At some stage of our career, all of us will work with someone who seems to have the Midas touch when it comes to making sales. They smash their target every year, customers love them, team members want to work with them … it’s infuriating! How are they so consistent, what’s their secret sauce … in this video, I unpack a few of the traits of the most successful salespeople I’ve known in my career. Things like:
- High EQ: They have extremely good emotional intelligence and are quick to pick up on the signals that customers are sending, both consciously and unconsciously
- Strong discovery skills: They approach each new customer with an open mind, not jumping to conclusions, making assumptions or skipping past the discovery process completely, as far too many salespeople do
- Why before how: They are incredibly curious, like sales detectives, piecing together clues in their pursuit of customer insight and understanding. Then they use these nuggets of customer insight to construct a tailored pitch, which resonates strongly with their customers
- Trusted advisers: Great sales professionals realise that in today’s business world, the trust piece is relatively easy to establish, it’s the adviser piece that’s hard. Why is it hard? Because, to be seen as an adviser, you have to have in-depth knowledge, expertise, insight or credibility. You’ve got to know more than your customer and be capable of imparting that knowledge wisely. This takes specialisation, confidence and effort, but it’s a critical skill to master for anyone hoping to build a career as a B2B sales professional.
When I wrote my book Rebirth of the Salesman a few years ago, I interviewed lots of customers to find out what they valued in the salespeople that worked with them. Here’s what they came up with …
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