What Makes You Good At Sales?
What does it mean to be good at sales?
Being good at sales is so much more than having charisma, being likeable and possessing basic listening skills. Much of the conventional sales training out there today places a lot of emphasis on the art of persuasion - sometimes even offering ‘scripts to close’ or providing the anatomy of sales conversations. These frameworks can be helpful but they gloss over the single most important quality of truly great salespeople - commitment.
Commitment isn’t sexy or flashy and you’ll rarely see people boasting about it on their platforms, but your ability to commit to the sale will be the single greatest act to propel your sales skills. The best part? It’s easy to cultivate. You don’t need to pay for sophisticated sales software, or spend big money hiring and compensating sales aces to do your closing for you.
I’m about to get evangelical, so buckle up and grab your holy water. Truly great salespeople commit. Each one may commit to something different - but at the end of the day they all commit to something:
Some commit to making money
Others commit to winning
Some commit to helping people
Others commit to advocacy for services they are passionate about
Some commit to achieving results
All the best salespeople I’ve worked with and been mentored by have committed themselves to something and the results they’ve achieved and the money and impact they’ve made has been directly proportional to their level of commitment.
I’m committed to independence - every prospect I seek out, every opportunity I identify, every sale I close is propelled by my desire to be financially independent. I never want to be in a situation where I have to rely on someone else to support me - so I am constantly putting myself in uncomfortable situations or facing my fears or doing scary things (ie sales) in service to that commitment. I frame every sale within the context of my own pursuit for independence. This is the only acceptable time to make sales about yourself - in almost every other situation sales is not about you, it’s about your prospect.
When I launched my own sales consulting business a couple months ago I was nervous about selling ‘myself’. I had built my career selling for others, but now I was in a situation where I was asking for money…for myself. I had to frame my fear within the context of my commitment to financial independence - I told myself my options were to suck it up and pitch myself or rely on my husband to pay my bills. I would rather listen to a marathon of The Joe Rogan Experience than relegate myself to that and so here we are.
If you don’t think you’re good at sales, or if you don’t know how or where to start - try starting with your commitment. What are you so committed to that it allows you to move through discomfort?
If you found this article helpful but want more hands on practical support don’t hesitate to send me a DM. You can also check out some of my other work where I provide actionable strategies to improve your sales skills here.
