Surprisingly, I run across a lot of sales people who don’t invest in their own development.  They say, “I’ve been through all the training programs, I can’t learn anything new,”  “I’m an experienced and successful (??) sales person, why do I need to learn anything new?”  Frankly, I don’t waste a lot of my time [...]

Ask any business owner to sales professional how busy they are and you will receive usually in great detail what is happening in their corner of the world.  From non-communicative potential customers (a.k.a. prospects) to demanding sales managers to all those other family and friend commitments, the average sales person does appear to have a [...]

One of the most enduring and dangerous myths in business is the myth of the natural salesman. The guy who could sell anything to anyone.

The problem is not that such a person doesn’t exist – if he does, I’d love to meet him (or her). Instead, the problem is that those of us who don’t see ourselves as naturals assume we can’t make it in sales. And because we assume we can’t make it, we don’t try. We don’t practice, we don’t learn, and we certainly don’t expose ourselves to sales situations where we’re inevitably going to fail.

My 16 years in consulting and training, and my years in business beforehand, have taught me that any skill can be learned. I’ve seen accountants who could barely speak in public become highly professional presenters. I’ve seen business owners who struggled to read their bank statements become skilled at understanding complex financial analyses. And I’ve seen nervous lawyers learn how to network confidently and effectively.

What all these skills require in order to become proficient is practice.

Not just any practice – but goal directed practice with feedback. And lots of it.

According to Anders Ericsson, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University; it takes around 10,000 hours of deliberate praciice to become truly proficient at a skill.

When it comes to selling skills, practice can partially be done in the classroom through role playing. But it primarily needs to be done in the real world. People who want to get better at selling need to sell (or at least to try). And that means they are going to experience rejection and failure. Time and time again.

One of the primary reasons there are so few really expert salespeople is that it’s actually really painful to develop the skills needed. Golfers, tennis players, spreadsheet experts and professional presenters all have the luxury of being able to practice in private and get feedback from trusted coaches & advisors. Salespeople learn in public and largely get feedback by being rejected by clients.

What kind of mad person would put themselves through that? Only the truly dedicated.

And that, to me, is the difference that makes the difference. The dedication to put in the work, to put up with the rejection, to do the learning, to keep coming back and eventually, to get better and better.

Expert salespeople aren’t born. They make themselves. And they have my utmost respect.

Popularity: 13% [?]

In a world where we are seemingly trying to differentiate ourselves from the competition, perhaps one of the lessons we are learning in these current times is to get back to basics. I’m talking about being better human beings and connecting with our clients, making their lives better and solving the issues that they are faced with. Is that any different to the next sales guy down the road if they have that same attitude? No, does it matter. No.

Are you in competition with other people. Yes, sure you are, in so far as it should drive you to be continuously strive for improvement and furthering yourself, but in reality if you are so totally focused on what other people are doing then you are losing sight of the real objective. To highlight this, let me tell you a very real story… you may have heard it, it’s about a bank who cleverly marketed a product that so attracted it’s customers in being so different that it was highly sought after. Other banks became jealous and in striving to outdo the other marketed ever more attractive different and complex offerings to it’s customers until both they and their customers didn’t have the first idea what they were selling and buying. And of course we now realise that these very attractive products weren’t at all good for us at all – part of the problem was that banks were pre-occupied with being different and interesting, rather than actually asking a very important question “Is this product going to help my customer?”.

Supposing you are selling the exact same product to another company. What is the ‘difference that makes the difference’ that makes one person buy from you over that of the other? You. You are the difference.

Even where you have a product offering that is uniquely different, I still think that the ‘difference that makes the difference’ is you. Problems and solutions are reasons why people buy but a reason isn’t necessarily an emotion. Emotion is strongly linked with what makes people buy a particular product from a particular person and that emotion is formed not by the product but the person.

Do you have to be different? No, you just have to be yourself, to be truthful, listen, ask questions, solve problems, enquire. If the sales person down the road is doing the same – great! Good for them and for you. There really aren’t enough great sales people. You have nothing to fear from them. If they aren’t great – good for you also. In each case you should just be concentrating on your own performance and not get side tracked by other issues.

Popularity: 10% [?]

I’ve worked with thousands of salespeople in my career, first as a salesperson, then as a sales manager, then as a training manager, and now as the owner of my own sales training firm. Like most people in our industry, I’ve seen and worked with wildly successful salespeople, and also major failures. What makes the difference between a successful sales career and an unsuccessful sales career?

The truth is, there isn’t one factor, or trait, or skill set that will set you apart from all the others in your company or your industry. There’s a combination of qualities that, when combined, will yield exceptional sales results. I call this group of traits the “12 Qualities of a Wildly Successful Salesperson.”

While a discussion of all twelve isn’t appropriate in one blog article, we can do a nice job of discussing the first quality of the twelve: “A Burning Desire to Make Sales.”

The following are ten sales candidates with ten different secret points-of-view, along with accompanying strengths. Let’s imagine they’ve all applied for a sales position with your company, Mr. or Ms. Sales Manager. Read over the brief descriptions and decide which one you would hire.

I suggest you hire the first one:

Sales Candidate #1: Melissa is always looking for sources of revenue. She loves the thrill of closing the deal, and doesn’t feel complete unless she experiences that thrill on a very regular basis. She plays well with others, but knows when to break away. She follows the rules unless they stand in the way of a sale. She likes her customers but can put them in her place. She is driven by the desire to make sales happen.

Sales Candidate #2: Josie loves to be part of a group. She loved her last job where she and her seven colleagues would get together for potluck lunches and go out after work. She’s a joiner. Her motto? If I have to spend this much time at work, I want to have fun and enjoy the people I work with.” Josie is driven by relationships with coworkers and the feelings they create.

Sales Candidate #3: Martin is passionate about his product. He was a customer before he became a salesperson. He loves widgets. He’s sold them for 15 years now, and knows as much about widgets as just about anybody does. He knows all the product details, history, and information that other salespeople, and sometimes customers, look for. He’s driven by accumulating product and technical knowledge and sharing it with others.

Sales Candidate #4: Lexi is a helper. Lexi loves to be helpful, both to her coworkers and her customers. She’ll go out of her way to assist someone in need. “Compassion” is her middle name, and she shows it not only with her words, but also with her actions. She’ll spend her own time, and sometimes her own money, to solve a problem for a customer. She believes she was put on this earth to be helpful, and she lives this belief every day.

Sales Candidate #5: David is a great follower. If you need something done, you can ask David to do it knowing that it will be completed correctly and on time. He follows up on all sales and non-sales issues as appropriate. His talent is taking direction, and manager’s love him. He is reliable and steady, and does what he says he’s going to do. David is driven by making his manager happy.

Sales Candidate #6: Lenny loves people. He lights up a room with his charisma, good looks, and smile. You can often hear him laughing in the company’s facility, in the distance and often. He likes positive environments, loves people, and almost always has a positive take on things. He has a joyful outlook on life, and is happy to be here…or anywhere! Lenny derives great energy from being around others and prefers being around people to just about anything else. He’s always on the phone, out for lunch, or with someone. Lenny is driven to have contact with others.

Sales Candidate #7: Patty has a great sense of humor. Patty is a jokester who can’t pass up an opportunity to pull a prank, tell a joke, or make a sarcastic comment underneath her breath. She’s the life of the party, always seeking attention and usually getting it. People love her natural style, and she seems very comfortable in her body. Patty believes few situations can’t be made better with a little humor mixed in.

Sales Candidate #8: Lynn is the most organized salesperson in her current company. Lynn has the cleanest desk in the world. She’s created her own filing system and task lists. She knows where everything is and gets frustrated if someone comes in and screws up her system. She’s methodical and practical. She needs structure to get her job done. She’s driven by achieving order.

Sales Candidate #9: Liz has the traits of your company’s customer. Your company sells high end widgets to female consumers, and she’s purchased lots of widgets herself. Her husband is an executive in a well-paying job, and she spends her time with the right crowd. Money isn’t usually an object for her, so she thought it would be fun to sell widgets since she buys them all the time anyway. Liz is driven by owning widgets, just like your customers are.

Sales Candidate #10: Reese is a big talker. She always has a story to tell about a big sale she made or a deal in the works. She knows all the other competitors and knows who works where and why they left or why they hired every employee. She has her finger on the pulse of the industry, and she talks about everybody. Reese is driven by the attention she receives from knowing inside information.

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The truth is: any one of these candidates might make a fantastic salesperson. But, based upon the limited information provided about each one, I would be most excited about interviewing the first candidate, Melissa. Many other negative traits can be overcome, but if a salesperson doesn’t possess a core-level desire to make sales, other things will always come first, and sales will come second, and that’s not good.

If you want selling to come first in your sales in themployees, hire salespeople who put selling first. It’s who they are. It’s part of their DNA. Almost all top performers in athletics, business, and entertainment are there because of their burning passion and desire to make it bigeir chosen field. Selling is no different.

Burning desire is the difference that makes the difference in achieving selling success.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Everyone wants to differentiate themselves in the eyes of buyers. Yet they often pick the most conventional, beige, bland and predictable ways of demonstrating it. They pick the latest fads or are forced to do something that once worked, 15 years ago, for their manager and is now labelled as a “methodology”.

There are some great suggestions out there, for example sending hand written notes to prospects and clients as a means of standing out in the digital age. Another maybe connecting with all your prospects and clients on LinkedIn. There so many great things one can do, but I think the real differentiator is not what you do, but how consistently you do it.

What happens with a lot of these initiatives, is sales people see an idea or a practice, they say “Wow, I’m gonna do that and make some more money.”  For the next two three weeks or so they stick with it, then the newness fades, it’s another thing to do, it becomes work, and they stop doing it.  What also fades along with the new habit, is the enthusiasm you had, the spark that something new brings, and the way you look at your work, customers, and selling.

So while you try something new every couple of months, your customers see another sales rep who moves from one trend to another, and just as he is getting hand written thank you cards from everyone all of a sudden, they all or most seem to stop at the same time.  The one that gets noticed as being different is the one that sticks with it.

So if you want to be different focus on two things.   The first is to be selective and thoughtful about the things you do that are visible to the buyer or impacts them.  While shock and awe have their place in sales, their impact is temporary, like a sugar high, clients will not remember or take into account at the time of decision.  However something as mundane as a pre-planned call schedule for the year, say a regiment of calling your top 20 clients at least once every six weeks, and then actually sticking with it and not using everyday things that should be anticipated as an excuse as to why it didn’t get done, gets noticed.  The goal is to have buyers say “Now, I don’t see others do it like that”.

Second, once you have selected these things, the real differentiator comes by sticking with it, do it as planned consistently and across the board.  Again, I want to stress, this is not doing things for the sake of doing them, they should add to the sale, but if you focus on the right things and keep doing them, you will be seen as different.  As you may have read in my other postings I have a clearly laid out contact strategy for prospects; a combination of touch-points that include e-mail, calls, voice mail, and now a few other medium for messaging prospects.  Based on predetermined rules and factor, they get a regularly scheduled contact from Renbor in the process of nurturing.  I regularly get feedback that one of the reasons I finally get the appointment and subsequent deal, is that I was consistent, respected the buyers timeline, but did go away like my competitors; not only do clients like that, they want their teams doing that.

If you start a blog or other interaction with the market, stick with it.  I see a lot of people start a blog, at first posting a couple of times a week, once a month, every six weeks, last May,…  So what ever it is you are going to do, the real difference is are you going to do it consistently and long enough to matter to the buyer.

Popularity: 11% [?]