I am Janine Clarice Yap, 26 years old and from the Philippines. I am currently a Team Lead in Roots Canada and a Game Facilitator in Enigma Escape Room.

I graduated during the pandemic which is the year 2020, and I have a bachelor's degree in Business Administration majoring in Entrepreneurship from Ateneo de Zamboanga University.

I had one year of sales experience and one year in retail banking in the Philippines before I moved here to Canada to study.

A little something about me... I love to sing even tho I don't have a nice voice, I love to dance even tho I'm not good at dancing. But I am an athletic person and I love sports. I was a swimmer at the university I graduated from, I like hiking in the mountains and I love going to the beaches.

Skills that I have are:

1. I am an organized person

2. I am a very punctual person

3. I can manage my time.

My dream job is in line with the courses I took in the Philippines and here in Canada. I want to become a sales entrepreneur because I just realized that I don't want to settle in the corporate world. I want to have something that I can call mine and I know I can grow as an individual as well.

Communication is the root of success because it is the ability to gather and provide information in a way that makes your prospect want to do business with you.

Here are some communication skills that are crucial to sales success:

1. Pay Full Attention - is being focused and making sure that you are fully engaged with the conversation. It is about being present and responsive to whatever topic and conversation you're having.

2. Being Empathetic - you don't necessarily need to agree with everything your prospect is saying, but you should at least try to see things from their point of view.

3. Speak in Specifics - great communications are not persuasive because they speak dramatic, sweeping rhetoric. They're able to convince people because they can point to specific examples or anecdotes that support the point they're trying to make.

https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/communication-skills-sales

The term is not quantified by metrics. Instead, sales leaders use descriptors such as "supportive, competitive, and democratic" to qualitatively summarize a company's sales value.

Maintaining a healthy workplace culture contributes to employee well-being and reduces stress. Undue stress at work can lead to negative consequences for your employees.

https://www.pipedrive.com/en/blog/sales-culture

Sales is more than just selling to me. What I love about sales also is that I am able to build rapport to my clients and it fulfills me that I am able to cater and satisfy their needs and contribute to their "good day".

https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/active-listening-guide

Business writing takes many forms. It could be an email, a white paper, a case study, or a blog post – practically every possible touchpoint between your business and your customer.

https://www.autoklose.com/business-writing-skills/#:~:text=The%20art%20of%20sales%20involves,Now%E2%80%9D%20and%20seal%20the%20deal.

The message you convey in a sales conversation is 55% body language and nonverbal communication, 38% tone of voice, and only 7% in the words that you use.

1. Your First Impression

   When you meet a prospect for the first time, offer your hand, look the prospect directly in the eye and say, “How do you do?” This initial verbal first impression is like the kickoff in a football game. If it is done properly, it can move you a long way down the field toward the goalposts of a successful sale.

   
   

2. Use Positive Body Language

   Crossed legs can be sending the same message. When a customer’s legs are crossed, it usually is nonverbal communication that means that they are holding back information. If their legs are crossed at the ankle, it means that they are not telling you everything that you need to know.

   
   

   Your prospect will tend to mimic your own body language, so make sure that you are using body language to sell. When you deliberately keep your arms unfolded and your hands open, with your feet flat on the floor, ankles uncrossed, you prospect will often engage in the same body language.

   
   

   When you lean slightly forward, listen attentively to what the prospect is saying, nod, smile, and listen, the prospect will often engage in the same behaviors. He or she will soon begin speaking, asking questions, and listening more attentively as well.

3. Understanding body language is very important, even when you are walking. When you walk, imagine that your head is dangling from a string, holding your entire body erect. You should breathe deeply with your shoulders and your spine straight. Raise your chin and look straight ahead.

   Walk and move with strength and confidence. Pick up the pace. Don’t shuffle along. Move fast, as if you have places to go and people to see. Your overall body language should be one of a busy, active, confident and effective person.

1. Active listening

   Developing active listening skills can help you listen to customers and identify their needs. It involves hearing what a person says, considering the information, and remembering it. Active listening can help you have engaging conversations with potential customers, which may increase the chance they purchase a product or service from you. You can develop this skill by paying attention when another person speaks and thinking about the information they share.

2. Empathy

   Being empathetic in sales can mean you try to see the situation from a potential customer's point of view and understand their unique circumstances. When you show consumers you're interested in their needs by asking questions and discussing their concerns, they may view you as likable, increasing the chance they decide to purchase. Some strategies for practising empathy in sales include validating a consumer's emotions, being vulnerable, and prioritizing the person over the deal.

3. Product or service knowledge

   Regardless of what product or service you're selling, having extensive knowledge about it is crucial to making a sale. For example, before selling a product, you might learn about its features and the competing products on the market. Learning about consumer behaviours, concerns, and buying habits can help you make more sales if you sell in a specific industry. If a customer asks you a question you're unsure how to answer, you may be honest with them and ask a colleague. They're likely to appreciate your honesty and feel confident that you have their best interests.

There are a lot of strategies and skills to consider when conducting sales and below are some of them:

1. Growth Mindset

   • This helps sales professionals fine-tune their efforts to achieve continuous success. Professionals with this kind of mindset believe in strengthening their natural talents and developing new abilities over time.

2. Adaptability

   • Changing customer expectations, increasing competition, lower margins, and administrative tasks take a toll on sales performance. therefore, sales professionals who embrace continuous adaptability see consistent improvement in their professional growth.

3. Empathy

   • Improving customer experience by understanding user requirements, aligning with their challenges, and articulating potential solutions. Having empathy helps differentiate when and how to put forth a point by understanding customers' emotional, financial, and psychological needs.

4. Communication

   • Communication is a two-way street. Therefore, aside from effective language skills, sales professionals should also possess effective listening and observational skills to identify unseen challenges.

5. Confidence

   • This enables sales professionals to ensure a product or service's value to potential customers. It is developed through experiences, receptivity to learning, knowledge about services and products, trust in the brand and determination.

To sum up, building these relationships’ abilities and tactics can complement your communications in sales a great deal. Please, use them regularly to increase the level of relationship as well as the selected sales figures.

In my own experience for the interview, my manager would ask me about my past experiences and how to overcome situations under pressure.

I have learned that the job expectations here in Canada are different from my hometown because, in the Philippines, it was easier for me because of the connections I and my family have. While being here in this foreign country, I have to start from zero because I don't know anyone here in Toronto.

It was a tough experience because getting a job here is not easy. But, I still nailed my interview. Maybe because I showed confidence and determination in my interview and gave assurances that I could get the job done.

I used to be a sales associate but I recently got promoted to team lead and it makes me proud of myself because I did it all by myself and believe that I can do it.

My personal information is added for the employer to call me back and my background is also added for the employer to know my experiences.

Hence, the focus is on leadership and work groups to accomplish goals that cannot be realized through individual effort. Leadership results in trust and patience and it also helps the teams to face all the dreadful events. At the same time, workforce coordination happens when teams can combine their different skills as well as talent to solve such complications. This co-creation does not only improve organizational efficiency, it also maintains the staff’s tenacity, motivation, and identity, which makes it a priority when it comes to long-term organizational sustainability.

Key Elements

• Collaboration in Leadership

  It was observed that leadership can be meaningfully distributed across people instead of being vested in one person.

• Building Trust

  Transformational goal setting increases top-down trust, safety, and better relationships amongst the team.

• Empowering Others

  Managers who embrace an intuitive perspective of leadership foster chances of leadership development for other personnel.

Strategies for Effective Teamwork

• Promote Open Communication

  Make an active listening culture and establish member feedback and open-door policies, so that a culture of check-and-balance and accurate information sharing using weekly reviews and briefings prevails.

• Provide Supportive Leadership

  Lead the team in the right way while maintaining close supervision and management and support decision-making by team members within their positions.

• Celebrating Successes and Recognize Efforts

  Reinforce and recognize accomplishment to increase engagement and commitment and properly reward accomplishment and progress to sustain passion.

Sharing experience with your peers is important, but recognizing where they can best help you improve is even more important. According to Steven Benson, founder, and CEO of Badger Maps, his company benefited from one self-initiated cross-training session which increased both teamwork and productivity.

“An example of successful teamwork at our company was when the customer relations department put together an initiative of cross-training and specializing team members for different roles. After deciding who would focus on what, the group sat down and taught one another what they would need to become expert in their respective area. Because people were cross-trained, they. Had a broader set of skills they could use to handle customer interaction – which resulted in fewer hand-offs. This not only enhanced teamwork and productivity, but also improved customer satisfaction. Everyone worked as a team and covered for one another, which made everything move smoothly and quickly.”

It can be stated that leadership and teamwork can be regarded as a critical forces to organizational success. Leadership inhibits directional setting, confidence building, and enablement of individuals while teamwork offers the process through which individuals blend their talents to achieve the same objectives. Altogether, it forms a culture of togetherness, change advancement, and adaptability. The discussed strategies include encouraging members to share information, fostering supportive supervision, and rewarding performance; The mentioned approaches enhance the linkage between people within teams and use it in getting work done.

What I found interesting is that this isn’t just limited to people in the digital marketing field, but is applicable to anyone.

Same way, it is informative to just congregate a sizable number of people in a meeting – physical or virtual – and cross your fingers for the best to happen! As far as the organization of meetings is concerned we have conducted a lot of research here in the Digital Marketing Institute to understand how meetings work or what could be the most effective way to conduct them.

We’ve done a lot of research at the Digital Marketing Institute into how meetings work and the best way to run them.

Let’s look at someways to help you run an effective meeting:

1. Set Clear Agenda

   Send an agenda before the meeting so people know what to expect and if they need to prepare any information or do some research. An agenda helps to steer the meeting back on track if it’s going off on a tangent or breaking into smaller discussions.

2. Know your Desired Outcomes

   Be clear on what you want and work through the meeting to make sure you get outcomes from it. The last few minutes of the meeting should be used to go through the next steps and assign people to undertake them. It helps you lay down a clear action plan everyone is aware of. 

3. Prepare Talking Points

   If you’re leading a meeting that requires ideas or brainstorming, bring key talking points to the table. These will be directed by the project and outcomes but can act as a crib sheet during the meeting if you find things are getting off-subject.

   This technique may give you lots of answers, but it gives you a chance to see if there’s a consensus in the room that you can use to feed into other campaigns or drive performance.

4. Give Everyone a Chance to Speak

   Be mindful of who is at the meeting and let people speak. Remember that everyone is different. Some people are more vocal whereas others may need prodding to give opinions. Take the lead and ask questions of team members if you feel they haven’t had a chance to contribute. 

5. Encourage Ideas and Solutions

   By asking people to do this in advance you’ve given them time to prepare and not be caught off guard. It will also allow people less inclined to speak up an opportunity to have their say.