What does it take to achieve consistent success in complex B2B sales?
A career in sales is not for everyone. Because an effective teleprospector should be diligently making phone calls all day, in order to be successful, certain personality traits are a must.
What are the four personality traits of a great salesperson?
1. Self-Motivated In order to be successful at sales, you have to work hard and hustle. If motivation and a strong work ethic are lacking, there is no amount of training or incentives that will make a person successful at selling.
When I interview candidates who want to work for us in sales, I am not interested in their specific knowledge of a product or field that they have represented. I’m more interested in what do they do to get there.
How hard do they work? How motivated are they to reach a close? Are they able to work out of the home, and are they disciplined enough to stay on target? I am more interested in those things than by being dazzled by their specific knowledge of a product or service.
2. Competent Being competent is important, expertise is not.
Some of our current, long- term successful clients were apprehensive about working with us in the beginning. They were concerned that the people we put on the phones did not hold degrees, or were not experts in their particular area.
This can be a common misconception about sales.
Clients may think they need experts to sell to experts. This is not a successful strategy.
What makes a sales call successful? Read 3 Ingredients of a Successful B2B Sales Call for our insight into engaging a prospect on the phone.
3. Listening More Than Talking What is a successful strategy? We get the right person on the phone to have a conversation and to be listening more than talking. We don’t have to get under the hood and know the technology inside and out. That’s not the conversation we are looking to have.
Understanding and competency of the industry is a must, but focused expertise is not.
4. Business-Oriented We use Business Development Executives for our sales team. Their job is to get on the phone with a key decision maker and have a business discussion. They are in the business of asking the right questions, having a meaningful interaction, and properly qualifying a lead.
What’s the business problem? What’s the business solution? How can we help solve that with what we are representing?
If the caller is an IT expert but lacking in business sense, the conversation will not be about the products, solutions, and services that he or she is trying to sell. And that won’t garner a qualified lead.
Successful Salespeople Have Many Styles, But Only These Characteristics
I have had the opportunity to interview and hire many qualified salespeople in my position. There are different styles to teleprospecting but I have found that the above are the overarching traits necessary to have consistent success in complex lead generation.
What has your experience taught you? Are there certain traits that are must-haves when hiring a salesperson? Please leave me a note in the comments.
John
