- October 19, 2018
- Blog
For long I have been closely observing sales guys who perform and those who don’t. And in sales reviews galore. I bet you would have heard the following from both the good sales guys and the bad ones:
- The product is not up to the mark and customers are unhappy
- The competition is several times better and their price too is lower
- There is no marketing support
- The leads that we have are bad, old, etc.
- The targets are unrealistic
- There is politics in the office that undermines sales
Firms, successful or unsuccessful, big or small, national or international, or cutting across industries such as Engineering, Education, BFSI or IT, have sales team that do talk about any or all of the above.
So the question that I asked myself was: “If sales teams have near similar views about customers, products, pricing, marketing, etc. then what is the REAL difference between successful sales guys and the unsuccessful ones?”
This question led me to dissect the mental make-up of the successful ones and the unsuccessful ones. Here is what I understood. The good ones:
- Believed that even if the product, price, marketing support, etc. was lacking, they could still sell. I recall one smart young sales guy recently telling me “So what if there are problems? I still need to see how the product will benefit a customer and find that customer.”
- Saw tough circumstances differently. “What is the fun if it was easy?”
- Volunteered to take on tough markets and / or tough clients. “We will plant our flag there too.”
- Focused on long term relationship with the customers (for that matter with people). I remember one sales guy arguing with the delivery team on behalf of the customer at the customer premises! He lost that renewal order, but won every one thereafter.
- Listened to negative feedback about them keenly with a view to improve.
- Willingly took along rookies and even peers for sale calls; the former for free training and the latter for support / critical inputs.
- Read books such as “How to get better at sales?” or listened eagerly to success stories of anyone.
- Never stop learning at any age.
- Never gave up on a customer. They usually follow-up several times. There is a research which suggests that customer usually do not start thinking favourably about buying until the fourth meeting. The good ones on an average do five meetings and the bad ones do about two.
- Start thinking “What did I do wrong in this case” after several attempts. They still will not blame the customer, the product, the price, or such.
- Believed in the law of large numbers. “Boss, I get only five successes from a hundred that I meet. If I need ten successes, I need to meet two hundred.”
- The good ones worked for the company. “In sixth months we will be better than competition”.
- Persist in the face of setbacks. “We will spring back next month”.
- Mingled with other good ones in the office and outside.
- Are high on integrity. They do not cheat on reported sales numbers, expenses, etc.
Needless to say, the bad ones rarely see value in effort, avoid challenges, get defensive, give up easily, ignore feedbacks, feel threatened by other people’s success, usually hang around with other bad ones and change jobs frequently.
The good ones of course, give you comfort, dependability and performance.
