Know your product. Knowing the products and services is a distinguishing factor between those sales professionals who do well and those who do great. Most customers will trust a sales person more when he can demonstrate his knowledge about his products and services.

Sales is a process. The sales content that is provided must not only match the messaging, it must also align with actual selling tasks performed throughout the sales process. These activities include emails, phone calls, face-to-face conversations, team presentations, and other communications.

Have conversations and not presentations. Instead of giving a run-of-the-mill PowerPoint presentation, grab a marker, a pad and have a conversation with your prospects.

Expand your network. Sales people can never get enough leads. Sales professionals focus on driving new business sales that they never close a conversation without also asking for a new lead or introduction to someone new. This, of course is networking 101, but a lot of sales people are still afraid to ask for an introduction.

Art of listening. A good sales professional knows they have two ears and only one mouth. A sales person obviously needs to know how to present his products and services, but a good sales person also knows when to stop talking and knows how to listen.The best sales people simply know that they are never done with training and that listening and questioning is at the heart of understanding the customer.