73 Examples of Sales Skills

John Spacey, April 29, 2020

Sales skills are talents, knowledge and character traits that allow an individual to perform in a sales role including sales, sales planning and sales management. These are mostly communication, social, negotiation, technology skills and knowledge related to sales processes, techniques and practices. The following are common sales skills.

Assertiveness	Building Rapport
Business Writing	Candor
Client Engagement	Closing
Coaching	Collaboration
Complex Sales	Conflict Resolution
Contracts	Critical Thinking
Cultural Capital	Customer Relationship Management
Customer Service	Customer Success
Dealing With Criticism	Demos
Direct Language	Emotional Intelligence
Empathy	Formal Communication
Hard Selling	Influencing
Informal Communication	Interpersonal Skills
Languages	Lead Qualification
Learning	Listening
Marketing	Media Skills
Metrics & Reporting	Needs Identification
Negotiation	Non-verbal Communication
Objection Handling	Performance Management
Personal Presence	Plain Language
Presales	Presentation Skills
Problem Solving	Product Knowledge
Professionalism	Promotion
Prospecting	Public Speaking
Relational Capital	Relationship Building
Relationship Management	Research
Sales & Operations Planning	Sales Compliance
Sales Force Automation	Sales Management
Sales Planning	Sales Presentations
Sales Process	Sales Proposals
Selling	Social Intelligence
Social Media	Soft Selling
Solution Selling	Storytelling
Team Development	Technology Skills
Time Management	Training
Verbal Communication	Visual Communication
Win-win Thinking

Notes

Cultural capital is the ability to influence in the context of a culture. For example, investment banking experience that allows you to sell to traders.

Relational capital is the value of your current business relationships. For example, a salesperson who knows a large number of people in a particular industry.