A recent report shared by salesforce reviewed what some of the challenges are for SME business growth. Though the lack of a great CRM system was a glaring gap (a great opportunity for many of you reading this) another important challenge was the lack of great sales people. A successful sales person is ‘worth their weight in gold’, they can be the difference between a terrible and great year for many organisations.
Considering this, what are the attributes of a great sales person? Whether that’s what to look out for during the interview process or the habits to cultivate if you want to be at the top of the sales leader board.
1. They are driven by their own goals
Might sound trite and obvious and yet the clue is in one word; their goals.
They know that to be successful in business you must have something to aim for and blast through, none of this slowing down because a target is about to be hit.
I was chatting with a friend recently in a totally unrelated industry to recruitment. They had two new sales people in two different offices. Both had a telephone calling KPI (Key Performance Indicator) of 100 calls a week.
One individual consistently hit 102, 105, 108, etc., etc.
The other 160, 210, 187. Same target customer group, same geography.
Interesting don’t you think? I won’t bore you with the obvious. Which one do you think was more successful?
As human beings, we are set up to have goals. We consciously and subconsciously are wired to be success seeking creatures. If studying success habits has interest for you, look at a classic book by Maxwell Maltz the New York Times bestselling author. His study on self-image and success called Psych-Cybernetics is a classic that is well worth adding to your book collection.
2. They have a positive attitude
How many miserable sales people have you bought from? Not too many I suspect unless it was a necessity purchase. Let’s look at it another way, who has been persuaded to get the super deluxe version of an intended purchase by the upbeat likeable sales person that couldn’t do enough for you? Many of us I suspect.
No matter which way you look at it, positivity is infectious and weird though it might seem, positive people, seem to attract more positive events and circumstance into their life.
3. They make themselves important and look after the mind body connection
Maybe it’s the innate drive and determination that makes a difference? Something we have noticed consistently is that super sales people look after themselves.
They look after their health and wellbeing. They eat well and exercise regularly. They look the part and take pride in what they wear and what they do.
I know that wellbeing is all the rage currently and rightly so. Meditation, good diet and relaxation are all the traits of successful sales people everywhere.
A high performing ‘machine’ needs due care and attention; doesn’t it?
4. They are always learning
In a previous post about blogs to read we made the comment that every day is a school day.
And it is.
The world is changing constantly. If you aren’t learning and moving forward by definition, you are moving backwards, and others are overtaking you.
Selling has changed.
Though the basic principles of providing a solution to a client’s problem wins business, the internet has changed the customer’s access to data. The consequence of this means explaining a few features of your offer, and the corresponding benefits won’t cut it anymore.
If you as an individual aren’t prepared for this, you will suffer.
The good news is though selling and sales have changed, there are many resources available to upskill and be ready for the challenges ahead.
Great sales people know this. You will catch them listening to a great sales podcast or reading a Kindle on different sales strategies in their break or signing up for a webinar in the evening that might give them the edge. As Stephen Covey would say, they are always sharpening their own saw.
5. They embrace technology
Historically sales people have been criticised as being bad planners and terrible at admin. In honesty that has never been my experience and in today’s world most certainly not.
The sales stars of yesteryear had note cards and a rolodex and still managed to pull off great deals.
In 2017, they have access to their smart phone, inbound lead generation systems and CRM platforms that almost do the selling for them.
They embrace the opportunity our online world brings.
Great sales people develop expertise in the hardware and software that is available to excel at what they do.
Do yours?
Resource On Demand (ROD) is Europe’s first specialist Salesforce Recruitment Agency. They were founded in 2007 and are highly respected across the entire Salesforce ecosystem. Their specialist areas of recruitment include; Salesforce (SFDC); digital marketing and marketing automation technologies, which include Eloqua, Marketo, ExactTarget and Pardot; Human Capital Management (HCM) technologies such as Workday and SAP HCM and SuccessFactors.
For more information contact ROD on rod@resourceondemand.com or on 020 8123 7769.