Welcome to this week’s post on sales and selling success.
Last week I worked with a terrific sales team based in regional South Australia. To get to the market required several hours of cross-country driving from Adelaide, plenty of thinking time.
And here’s one of my thoughts
What makes a salesperson great? You know, better than the average, significantly better than their peers. The achievers.
What are the strengths, skills and techniques that define the truly great sales professional?
I came up with 5 and in no particular order:
- THEY ASK QUESTIONS.Average to good salespeople are listeners, they listen to everything the prospect says. Great salespeople are always asking great questions. Asking questions is the key to selling.
- THEY UNCOVER NEEDS and OPPORTUNITIES. Many salespeople uncover some problems and most understand how to find them. Great salespeople uncover the real needsand real problems so they can then providereal solutions.
- THEY UNDERSTAND THEIR CUSTOMER’S BUSINESS. Most salespeople have strong product knowledge. Great salespeople have the product knowledge andunderstand their customer’s business and products too.
- THEY KNOW THEIR “NUMBERS”.The average salesperson only knows their basic numbers, but the top salespeople intimately use their ratios and metrics to help them succeed. Things like prospecting ratios, appointment conversion, closing rates.
- THEY LEARN and PRACTICE. Most salespeople do some kind of training, many don’t. The great salespeople learn, study and then practice their skills and techniques, perfectly!
Create your own list
As part of this week’s sales meeting why don’t you and the rest of the team review my list. What else makes a great sales person?
Until next week good selling!
About the author
Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.
He can be contacted at [email protected]
