It’s a commonly held misbelief that some people are just naturally good at sales. This is often used as an excuse, as a reason why someone isn’t willing to take a job or step into a role that involves selling a good or service.
Of course, if you have ever worked in sales, you knew that sales skills never come naturally. No matter what you sell, working in sales is difficult and requires a lot of practice and training to achieve success. Sales skills must be nurtured in employees and it is your job as the owner of water damage restoration business owner to teach these skills.
Skills Every Salesperson Needs to Succeed
When it comes to experiencing success in a sales role, there are certain skills that will set one salesperson apart from the next. The good news is that many of these skills can be taught with enough time and patience from the trainer and trainee.
- Every salesperson should have a complete understanding of what they are selling. This is why it is often beneficial to hire someone who has worked in the water damage restoration industry before or who is devoted enough to learn the ins and outs of restoration work.
- A good salesperson is someone who is able to communicate well. Before you assume this eliminates employees who aren’t naturally extroverted, know that most people can be taught to speak clearly and effectively through training and role playing.
- Team members who work in sales have to be able to listen well. Sales is about meeting a need, and if your employee is constantly talking over or dismissing homeowner concerns, they cannot gather the information needed to meet their needs.
- Building a strong relationship with a potential client is an important skill for all sales personnel. A homeowner needs to believe that the salesperson they are talking to is empathetic of their situation. If you or your employee are only concerned with making a profit off of a flood, it will show. All sale personnel should be trained to use compassion and understanding to build a relationship with their clients.
- Selling a product or service is all about the passion the salesperson has for the product. If they don’t believe the company they represent has the solution for the problem being faced, they won’t be convince the homeowner they do. This is why anyone selling water damage restoration services has to be on board with the vision of the company before they can start selling the services offered.
Teaching Sales Skills: A Strength-Based Approach
When training a new employee in sales, teaching the skills necessary can be an overwhelming undertaking. It’s easy to become focused on their weaknesses, to only see what needs taught and improved. Beginning with their strengths is a great approach to beginning to teach sales skills in new employees. With a good understanding of where a person excels, you can create a plan for training that builds on those strengths first.
The reason why a strength-based approach is appealing is because it builds on skills that already exist. This allows trainees to experience success quickly, building their confidence to take on new, more challenging skills. How does this work in training of sales skills in water damage restoration? Here is an example:
Let’s say you desire to move a long-term crew member into a role that will require them to spend more time selling the restoration services you offer. This person has spent time communicating with homeowners in the past, but most of their time has been spent doing the hands-on restoration work. They have extensive training and specialized certification in restoration thanks to the years they have spent working on your team.
It might be tempting to jump right in, to focus on their struggles to communicate well. Instead, consider beginning with the first skill mentioned in the list above. Embrace their expert knowledge of restoration work and train them in how their knowledge can be used to close a sale. After this, you can move on to working on how they communicate, building on their confidence in their knowledge what they are talking about.
Teaching Sales Skills: Using Role Playing to Build Confidence
No matter what an employee is selling or the environment in which the selling takes place, it is typical for individuals new to sales to be intimidated by their job requirements. Selling has a bad reputation, however, perpetuated by people who are bad at their job. Your job, as the owner of your water damage restoration company and the person responsible for creating and implementing employee training, is to build confidence in your employee by equipping them with the skills they need to succeed.
When it comes to learning to sell, practice really does make perfect. This is why all sales training courses should involve extensive role playing. Every new skill should be practice in a safe environment, where the risks are low, until the trainee feels comfortable. After that, we suggest moving on the actual client interactions with a more experienced employee nearby to help them if they’re struggling.
At More Floods, we work with water damage restoration specialists as they perfect their operational systems, include their training courses. To learn more about the resources offer for building sales skills, click here or call 1-866-667-3356.