Sales Skills are Life Skills!

It is with great excitement that I share Ascend Commercial Solutions has garnered over 300 LinkedIn followers in our first three months! To achieve this milestone is a strong start according to several social media experts. I am humbled and honored to receive the trust of our followers and look forward to earning continued growth over the months to come.

As I analyze the demographics of Ascend followers, I see that roughly 60% are in Sales & Marketing and 40% are in other functions – Purchases, Technical, and Supply Chain.  This highlights a fundamental premise of Ascend – that sales skills are transferrable and pertinent to other business and personal endeavors. Sales Skills are Life Skills!

Little did I know that I was learning this early in life by pumping gas at my father’s service station. At the risk of dating myself, back then there were “full-service gas stations” outside of New Jersey, USA.  He taught me to go beyond pumping gas and to check the customer’s oil and tire pressure, clean their windows, and ensure their windshield washer reservoir was full.  By providing excellent service and ensuring the health and reliability of my customer’s transportation I earned tips (ie: premium pricing) and repeat customers.  Like the “wax on and wax off” training in Karate Kid, these were foundational skills that I reapplied to running manufacturing plants and supply chain operations at Procter & Gamble before returning to sales and marketing roles.

A common question that I get asked is: “What has been your greatest sale?”  The answer is easy: earning the hand of my wife in marriage.  You see, I had to earn her trust, sell the benefits of being married to me, handle her objections, negotiate differences, strike a mutually beneficial agreement, and track performance over the years. I have also been successful in upselling our relationship into a family, with two children added over the years.

In both examples, I utilized the same skills used by selling professionals - I achieved mutually beneficial objectives with someone else and differentiated myself as the person best equipped to meet their needs.  Sales Skills are Life Skills!

Just like in Karate Kid, these selling skills are foundational building blocks that fit into a winning process. At Ascend Commercial Solutions we developed the Intuitive Selling Process that is broken into three steps: Align on the benefits of working together; Close a mutual agreement of what each party will do; and Execute faithfully.  Within each of these steps are multiple tools that are applied at various levels, depending on the complexity of the sale.

The Align step is as much about understanding your objectives as it is the other party’s.  What are your differentiators and how can they bring value to the other party?  Keen Questioning Skills are needed as you navigate their organization to learn its objectives and decision making.  Luckily, my wife was the sole decision maker I needed to convince when we got married. Today, our children also believe they have decision rights, which adds complexity.

The Close step co-creates a plan that will deliver the benefits of collaboration to both parties. What are your objectives in a successful relationship, and can you reach a negotiated agreement? The ability to articulate the concept in verbal and written communication is critical, as is astute handling of objections that may surface.   My wife and I have aligned objectives that direct our daily activities and help deliver consistent messaging for our children.

The Execute step requires performance tracking and holding each party accountable for the agreement.  Do you have aligned measures of success and contingency plans for when “curveballs” come your way?  My greatest concern in the current marketplace is the lack of pre-planning to renegotiate agreements in a business slowdown. Like many families, there have been multiple unexpected changes in our lives these past few years. We had to return to the Align step multiple times to co-create a new plan that adjusts expectations.

Sales Skills can be used in any instance where people collaborate on a solution, overcome obstacles, reach agreement, and manage conflict. This can be on a business team developing a new supply chain, customer service resolving a dispute with a customer, a family determining where their next vacation will be, and a commercial team determining how to resolve the underperformance of a contract. Like everything else, the difference between proficient use and “winging it” is training and upskilling.  

If you would like to learn how you can:

• Pre-plan to renegotiate agreements in a business slowdown
• Integrate your selling tools into the Intuitive Selling Process
• Apply Sales Skills are Life Skills! to your personal and professional activities

Feel free to sign up for a no-obligation 30-minute review of your challenges and possible actions we may take to overcome them by pressing the “Get Started” button on LinkedIn or “Let’s Talk!” button on https://ascendcommercialsolutions.com/

Happy Selling!

George

Ascend Commercial Solutions brings our expertise in Market Development, Sales Management, and Customer Engagement to overcome your barriers to growth. Our structured approach is tailored to your specific company objectives and the challenges you face. The improvements to your business and organization will stand the test of time.