Selling: Skill vs Will

Integrity Solutions Senior Consultant Mike Fisher explains how to differentiate between skill vs. will and why both are equally critical to driving stronger sales performance. The question is "why is it that two people go through the same product training and one of them performs at 'this' level and the other one performs at a lower level?" Well the product knowledge and the skill side- if they both were adequate in learning those things then it becomes a WILL issue and it's a will side- then it's an attitudinal (issue). And that then stems into a lot of areas: from a selling perspective, is it their view of selling? Do they feel like they're bothering customers or do they feel like they're helping customers? Is it a belief in product issue where this person doesn't believe it does what we say it's going to do? Therefore activity drops off... Is it "I don't want to ask questions" when the reality is it doesn't do what we say it's going to do... Or I haven't had that experience... I think there's definitely a skill AND will issue when it comes to the attitudinal side. Does the attitude impact the success they have? From a skills perspective you have to impact the attitudinal side of WHY people sell so that they don't have creative avoidance, call reluctance, all the things that go with it. They feel comfortable and confident- in alignment, if you will- in that "I'm helping and uncovering needs, filling needs and adding value for my customer." And if they don't feel like they're doing that they're not going to ask questions that are going to turn into business opportunities. They're just not... And so I think they know that we understand that and when we start to see that and we can convey that to them that's when they start to go "okay they get it. These guys get it..." It's the knowledge of understanding people and understanding the selling process. It's not just a skill issue. But it's also a skill AND will issue; and when we can talk to them about what causes call reluctance, what causes their people to not ask questions, it's usually related to product knowledge or it's usually related to their view of selling. And what they see they can do every day. When you can start to help address those issues then the the selling takes care of itself because they believe in what they're doing and I think that's a difference. And so, for our customers, that's what they see and what we do is is that we can help them address not just the skills. The skills honestly are partially their product knowledge. It's the WILL issues and getting to that. We give them a confidence to be able to go ask the questions that they need to about their their own needs and their customers needs. For more on this topic visit: https://www.integritysolutions.com/our-approach/our-philosophy