Many people think that to be good at sales you need to have “the gift of gab”, i.e. be able to talk and present well; generally be affable.  This is important but I realized a while back that even more important was the ability to be a great listener.   As my boss, Brian Halligan so succinctly put it “we have two ears and one mouth for a reason.”  However, I learned a couple weeks ago that even great listening skills is not what separates average sales people from great sales people.  The key is asking the right questions to lead the conversation where you want it to go.  And this is the skill I’ve been working on with my coach, Rick Roberge, the last couple weeks.

A few weeks ago I decided to get formal sales training as my role in Business Development calls on sales skills as often as it does marketing and product skills.  My coach, Rick Roberge, is prolific in the sales training arena and has trained several people I respect – Pete Caputa, Jeetu Mahtani and, at least implicitly, HubSpot’s own Sales SVP and Rick's son, Mark Roberge.

One of the best ways to grow as a professional is to get direct feedback, rather than indirect feedback via surveys or infrequent performance reviews.  However, asking for feedback can be awkward.  I mean, it’s not a common phrase in daily conversation to go up to someone and say “Hi, I’d like to get some feedback on my presentation back there.”