#051: 10 critical sales skills to be a top rep

Read time: 5 minutes

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We’re introducing a brand new Succession membership to make it more accessible to learn the sales skills of the top-performing life sciences sales reps.

We hear firsthand how challenging it is to sell right now. Prospects aren’t responding at the same rate they used to and deals that seem promising end up going nowhere.

If you’re ready to invest in your own skill development, it’s never been more affordable.

The new Lite Membership is only $19/mo. Click the link below to learn more and join our community of life science sales professionals.

We have 2 core jobs in sales. We need to CREATE new opportunities and drive deals to CLOSE.

While this concept is simple, it’s not easy.

80% of sales reps struggled in Q2 because they couldn’t create enough new opportunities (48%) or deals that seemed promising would go nowhere (41%). *See the article linked above for more details.

We spent the last few months interviewing reps and sales leaders to determine what separates the top 20% of reps that are crushing it from the 80% that struggled.

What we uncovered, were 10 core skills the best reps have mastered. I do want to highlight that very few reps have mastered ALL 10 skills. But the best reps have a strong mastery over a majority of these skills.

Here are the top skills and a brief overview of each one.

1. Relentless Prospecting

2. Prioritize Growable Accounts

3. Push Past Resistance

4. Deliver Expert Insights

5. Align Solutions to High-Priority Initiatives

6. Demonstrate Differentiated Value

7. Tell Stories with Data

8. Build Decision Consensus

9. Employ Resourceful Negotiation Tactics

10. Leverage AI for Enhanced Productivity

1: Relentless Prospecting

You can’t close deals that you don’t have. You also shouldn’t rely on inbound leads or SDR/BDR/ADRs to be your only source of opportunities. The best reps can find and source opportunities from a wide range of sources. Cold prospecting, referrals, events, networking, etc… They make a habit to “always be prospecting” and filling their pipeline with new opportunities. You can overcome closing deficiencies simply by having a massive pipeline.

If you want to improve your prospecting skills, here are a number of resources you can leverage.

• Prospecting Challenge

• Prospecting Channel in Succession

• Prospecting Resources

• Prospecting Workshops

• Mastering Cold Email Course

• 30-Day Pipeline Challenge

2: Prioritize Growable Accounts

Your priority as a sales rep is to GROW your accounts. Too many reps make the mistake of simply maintaining relationships with the highest spending accounts. These accounts, while they generate revenue, don’t often have high growth potential. If you truly want to grow your territory, you need to prioritize your limited time on the accounts that have growth potential.

Here are some resources to help you grow your key accounts.

• Key Account Growth Strategies Course

• Account Prioritization Sheet

• One Slide Key Account Plan

• Sales Territory Plan Template

3: Push Past Resistance

Every complex deal will have some form of resistance. Whether it happens while prospecting or during the sales process, you will face resistance. It’s your job as a sales rep to push past it and understand the truth behind the objection. In reality, there are probably a max of 8 different objections you receive on a regular basis. Document those objections and their frequency and train yourself to overcome them. The first time you try to handle an objection should never be live in a customer conversation.

Here are some resources to help you push past resistance.

• Objection Handling Course

• Objection Handling Worksheet

• Deal Management Channel in Succession

• Prospecting Channel in Succession

4: Deliver Expert Insights

The best sales reps understand their customer’s challenges better than they do. They can take the 100s of conversations they’ve had and synthesize the most common challenges and solutions they’ve seen work. They're also up to date on the latest trends in the industry. By combining these insights together, they can share expert opinions on what the prospect should be doing to reach their desired objectives. They become an expert resource for their prospects and customers.

Here are some resources to help you deliver insights more effectively.

• Presenting with Personality Workshop

• Selling Like a Scientist Workshop

• Magnetic Messaging Course

5: Align Solutions to High Priority Initiatives

In today’s market, budgets are tight. This means customers aren’t spending money on exploratory experiments. Their budget is being allocated to only the high-priority business initiatives that have the best chance of helping the company reach its next milestone. During your discovery conversation it’s imperative that you uncover important and urgent problems, uncover the root cause of why those problems occur, and what the impact to the business is if they go unsolved. Then you can align your solution to solving the problem they care most about. This is arguably the most important part of the entire sales process.

Here are some resources to help you run more effective discovery calls.

• Mastering Technical Sales Discovery Course

• Winning Competitive Deals Course

• Effective Discovery Workshop

• 60 Sales Discovery Questions

• Discovery Call Guide

• Deal Management Channel in Succession

6: Demonstrate Differentiated Value

During the sales process, you must show how you are different from the status quo (what they are doing today) and the competition. There is an important distinction between differentiated features/capabilities and differentiated value. Differentiated capabilities are things that you do that the competition does not. However, the customer doesn’t care about this if, in the end, they receive the same value/outcome. The best way to differentiate yourself is to show how you can uniquely deliver value or an outcome nobody else can. The first step is to know what your differentiated value is.

Here are a few resources to help you figure that out.

• Positioning and Messaging Worksheet

• Mastering Technical Sales Discovery Course

• Winning Competitive Deals Course

7: Tell Stories with Data

"No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story." - Daniel Kahneman. Daniel Kahneman was best known for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize. Most sales reps think that the data will sell itself. But decision making science tells us this is false. People make decisions emotionally and then try to justify them with logic (yes, even scientists). Stories are one of the best ways to transfer emotion. So if you're sharing a case study or presenting data, make sure you're telling a story so that your current audience can feel themselves as a part of that journey.

Here are some resources to help you tell better stories with data.

• Storytelling in Sales Workshop

• Case Study Framework

• Frameworks for telling stories with data with Ben McLeod

• Presenting with Personality Workshop

8: Build Decision Consensus

There are an average of 7 people involved in every buying decision. Obviously, this varies based on deal complexity but I guarantee more people are involved than you think. 78% of opportunities sales reps work, only have ONE point of contact. That means in almost every deal, we’re only talking to one person and there are 6 others behind the scenes influencing that deal. The best reps multi-thread to create multiple 1:1 relationships with different people involved in the buying process. They leverage those connections to create champions. Then they arm those champions with a business case to sell on their behalf when they can’t be in the room. This is how the best reps create decision consensus to drive deals to close.

Here are a few resources to show you how to do this.

• The Science of Closing Course

• Business Case Template

• Driving to Close Skill-Up Sessions

• Key Account Growth Strategies Course

• Deal Management Channel in Succession

9: Employ Resourceful Negotiation Tactics

Negotiations aren’t something you do right at the end of a deal. Negotiating starts right from the first conversation. A mistake a lot of reps make is thinking price is the only lever for negotiation. The tops reps know that there are dozens of other levers they can pull to get someone to make a purchasing decision. The trick is knowing what levers to pull and what the buyer cares most about.

Here are a few negotiation resources that will help you keep a higher average sales price.

• Negotiation Workshop

• How to Bring Up Pricing

• The Science of Closing Course

• Deal Management Channel in Succession

10: Leverage AI for Enhanced Productivity

The average rep only spends 20% of their time actually selling. This is because of all the admin tasks reps are forced to do that take them away from being in front of customers. AI is changing the game for the top reps. They’re able to use AI to save hours of non-selling time so they can spend more time prospecting and in front of their customers. You don’t have to be an AI expert or up to date on the latest and greatest techniques. We have a bunch of resources and live calls set up so you can plug and play into you existing sales process.

Here are a few of them.

• AI Channel In Succession

• Impact of AI in Sales Workshop

• AI Skill-Up Sessions

Conclusion

These are the skills that separate the top reps from the rest. Even if you improve just a little bit in each of these areas, it will have a compounding effect on your overall success.

For less than the cost of a coffee a day you can master life science sales skills to close more deals and make more money.

All it takes is 30 minutes a WEEK of learning and I promise you will look back a few months from now and wonder how you came so far. If you keep telling yourself you “don’t have time”, you will never take action.

With our new membership, there’s literally no excuse to take the next step in your sales career.

Apple Podcast | Spotify | YouTube

Episode 42: [Science] Networking, cold calling, and commercializing with Saleha Patel

• Prospecting to land scientific roles

• Networking is critical for success

• ELRIG events are a great way to network

• Write personalized and relevant outreach

1. Lead Generation: We’ll build target lists, write scientifically relevant messaging, and send messages on your behalf to book qualified sales meetings with biotech and pharma companies.

2. Succession for Reps: A skill development platform for life science sales reps who want to improve their sales skills, exceed their quota, and take the next step in their career.

3. Succession for Teams: If you’re a sales leader who’s frustrated with reps living in reactive mode and either not proactively generating new opportunities or letting prospects go dark, reach out to learn more about our team plans.

4. Strategy Call: Need more than training? Want help implementing and executing your sales strategy? In a 30-minute call, we will assess your company’s current situation and identify growth opportunities.

Special Offer: If you’ve made it this far, you can use the coupon code NEWSLETTER to get 20% off an individual Succession membership.

Recommended Products & Tools: We’ve used every one of these products and can highly recommend them to you. Everything from CRMs to AI tools.

Join SAMPS: A free community of sales and marketing professionals of the sciences. They run in-person events and put on regular webinars packed with great content.