Anyone familiar with the Spiderman comic series and movies can relate to the superhero using his special skill to detect trouble before it happens. In sales, we often dismiss these intuitive skills as special gifts or “it just comes with experience” and so on. But science has helped us understand the underlying mental actions that are at work when we use our intuitive instincts, or said more simply, our “Spidey-Sense!”
Considering the age-old history of sales, I was surprised when I did a google search of “the most critical skills in selling,” to discover that sales pundits are all over the map on this issue. Some point to empathy skill, honesty and ethics, where others get into things like putting aside your sales agenda and allowing the customer to tell you what they need. Then there are those who offer broad skills like customer service and the ability to work across department silos. A few touch on listening skills which at least gets them into the ballpark.
Three Ingredients to Boost your Perceptual Skills to the Expert Level:
We've all seen it first hand, that brilliant sales performance where the expert seems to nail every aspect of the selling interaction. But what exactly is that "it" in selling, the part that's hard to put a finger on and we most often dismiss as simply having a knack or "it just comes with experience." But when we peel back the onion a bit more, we discover the underlining intuitive actions that are actually at play. And not only can we unravel the mystery of implicit selling, thanks to science, we can now learn to repeat and improve these skills without sacrificing large amounts of selling time.
Sedric Hill