The three biggest areas, in my mind, are Business Acumen, Change Management, Project Management. Understanding how businesses work and deep understanding of the key industries your customers are in is critical. When I started as a sales person, I sold to banks. As part of my training program--to work more effectively with bankerss, I went to a "banking school." I also took some university courses that bankers took. This enabled me to talk to my customers about banking--and naturally how my products would help bankers be more effective.

Change management is another big area. As sales people, we are asking our customers to change--change the way they run business, change processes, change vendors. One of the biggest areas of resistance to sales comes from the fear of change. Yet none of tne major sales training programs talks about this or offers courses on change management.

Finally, project management is critical-at least for complex B2B sales. As sales people start managing teams of people, presales, partners, integrators, and the customer, good project management approaches are helpful.

Thanks for the great question Lauren.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Chief Results Officer, ADVANCED SYSTEMS

Posted on Aug. 30, 2011

David brings some valid points to the table. I would add Emotional Intelligence and Strategic Value (deeper than general business acumen).

Knowing your own emotional intelligence and then understanding the emotional intelligence of others helps you with all interactions within the sales process.

Given as David said the buying and selling worlds have change world, being able to identify the strategic value from the prospect's perspective and how that works within the organization. Today's sales people need "Big picture thinking" such as value and "little picture thinking" more akin to project management with the bridge of business acumen linking the two where the planks are emotional intelligence.

Kevin Temple

Founder, Managing Member, The Enterprise Selling Group

Posted on Aug. 30, 2011

Good suggestions above… I’ll add Collaboration, Patience and Resiliency.

The wide variety of potential contributors required to help a customer make a difference require some well developed collaboration skills. It’s not uncommon for a seller of a complex solution to have to incorporate professional services, marketing, operations, executive management, channel partners, and consulting partners (among others) into an opportunity.

As I was told by my first sales manager, know when to be quiet! But patience extends beyond the awkward silent moments. It also extends into our expectations of others, especially internal resources. The salesrep who blows his or her top when a colleague can’t deliver will pay the price at a later time.

Not to let the obvious slip by, resiliency has long been touted as a requirement to overcome the inevitable rejection of a “No”, but it also comes into play with Dave’s overall observation. As the selling and buying landscape has changed, the best sellers need to adapt with it. Resiliency is critical when the tried and true stop working. Whether it’s your prospecting approach, the change in stakeholders required for economic approval spurred by a slowing economy, or the cutback in support personnel brought on by disappointing performance numbers. Today’s professional seller needs to be nimble.

Kristina McMillan

Director, SalesRamp

Posted on Aug. 30, 2011

Great question, and often overlooked in the recruiting/management process.

I would add time management.

Too many great sales reps fall flat on performance because they aren't able to get enough/everything done. This is even more crucial for sales reps that deal with a high volume of activities or transactions. A rep must be able to methodically decide who to call, update the appropriate systems (i.e. SFDC), complete their calls, send follow up emails/notes, and manage unexpected demands on their time (such as meetings, training, etc.) if they want to consistently hit their targets.