Thankfully, when I started my career, I was able to benefit from mentors that taught me how to apply the essential skills – communication and product knowledge. I’m not discounting the importance of proper sales/customer service techniques, purposeful use of technology and the analysis of KPIs. It’s difficult, however, to do that if you don’t know your product thoroughly and can’t get customers to open up and share what they think and feel. Regardless of the situation, reliance on these techniques gives me the ability to smoothly create an open dialogue and solve problems or create sales. Over the years, I have openly shared these techniques with those I have supervised and mentored.Throughout my career, I’ve been able to achieve sales goals, increase employee retention and reduce cancellation of sales. I've done that by using the human qualities that allow people to succeed in environments that require customer interaction – whether that’s face-to-face, or via telephone or email.