Since 1990 our research has tracked over 400,000 salespeople from a wide variety of industries and has identified five sales skills that are critical for maximizing sales performance. More increase sales and top sales performance have been achieved by knowing how and when to use these Five Critical Sales Skills than any other skills. Research shows that when salespeople certify on these Five Critical Sales Skills, sales performance increases at twice the rate of others. Take the Action Selling Free Benchmark Sales Skills Assessment to get a detailed recommendation on where you stand with the 5 Critical Selling Skills and what will happen if your sales force becomes Certified.

Through our Sales Training research on over 350,000 trained salespeople, we have learned that there are Five Sales Skills that need to be a central part of any successful sales training program. They must be learned and mastered before sales professionals can maximize their selling potential. These five Critical Sales Skills include …

For the most part, professional services tracks the universe pretty closely. A significant difference appears, however, in the degree to which professional-services salespeople improve their ability to apply skills after training. Looking at post-training application scores for all five of the critical sales skills combined, the universe shows an 86 percent gain; professional services shows an 89% gain.

Sales Questions help customers make their first key buying decision, which is whether to “buy” the salesperson. (See Sales Skill #1: Managing the Buyer Seller Relationship.) By using the best sales questioning skills, salespeople build rapport and demonstrate interest in the customer. They uncover customer needs and strategically develop a game plan for gaining commitment from the customer. But merely asking questions isn’t enough. Action Selling’s Best Questions strategy shows salespeople how and when to ask the best sales questions. Lean How Today.

Through research, The Sales Board has identified Five (5) Critical Selling Skills that are the most critical to sales success.

Research shows that salespeople will never reach their full potential without developing the right sales skills. Unfortunately, many salespeople don’t know what selling skills to master and how or when to use them. This Sales White Paper shows you exactly what to do! See Additional Sales Skills White Papers to Help Sales Management and Sales Professionals Achieve Even Greater Sales Success.

The Action Selling Sales Skills Assessment measures your current knowledge of and your ability to use the Five Critical Sales Skills that have the greatest impact on sales success. It will diagnose selling problems and provide on-the-spot recommendations on how to correct them. After completing the Sales Skills Benchmark Assessment, you will receive your results with recommendations on what and how to improve.

Using sales training as a mechanism to achieve that goal is certainly plausible. Unfortunately, whether the programs are developed internally or purchased from a supplier, most sales training initiatives fail to produce truly worthwhile results, such as increased revenue, higher margins, or expanding market share.

The reasons are understandable. After all, consider the difficulty of collecting hard, measurable evidence that would establish a direct link between a sales training program and improved business results. First you would need a training program that teaches distinct, identifiable sales skills—skills that provably make a critical difference in the real world of sales. Then the program would have to improve those skills, demonstrably and measurably. Then the improved skills would have to “transfer” from the training program to application on the job, again demonstrably and measurably.

There are three basic necessities for a sales training/certification program that will produce lasting performance gains and a positive, measurable ROI. The program must teach a sales system that is genuinely more effective than what salespeople are doing now…