Everybody needs sales skills. We all have something we want others to buy into, whether it’s an idea we have, a proposal we want supported, or a product we are pushing. When our pitch is successful, others help us achieve our goals. When it’s not, we feel disappointed (and often less wealthy than we had hoped). I learned to sell when I was building my company, leadership communications firm The Humphrey Group, over a 30-year period.

Everybody needs sales skills. We all have something we want others to buy into, whether it’s an idea we have, a proposal we want supported, or a product we are pushing. When our pitch is successful, others help us achieve our goals. When it’s not, we feel disappointed (and often less wealthy than we had hoped). I learned to sell when I was building my company, leadership communications firm The Humphrey Group, over a 30-year period.

People today are bombarded with messages from morning until night. We can't check email or drive to the store without seeing flashing banners, mostly aimed at selling us something. Today's consumers are experts at tuning these messages out, leaving salespeople with an important question: Do you ensure your message is seen and heard? Connecting with clients today is often about building trust. Here's where you can start.

What do sales leaders look for when hiring a salesperson? To find out, we asked sales leaders at some of the most innovative companies in the world – Gong, LinkedIn, IBM, Salesforce, Equifax, and others – that exact question via our How I Sell newsletter. And interestingly, there was a lot of overlap in their answers. Many of the respondents used the same words over and over again.

If you’re an ambitious salesperson, building and delivering compelling sales presentations should be your focus in the new work environment. Salespeople who master sales presentations in the virtual and hybrid workplace will outshine their techno-novice counterparts and make a mark on the prospects they seek to convert into clients.

A study of more than 20,000 job listings for salespeople posted between 2019 and 2022 reveal many of the attributes that have always been crucial for success in this field, such as communication skills. But this study revealed five forward-looking qualities that are showing up more frequently. They are anticipating the customer’s future, collaborating inside and outside the company, leveraging digital and virtual channels, the ability to get power from data, and the capacity to adapt.

New research from ValueSelling and Training Industry, Inc. has uncovered a glaring gap between the most impactful sales behaviors needed to engage with buyers virtually, and what sales leaders measure today. Surprisingly, winning sales behaviors are rarely measured. Yet without accurate measurement practices in place, companies are not effective in encouraging the right behaviors that lead to increased sales results, which means that money is left on the table.