Skills + Knowledge = Power

I read a sales newsletter by Shamus Brown. He sends a topic each day, which is pretty ambitious if he is writing all of his content himself.

On March 21st, he wrote about The 3 Biggest Assets of Your Sales Career

He lists Selling Skills, Industry Knowledge and Customer Contacts. I wouldn't dare argue with the value of any of those 3.

I would expand on the second point, Industry Knowledge. There are so many facets to this idea and you can't rely on yourself to explore them all. I mean, if you spent your time collecting all of the data that could be categorized as "useful for gaining an advantage, when would you sell?

Value selling makes the most sense to me. Identify a pain that is causing grief (or a benefit that would be VERY significant) and show the solution. Make your clients/prospects repeat back to you the benefit to be gained and the consequence of not using your solution.

And, if you really want to move ahead, make sure that your organization supports you with additional marketing data to tell you precisely how you can most effectively differentiate yourself.

If you are serious about improving your effectiveness, don't forget the benefit of intelligence.

(Primary Intelligence would be happy to help you)