If you type the phrase “effective sales techniques” into your search bar, you will see no shortage of ideas and approaches to explore. Literally millions of articles, blog posts and infographics are available to help you tweak and shape your sales skills to become more successful. 

Many of these techniques are useful (learn all you can about your prospects, practise a compelling introduction to your offering, etc.), but most of them seem to skirt around the edges of what’s really important to your bottom line – communication.

In our previous blogs, we have introduced the notion that communication is the key to an improved bottom line. Today, I would like to expand upon that idea and show you how improving your communication skills will have a direct and positive impact on your ability to increase sales performance.

‍The Impact of Effective Communication 

To better understand why improving communication is the best way to improve sales results and performance, you need to understand what effective communication actually does.

When effective communication is established in the workplace:

• Morale Increases
  People simply understand each other better, and they feel better understood by others. This gives people more confidence as individuals, but it also improves how they feel as members of a team working toward a common goal.

• Ideas Are Shared More Willingly
  I think we have all worked in offices where communication was lacking. In these spaces, people sit on their ideas because they do not want to be shot down or ridiculed. Therefore, the business becomes stagnant. No one wants to share anything, even if their ideas are spectacular.

• More Effective Teamwork
  When everybody understands what they are supposed to be doing, there is much less stress and anxiety in the workplace. What’s more, when everybody also understands the roles performed by others, an organization operates more as a cohesive unit than as a collection of separate departments.

These changes represent only a small portion of the positive benefits of improving communication in the workplace. The fact is that effective communication provides countless benefits. But how, exactly, does improved communication benefit sales?

Here are a few key benefits that will help bolster your sales results:

• Managers can convey crucial information more accurately to their staff
  
  
• Marketing and sales departments are kept in better sync with each other
  
  
• Sales personnel listen to customers more effectively because listening is a highly valued skill, and with practise, it can become a positive habit
  
  
• As a result of improved listening and overall communication, companies are better able to service and support their customers, thus making customers more loyal and increasing sales
  
  
• Sales personnel feel more confident and certain about their roles, which has a direct result upon sales figures
  
  
• Confident salespeople who understand effective communication make sure that they are great listeners and are appropriately persistent when it comes to conveying important information to their clients
  

By improving communication, you improve every aspect of your organization’s performance, particularly when it comes to sales.

You can search the Internet for effective sales techniques and find
some fantastic advice, but none of it will match the power of improving communication. 

It’s up to you now to take a look at your organization and decide what you will do to enhance communication. As a leader, improved communication (and increased sales) must start with you.

What approaches or tactics have you used to enhance the communication in your organization? Do you have any additional advice or insight you would like to share? Let us know what you think. I invite you to give me a call today at 1.855.871.3374 or send me an email at joanne.trotta@leadersedgeinc.ca.