Do you sell solutions or products and services? There is a big difference between the two. Most people today only want to deal with sales people if they can provide solutions to their problems or opportunities to improve sales, operations and lower costs.

Otherwise you will be treated as a commodity and only be able to sell based on price and delivery. The more you can sell on value and return on investment the more profitable your selling will be.

There is a big difference in the skill set required to sell solutions versus commodities. The higher up the person is in their organization to which you are selling, the greater quantity of selling skills you will need.

There are four key skill sets a professional salesperson needs to continuously develop to be at the top in their respective field.

1. Self-knowledge & understanding
2. Product and technical knowledge
3. Planning & organization
4. People skills

Notice that I did not list selling skills, such as listening, closing, negotiation. Of course these skills or techniques are important, but I incorporate them in the four skill sets I listed.

Business owners and sales professionals, who want to excel in their business, must understand the components of these skill sets and know how to develop themselves according to their own strengths and weaknesses.

I used this approach to train and coach Mario Lapointe of SMT-ASSY. After one year Mario more than doubled his sales, amongst other accomplishments.

Watch a video interview with Mario here.

Join Me on Thursday April 23rd at 1:00 PM EST for a FREE tele-seminar where I will explain the components of these four skill sets and how to improve your sales and profits by developing greater proficiencies.

To register for the seminar simply reply to t his email or send a request to sgoldberg@optimusperformance.ca

Stephen Goldberg