2/26/2024-Skills and traits

While many skills are learned by doing, individuals seeking instruction and high-level mastery separate themselves from the competition. Those folks are referred to as the TOP 10%.

You use scores of polished skills and refined traits daily without conscious thinking. (Love when that happens!)

But that’s not a plan that can sustain your career growth, regardless of tenure or smarts.

At some point, you must consciously think about your strengths – and gaps – and work on developing both!

While the difference between skills and traits can sometimes be fuzzy (listening is a skill and a trait), semantics don’t matter much here because your mandate is the same: grow them both.

Today, take out a piece of paper (yes…a physical sheet of paper), and across the top, write down ONE skill you need to improve.

That is…you truly can’t wait another day and operate as you’ve been without investing in that ONE skill.

Next, engage the Google animal in you and power search that skill. Write down buzzwords, phrases, or insights about that skill on your piece of paper.

Good! You’ve created a cheat sheet and are ready to stare at that paper every single day and commit brainpower to improve that ONE skill.

Skills and traits are the lifeblood of sellers. Heck…they’re the lifeblood of every business person, but because selling is so complex and nuanced, the seller’s toolkit must be a bit more robust than the average working stiff. (No offense meant for hard-working non-sellers everywhere.)

What separates all sellers is a combination of skills and determination. There’s no way to calculate a formula for which skill is most important, but here are a few top skills sellers need to focus on:

1. Objection handling. A seller who can’t work through obstacles and objections is not really a seller. OH is the defining skill that separates sellers from every other profession because it marries urgency and healthy confrontation, which illicit action!

2. Communications. If your ears are closed, or you have no ability to listen effectively, you’re doomed. If you can’t present ideas crisply and enthusiastically, you’re doomed. If you can’t engage with humans and make them feel important and heard….yup, you guessed it, you’re doomed.

3. Value. If you have no idea how to talk value with a customer and translate your product’s features into benefits, your phone won’t ring. Owning one’s value proposition means you can – with dexterity – continually frame your conversations in such a way that makes the buyer salivate for your offering.

4. Probing/Qualifying. Pushing to find more and the truth are skills that are learned and activated by a big dose of confidence and preparation. Buyers don’t intentionally withhold info but won’t share unless you know how to unlock the insights you need to provide sellable solutions.

Those four core skills are just the tip of the iceberg. Sure, storytelling, negotiating, "preparation," and others are key to success for sellers. While many skills are learned by doing, individuals seeking instruction and high-level mastery separate themselves from the competition.

Just so you are aware, those folks are called the TOP 10%.

Hormozi is an animal…a sales behemoth animal.

And he’s good with brevity, too, as you’ll see watching this YT short-short.

You gotta watch to hear his punchline message, but it’s worth it.

Hint: it ain’t nothing you don’t know…but hearing it again from a sales behemoth animal will help you execute today’s DO.