Have you ever tried to explain to someone what you actually do as part of the sales profession? I’m talking about what you do, not what your company does or what your value proposition is, but what YOU do day in and day out as a sales professional?

To be a complete sales professional, your daily activities should be in support of creating customer satisfaction and loyalty. What are these daily activities?

My Ph.D. research analyzed the activities and tasks performed by hundreds of sales professionals. I found that these tasks can be grouped into nine areas. The key to being a complete (i.e. superstar) sales professional is to understand and master the following 9 “Selling Knowledge Areas”:

1. Personal Management – keep your personal life in check. Stay healthy. Set goals, make plans for your future. Keep your finances in order. Find stress-reducers.

2. Business Knowledge Management – If you’re selling to the CFO or the CEO you better understand the business of economics, business transactions, negotiations, and the return they will get on their investment.

3. Product Knowledge Management – We all get trained on this and the key is to understand the product(s) being sold, how to position the product(s), and how to imbed the product(s) into the buying organization. Unfortunately, many companies only train their sales professionals on this one knowledge area when they should be training on all nine.

4. Selling Skills Management -- The best Sales Professionals seek out continuous comprehensive training and education to support their sales process. You should also be able to initiate, plan, and execute a sales process in order for your product or service to be assimilated into the buying organization. There are many systems out there to choose from.