As you probably know by now, I love sales. I love helping businesses identify and address challenges. I love interacting with people and understanding their motivations. I love that I have many different functions, from presenting to reporting to running assessments, that keeps me learning.
There is so much you can learn from a career in sales, but one of the most important areas of personal development for me has been in my relationships. Here are some of the key attributes I’ve learned from sales that can help you enhance your relationships.
Listening
If you only take one thing away from this post, make sure it’s this point. We all know it’s important to listen to other people, but since starting my career in sales I am listening at a whole other level. When you’re talking to a client you eliminate all distractions, you not only listen to their words but also take in their body language, and you listen without judgement. I think about what they’re saying versus what they may mean and ask questions. So. Many. Questions. To fully understand I need to ask follow up questions and summarize and find out if I’ve gotten an accurate picture of what they are saying to me.
We hear all of the time that listening is a key element to having a successful relationship, and the better listener you can be, the better you’ll understand others. Every time you remember something someone said and can relate back to it later or ask the perfect follow up question they will feel cared for and it will deepen your relationship.
Focusing on the other person
It’s best practice in sales to get a full understanding of the challenges your client is facing and how they are thinking about addressing it before launching into what you can provide. I will admit this is hard to do! However, by focusing on the other person you can ultimately tailor your message and have greater success.
In personal relationships the more you learn about someone else and show your genuine interest in them, the more they will like being around you and reciprocate that interest. Sometimes I feel like I’m interviewing my friends and new people I meet, so try not to just run through questions. Rather, learn about them and relate where appropriate to make it a true conversation.
Following up
It feels like half of my job is being persistent and following up. When you are invested in having a relationship with someone it requires effort. From texts to check in, to consistently making the time to talk, you have to understand that work and life will get busy, but with mutual effort you can foster deep relationships. I wrote about staying in touch with friends after college and this level of effort is exactly what is required in any relationship.
These are only three of the lessons I have learned (and continue to work on) from sales that have made me more present and a better daughter/friend/girlfriend. Hopefully you can integrate these lessons in your relationships and reap the benefits of sales skills.
What have you learned from your career that applies to your personal life?
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