The corona epidemic has created new conditions for sales work and meant that many sales teams have had to adapt to the new conditions. Instead of travelling to customer visits, many salespeople are now forced to hold virtual sales meetings via Teams, Zoom and Skype and call new potential customers from their home office.
The corona crisis also places new demands on salespeople, who must now be able to work more independently and, on their own initiative, chase new customers and build relationships with decision-makers in the company. However, this can be a challenge for many salespeople.
The new times therefore require sales management to focus more on developing the sales competences of salespeople if they want an effective sales team that can generate good results for the company in a time of pressure. One option here is to utilise FinxS Sales Competence Assessmentwhich is a sales tool for developing salespeople's sales competences.
Measure salespeople's strengths and development areas
The Sales Competence Assessment from FinxS maps a salesperson's strengths and development areas in 18 key sales competences. In this way, the sales assessment provides greater insight into the individual salesperson's sales competences, which can be used to create a more effective and specific plan for developing the salesperson's sales skills.
Below you can get an overview of the 18 sales competences that are important for a salesperson to possess in order to succeed in sales and what the different sales competences mean.
Search for topics
This sales competency is about the extent to which the salesperson actively searches for new potential qualified customers to help keep the business going and create new sales opportunities. The salesperson will engage in sales activities that include calling potential customers, handling existing cold leads and building new networks.
Qualification
Qualification is the systematic process by which the salesperson carefully checks a customer's ability to pay, including whether a customer is both willing and able to pay off their debt. This is used to determine if the customer has good business potential and is a good business match.
Building relationships
Relationship building is about creating, developing and maintaining an open atmosphere with honest communication and sharing of information between the customer and the seller. The focus here is on the extent to which the salesperson is able to establish trust and build a relationship with the customer.
Follow the sales process
This sales competency is about whether the salesperson is dutiful and diligent and follows a systematic sales process to create the best results and increase the success of a sale, or whether the salesperson is impatient and more impulsive about the sales process.
Purposefulness
Purposefulness can be defined as the salesperson's disposition to develop and strive for higher performance and success. It refers to whether the salesperson sets and pursues goals for their performance or whether the salesperson lives more in the moment and does not pursue a higher level of performance.
Build trust
This sales competence refers to the extent to which the salesperson respects customers and wants them to have a positive attitude throughout the sales process. The sales competence is about whether the salesperson wants to please and be recognised by others, or whether the salesperson is more willing to be assertive and demanding in a respectful way, regardless of whether this means the salesperson is not liked.
Control in the sales process
This sales competence is about the salesperson's ability and willingness to take active control of the sales process by clearly defining all steps and conditions as well as possible outcomes and results to the customer. This is done in order to guide the customer towards a decision.
Handling objections
Objection handling refers to the salesperson's ability to effectively handle objections from the customer. That is, the extent to which the salesperson is able to handle questions or comments from the customer who shows a reluctance to purchase a product/service at this time.
Efficiency with questions
Effectiveness with questions is about the salesperson's ability to create a structured and effective way to ask thoughtful questions that can help clarify the challenges and problems the customer has. Questions are used to help the customer share the necessary information the salesperson needs to determine if the solution can solve the customer's challenges, but are also used to help the customer realise previous problems that have not been solved.
Active listening
The salesperson's ability to actively listen and understand the meaning behind the customer's communication. That is, the extent to which the salesperson is able to explicitly listen and understand what the customer is trying to communicate through their words, tone of voice and body language.
Critical thinking
Critical thinking can be defined as the mental process of actively and carefully conceptualising, analysing, synthesising, applying and evaluating information to determine if there is a connection between the customer's challenges and the salesperson's solutions. Critical thinking is therefore about the salesperson's ability and willingness to use known knowledge to solve new problems.
Ambition and Initiatives
This sales competence is about the salesperson's ambition to achieve or succeed at something, accompanied by motivation, determination, initiative and drive to perform better. It measures the extent to which the salesperson takes the initiative to try to perform better.
Presentation
Presentation is about the salesperson's ability to communicate well and convincingly to the audience how the proposed solution can effectively solve the challenges the customer has. Thus, this sales competency is about whether the salesperson is able to create an effective presentation that engages the audience.
Planning and scheduling
Planning is about the ability to structure time and use the time available most efficiently and productively - especially in the workplace. It's the process of organising and planning how to most productively allocate time between different sales activities.
Dealing with errors/failures
Failure management is about the salesperson's ability to recover from mistakes, setbacks and defeats and at the same time become more robust to handle and cope with adversity better. This sales competence is therefore about how the salesperson views failure and the extent to which the salesperson is willing to take a risk if there is a risk of failure.
Targeted competitiveness
Determined competitiveness is having a strong desire to be better and more successful than others and never to lose. This is about the salesperson's willingness to persistently and consistently strive to improve their performance level to win at all costs.
Economic argumentation
This sales competency is about objective and non-emotional perceptions and views about money. It measures how the salesperson views making money from sales activities, including whether the salesperson sees making money as a healthy endeavour or whether the salesperson feels guilty about making money from sales.
Emotional objectivity
Emotional objectivity is about the ability to avoid becoming emotionally engaged in the sales process with your own emotions or the customer's emotions. In this way, it is about the extent to which the salesperson is able to emotionally distance themselves during the sales process and react objectively and rationally rather than being distracted by emotions.
Create a development plan to strengthen your sales reps' development areas
Based on the results of the analysis of the salesperson's strengths and development areas in these 18 sales competences, you can then create a development plan to help strengthen the salesperson in the sales competences where development is needed.
With a development plan, you can make a concrete plan for which of the salesperson's competences need to be strengthened and how you can develop and strengthen these competences. When deciding which of the salesperson's competences need to be developed and strengthened, it's a good idea to start with the salesperson's personality and own wishes for development. However, you should also look at which competences are necessary to have in the sales team to create sales and growth in the company.
A good development plan based on both the salesperson's wishes and the company's needs can help the company to have better salespeople and more effective sales teams that can help the company get through the crisis.
Use FinxS Sales Competence tool to develop your salespeople
If you want to create the best conditions for an effective sales team that delivers good results despite the challenges in sales work as a result of the Corona crisis, it may be an opportunity to become certified in FinxS Sales Competence tool.
With a certification, you can gain insights into your salespeople's sales skills that you can use to develop great salespeople and effective sales teams. In our course calendar you can view and sign up for all our upcoming certification courses. If you want to learn more about our Sales Competence tool, you are also welcome to contact us at 70 26 32 25 or info@hrsolutions.dk
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