them works best. The more the ad combines the qualities of surprise with insight and relevance into what the user was thinking right before they saw the ad, the better the impact.

From Middleman to Value Creator: The Necessary Journey By Buff Parham/Parham & Associates, LLC It’s no longer a secret that information technology is wiping out middlemen from the transaction chain of a myriad of products and services. “Creative destruction” is the engine of capitalism that constantly eliminates what’s outmoded and replaces it with the latest innovations. Anyone who thinks that this perpetual cycle can be halted is simply wrong—it’s the nature of the most productive economic system that the world has ever known. The real constant in our system is value creation. And even though a particular idea or innovation may be attributed to a corporation or a government, it’s really the individual human beings in those organizations that drive that creation of value.