When it comes to sales and marketing, there are hundreds of things outside your control. Ranging from the mood of your prospect to their preferences, competitor strategy, and market trends, there are several things you can be stressing about all day.
But that won’t get you anywhere in sales or marketing.
The top 1% of sales and marketing professionals don’t worry about what’s outside their control. Instead, they focus only on what they can control, like developing the necessary skills to thrive in today’s market.
7 Important Skills to Include in Sales & Marketing Resume
Now, several online certification courses can help you upskill. But choosing the right certificate in sales and marketing is critical. Before you get to the part of choosing a credible certificate in sales and marketing, check out these must-have skills to dominate your competition.
Also Read : How are Marketing and Sales Inter-related?
1. Relationship Building is the Whole Point
The whole point of sales and marketing is to positively engage with people, build long-term relationships, and form mutually beneficial networks.
Well, not exactly, the whole point of sales and marketing is revenue, profit, and growth of the organisation. But, relationship building is the key.
From meeting clients, gathering referrals to soliciting advice, relationship-building skills can help you accomplish tasks easier and make better-informed decisions. It involves building trust, rapport, and a genuine desire to help other people.
2. Knowing When To Shut Up is Important
That’s right; the important facet of sales and marketing is listening. Get to know your customers’ pain points and how effectively you can provide solutions for their challenges. Without listening skills, you’ll be unable to interact with the customer. Think about it, what will be the basis of your conversation? How will you acquire leads and provide them with solutions?
By way of group discussions, collaboration activities, and real-life scenarios, a certificate in sales and marketing can help you build prowess in the entire process of sales and marketing, not just the relationship building or “knowing when to shut up” facet.
3. Storytelling is the Base of Sales & Marketing
Selling and marketing not only require featuring your product or service anymore; it requires a message or story that can tell customers how the product or service will solve their problems or benefits them in a significant way.
A lack of baseline storytelling skills is a glaring red flag for any aspiring or established sales and marketing professional looking to thrive in this domain. By leveraging the engaging and comprehensive curriculum of IIM Kozhikode marketing course online, you can learn how to convey a message effectively to your audience.
Also Read : Delve into the Roles and Responsibilities of a Sales and Marketing Team
4. Critical Thinking/Problem Solving All the Way
Ranging from customer behaviour, demographical challenges, and engagement clicks, data can help you solve a number of sales and marketing challenges. However, having an ocean of data doesn’t suffice or get you anywhere. You still need critical thinking skills to evaluate information, analyse unstructured data, and sift through the heap for relevant information that can help you formulate solutions.
If you are looking for a more focused approach to marketing and brand management, you can enrol for the online program offered by MICA on the Talentedge platform. The marketing and brand management program from MICA caters to the upskilling needs of aspiring marketing professionals by providing quality education at affordable costs.
5. Not Just Listening, Active Listening
This is an extension to the “knowing when to shut up” point mentioned above. There are distinct levels of listening, but you need to operate full blast when it comes to your customers. In sales, active listening requires focus and occasional follow-ups.
These allow you to not only gain complete and clear information from your customers but also helps you build rapport and demonstrate that your organisation cares about their concerns.
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6. Data Analytics is the Key to Unlocking the Digital Space
Sales and marketing go hand in hand. The latter entices the customer and allows a safe passage to the product, and the former takes the lead and ensures that the customer is buying or rendering the product/service.
This enticing, leading, and conversion generate customer data. Data-driven sales and marketing have become an essential component of business growth. And this data can help curate better sales strategy and effective marketing campaigns. So data analytics is another one of the essential skills you must possess.
7. Conflict Management & Resolution? Why?
Since the dawn of social media, customers have access to a plethora of online forums to express their views and lodge their complaints if any. So, being in sales or marketing, you must know how to encounter regular episodes of conflicts and complaints.
And since these rejections or complaints can occur at any time, you must also be prepared and have hands-on experience to manage these conflicts proactively.
This is where a certificate in sales and marketing can come in handy. IIM Kozhikode is offering one such online course that can help you. By providing hands-on exposure in every single facet of sales and marketing, IIM Kozhikode marketing course online is a holy grail for professionals aspiring to thrive in this domain.
Also Read : The Undeniable Role of Advertising in Brand Management
What’s Ahead of Financial Management?
This is not an all-inclusive list of skills. However, it’s enough to get you started. Last but not least, another facet of sales and marketing that must be upskilled in is financial management. There are numerous benefits of financial management in sales, marketing and advertising. It provides funds for the right campaign at the right time, helps keep marketers under budget, and adds financial acumen to creativity.
To gain in-depth knowledge about this and every other facet of sales, marketing, and brand management, consider enrolling for a credible certificate in sales and marketing. One such online course you can rely on is the IIM Kozhikode marketing course online. Offered on the Talentedge platform, this course allows seamless collaboration between sales and marketing functions, delivering superior customer value.
Also Read : What are the Skills that Upcoming Brand Managers Need to Develop
Bottom Line
Whether you are a sales and marketing executive, a working professional, or a manager, the IIM Kozhikode marketing course online can help you understand the foundations of marketing and enhance your ability to connect with the sales team or vice-versa.
So what are you waiting for? Scout the Talentedge website for the IIM Kozhikode marketing course, enrol yourself, and make your way towards a thriving career in sales and marketing.
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