"Selling Skills"

Throughout the years, there have been many books written, techniques developed, and debates conducted about the art of “closing the sale.” I’ve read these books and attended conferences of the same vein, and have found most of them useless, repetitive, old, unrealistic, and full of platitudes. Most of these programs don’t resonate with me because I’ve discovered that the fundamentals of successful selling skills I learned nearly 25 years ago have survived the test of time. They are just as relevant now as they were then.

In my first job as a sales representative for a consumer packaged goods company I was taught the three fundamentals of successful selling: Learn, Penetrate, Sell. These three simple and effective steps were instilled in me from day one and on every sales call with my managers, who had successfully sold using this model throughout their careers. 

The overarching objective of Learn, Penetrate, Sell is first and foremost to close the sale. But it’s also about building long-lasting relationships by earning a reputation as a valued partner and trusted business advisor who is genuinely invested in your clients’ successes, which differentiates you from your competition. This enables you to become more than just a vendor selfishly selling a product or service with no real customer benefit. 

In addition, Learn, Penetrate, Sell shows customers the value you bring to their business, which minimizes the chance you’ll be “beaten up” on price. In other words, you’re selling solutions and value versus just another commodity. I want to be clear about price: I’m not saying price will never be an issue, but it will be less of one when taken into consideration with the perceived value you bring. 

Let’s look at these three simple yet powerful steps in detail. 

• Learn – Simply put, the first step of successfully closing a sale is to learn as much about your customer as possible. Understand everything you can about your customer’s needs and what keeps them up at night. Is it internal factors like cash flow, sales, profit, or customer or patient loyalty? Is it external factors such as competition, market environment, or changing dynamics? Most likely it will cover several areas, but it is your job to discover the issues that are most important to them.
• Penetrate – Secondly, it is crucial that you reach the key decision maker within your customer’s organization. Too often sales personnel are content simply calling on any buyer or someone lower on the totem pole, when the key decision-maker is several levels up. Penetrating to the key decision-maker also ensures that you’ll know what truly matters to your customer. Again, clearly understanding what keeps the decision maker up at night is the key to building a successful sales plan – and those concerns may be very different for lower-level contacts than they are for the true decision makers.
•  Sell – Obviously the key is to sell, right? Yes – but the question to ask is, “What are you selling?” If what you are selling doesn’t solve the problem of what keeps your customer up at night or isn’t geared to the key decision maker, then what you are selling is meaningless. Unfortunately, what most sales people do is sell everything including the kitchen sink, or what they want to sell or what they think their customer needs. The result is at best short-term minimized success and at worst a lost sale. The key to the Sell step is to match your customer’s needs are (based on what keeps them up at night) with what you have for solving that problem. Once this intersection is identified, met, and solved your sales success will grow exponentially. In addition, you’ve built the foundation of trust, which leads to long-term loyal customers. 

This is what makes the previous two steps, Learn and Penetrate, so vital. Your hard work in learning about your customer’s needs and penetrating to the key decision maker gives you the input you need to build a tailored and relevant plan. It shows your customer that you not only did your homework, but you heard them, understood them, and built a program that meets their needs by solving their problem. 

Good sales people solve problems for their customers; they don’t create or ignore them. Most sales people that fail do so because they have not identified their customer’s true problem, and therefore can’t supply the right solution the customer is seeking. It doesn’t matter if you are selling a consumer good, a car, a pharmaceutical product, a service, or a concept; if you can effectively marry your capabilities with your customers most pressing needs you will close the sale and develop long-term loyalty. 

I am a believer that all great truths and successes are built on simple, time-tested principles. In the sales realm, Learn, Penetrate, Sell are those principles.

Throughout the years, there have been many books written, techniques developed, and debates conducted about the art of “closing the sale.”

I have read those books and attended many conferences and have found most of them useless, repetitive, old, unrealistic, and full of platitudes. Most of these programs don’t resonate with me because I’ve discovered that the fundamentals of successful selling skills I learned nearly 25 years ago in my first job out of college have survived the test of time. They are just as relevant now as they were then. 

In my first job as a sales representative selling for a consumer packaged goods company, I was taught the three fundamentals of successful selling: Learn, Penetrate, Sell. 

These three simple and effective steps were instilled in me from day one and on every sales call with my managers, who had successfully sold using this model throughout their careers. The key objective of Learn, Penetrate, Sell is to help differentiate yourself from your competition by earning the reputation in the eyes of your customers as valued partners and trusted business advisers with skin in the game when it comes to their success. This enables sales teams to be considered more than just another vendor selfishly selling a product or service with no benefit to the valued customer. In addition, Learn, Penetrate, Sell will show your customers the value you bring to the table and will minimize your chance of getting beaten up on price. In other words, you’re selling ideas and value vs. simply selling a commodity. Let’s look at these three simple, yet powerful, steps. 

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