Soft skills sales training is becoming just as important as the hard skills training, we are most familiar with in the world of training. We know we live in unprecedented times but most of all, when it comes to the sales profession, these are times of profound change. And this change in the buyer to supplier relationship is affecting everyone. Salespeople may have the technical knowledge, the hard sales training, the product knowledge, the sales presentation skills plus the functional skills to work through the entire sales process. However, today to be really successful in a sales career, salespeople will need something else to succeed in selling. No matter how advanced their technical and hard selling skills are, they will need soft skills, too. Today, a Google search or social media has put product and service information at a customer’s fingertips. They are able to access reviews, download product sheets, compare solutions, and learn all about a company’s business without ever engaging with a salesperson. Which poses the question, what is the role of salespeople in the modern sales process? The sales role is still critical even with the advent of seamless transactions because some aspects of the sales process or the product complexity still requires human to human contact. However, hard skills need to be balanced with soft sales skills. Customers and buyers expect a more personalized and enriching experience, otherwise what is the point in talking to a salesperson. They want to feel understood, connected, educated, valued, informed plus they want to trust the person they are talking to. This required all salespeople to have empathy, emotional intelligence, communication skills etc. Some salespeople develop these soft skills naturally, but soft sales skills can be taught online. So, what should soft skills sales training entail? Let’s check it out. Soft Skills Sales Training Checklist Emotional Intelligence Emotional Intelligence is a salesperson’s ability to attend to and use their inner experiences (both good and bad) in a more mindful, productive way for their sales career. Developing emotional intelligence involves cultivating curiosity (business and personal), growing their knowledge, and producing new ways of looking at things. On the surface, it’s a repetitive process. So, salespeople will need consistency and patience. Tending to emotional intelligence brings new opportunities from discovering a new sales tactic, having a eureka moment, connecting the dots between two issues, getting involved in a lively sales conversation with a customer. Research shows that one of the most important foundations of emotional competence “accurate self-assessment” was associated with superior performance among several hundred people from twelve different companies. The best salespeople know how to get into the heart of people’s needs or pain points, addressing them and turning objections around into a sale. There’s an opportunity there to connect even deeper because you’re being given insight into that customer’s way of thinking. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) recognizes those opportunities. Communication Communication is the activity of conveying information in the sales process. The word communication has been derived from the Latin word ‘communis’, meaning to share. It basically involves a sender, a message, and a receiver. It involves the transmission of information, proposals, messages, ideas, attitudes, or emotions from one person or group to another or others primarily through channels. There is communication wherever one source elicits actions or influences an audience via transmission over the selected channel to accomplish a specific goal. As a process, communication is not discrete, static, or solitary. It exists in time and changes constantly. In sales, communication is the sum of all the things a salesperson does when they want to create understanding in the mind of a customer. It is a bridge of meaning and purpose. It involves a systematic and continuous process of telling, listening, and understanding.” So how and why do we communicate? The why is very simple, we interact with people for only three fundamental reasons to 1. Inform 2. Persuade and 3. Entertain. Empathy in Soft Sales Skills The modern buyer wants to feel heard, acknowledged, understood, and appreciated. These are not just business requirements but basic human characteristics. It’s something we all want, and it’s heightened when we have a question, a problem or need an answer. A first step in understanding empathy is to figure out what it means to you in sales or business terms. The ability to empathize has real business value. The rise of social media has eroded your grip on pricing, discounting, and financing, and has stripped you of your trained sales techniques or “tricks of the trade.” Now, the connection between salesperson, purchase and subsequent post purchase experience is what builds a customer’s trust, loyalty, and further spending. Future proofing salespeople will align with the customer’s intentions beyond the sale, understand the customer’s point of view and primary concerns, and build a personalized experience to support the customer’s needs. A sales skills training program will bring awareness to this skill. Persuasion Gentle nonaggressive persuasion is another important soft skills for salespeople to master. This is not about being overly assertive. What it is, is the skill to influence a customer on the options available to them, the cost of doing nothing and what is in their own best interest to solve the pain they recognize. When undertaking an online soft skills sales training program, be sure it includes videos, PDF downloads and templates. Confidence as a Soft Sales Skill We know that the selling process consists of collecting information about a prospective customer, developing a sales plan based on your research, transmitting messages to implement the plan, evaluating the impact of these messages, and making adjustments based on this evaluation. Research into purchasing emotions shows that buyers are reluctant to back a proposal that’s being pitched by a salesperson who is nervous, fumbling, and overly apologetic. On the other hand, they are likely to be persuaded by someone who speaks clearly, who holds his or her head high, who answers questions assuredly, and who readily admits when he or she does not know something. Confident and assertive salespeople inspire confidence in others: their customers, their audience,Soft Skills Sales Training