Selling Skills for HR professionals

How important is the role of selling skills of an employee in making an effective business presentation? Do we need all our employees to have selling and marketing skills? Does HR need to have good selling skills?

If you are an HR professional and you suggest your line manager about having a workshop for its front line production people about selling, chances are you will be labeled as nuts. On the other hand if HR were to undergo a same kind of training skill do you think it will make any difference in its ability to sell this idea to your Line manager?

One of the things which we safely assume about marketing is that people in technical or HR roles need not have the same set of selling skills which people in sales teams have, but the truth is that as an internal partner HR also has to hard sell its concept, ideas, suggestions as effectively as a typical sales team. As an HR guy who has some experience in concept selling I sometimes feel that HR needs that attitude, vision and aggression in terms of selling itself.

Few reasons why I feel that this approach will help HR do few things very effectively in the days to come.

Technology is playing a very crucial role in HR operations today, most of the typical maintenance and routine process driven work is based on the technology we are using.

Regular recordkeeping are already being outsourced.

HR will effectively play a key role in coming up with effective solutions to attract, retain, motivate, upgrade and nurture talent for effective talent management.

It will need to ensure that HR technical competencies are effectively used for the purpose of aligning with the overall organizations strategy and vision.

It should be ahead of its competitors in coming up with innovative products (ideas, solutions) which will make it a great place to work.

It will need to hard sell its concepts and ideas more effectively with its business partners for creating niche role.

Training is another area in which convincing the top management about imparting input based on future roles is hard to convince.

On of the things which sales skill helps you understand is end user perspective about the concept or product you are trying to sell. This gives you a great insight about functional and qualitative approach towards such prospective solutions. Although HR may not have apparent market competitors or targets as sales has, but in some roles like recruiting and training, we already have predefined no/targets to achieve. With the usage of metrics and scorecards its actions and results are also being monitored and mapped.I’m sure selling skill is one such competency which will effectively help all professional compete more effectively and aggressively in the days to come.