Tag Archives: Sales

Business, Family

9 Characteristics of a Successful Sales Professional

Recently, I was scrolling on Instagram and landed on a Reels video of a woman sitting in her car talking about how she effectively handles objections in selling situations. She was confident, skilled, and bold. It was obvious that she could successfully rebut even the most challenging of prospect concerns. Almost immediately, I recognized that I might not react as rapidly or as proficiently as this person. Only for a moment, I wondered if I could adopt her practiced and effective techniques. Ultimately, I realized that she and I sell differently, and that I would never utilize her approach to closing business.

I have been, and continue to be, directly involved in complex, competitive, and often emotional B2B sales. There have been great moments in my career, as well as more than a few disappointments. I have been fortunate to work for and with individuals who do it right, and at a high level. These people showed me how to be a high-performing sales professional. Here are some of the key learnings that I have absorbed over the last 30+ years.

  • Conviction: Salespeople must innately believe that the people/processes/technology that they represent will positively change the way their prospective client operates. They must enter every competitive selling situation with the certainty that the prospective client will achieve the desired results from whatever has been proposed. Sellers must know that the solution they endorse will lead to definitive changes with the target client.
  • Authenticity: Sales professionals must listen well. This skill is very challenging for most of us. Sellers must genuinely want to learn about the prospective client and the businesses that they represent. That means that smart, researched questions must be asked at the appropriate time. The salesperson must care about both the trajectory of the engaged business as well as the well-being of the individuals that are involved in the evaluation process.
  • Candor: Honesty is critical to being an effective sales professional. Some people do utilize devious methods to achieve their wins. Most often, these scammers are exposed, and their victories are fleeting. Salespeople must be truthful even if things are not going to work out in your favor. Take the loss and maintain your honor. Life has a unique way of rewarding those who never waver from their moral compass.  
  • Persistence: Smart, timely prospective client interactions are critical for successful selling. A salesperson must utilize a defined and proven methodology for presenting the right information at the right time to engaged prospects. They must be disciplined in how the appropriate messaging is disseminated. Refined relentlessness creates a sense of urgency that most prospective clients appreciate.
  • Trust: Prospective clients must believe in you, your team, and your organization. Successful sales professionals must do what they commit to doing during the sales cycle. That means that salespeople must become an advocate for the client within their organization. If a client encounters a legitimate issue, it is the salesperson’s job to help them solve it. It means that a seller’s mobile phone number becomes a “favorite” of your client. Trust is reciprocal, but the salesperson must earn that connection.
  • Expertise: Sales professionals must know their product/service intimately. If you don’t, find colleagues that do, and ask for help. Coworkers that believe in you as well as your effort will support you. You will learn a lot from these individuals. Don’t be so proud as to fail alone. This means that a salesperson improves their odds of winning an engagement if they earn the right to wrap bright people into the sales process.
  • Relationships: Sales professionals should not expect to become friends with their clients. The objective should be for clients to eventually become their evangelizing advocate. When your client becomes an ally, they will praise you when you are not around. They will proactively refer you to others, because they are committed to your success. It is ideal if a salesperson eventually creates a harmonious bond with employees of their client. That type of alliance must be forged over time.
  • Grind: Anyone who has selected B2B sales as a career path understands that working diligently is critical to achieving ideal outcomes. Grit and focus are traits that every competent salesperson must have as they will be faced with challenges at every turn. Do what is required of you and then do a bit more. Most prospective clients appreciate hard work and timely, thorough communication.
  • Resourcefulness: Successful selling remains the sole responsibility of the individual assigned to the task. While a proficient sales professional relies on others to guarantee positive outcomes, ultimately, the individual contributor is responsible for guiding their company to wins. Salespeople must decipher each challenging interaction by any means necessary. They must use their imagination as well as every resource available to overcome complex issues and ultimately be victorious.

A successful career as a sales professional is one that involves both financial as well personal rewards. “Nothing happens until a sale is made” is a phrase that has and will ring true for every thriving business. There are different selling styles that are proven effective, and they should be incorporated if the practice comes naturally. While the sales methods deployed will vary, the characteristics described above will ensure a long and productive career.

Business, Prepaid

Customer Relationship Management: A Necessity for Highly Effective Selling

At 41 (soon to be 42) I have now been a professional sales person or sales leader for over ½ of my life.  I have sold folding cartons, computer systems, implementation consulting services, enterprise software, group insurance and prepaid cards.  My philosophy in approaching any marketplace is simple and straightforward:

  • Attract:

–      Create and track intricate, personalized marketing campaigns that speak to the value your company’s solutions create.

–      Prospect with accuracy and confidence. 

  • Acquire:

–      Sell in a collaborative environment that allows all company constituents (executives, manufacturing, engineering, etc.) to actively participate in the selling process.

  • Extend & Protect:

–      Indentify cross-sell opportunities.

–      Deliver unparalleled client service to ensure long term, mutually beneficial business partnerships….and repeat business. 

–      Create institutional memory that guarantees the historical accuracy of client and prospect interactions.

Selling complex business solutions to multiple constituents inside a prospect/customer organization is time consuming, resource intensive and ultimately fraught with risk.  The danger associated with most engagements centers around opportunity cost; if I (the salesperson) spend the extraordinary effort to engage with a company, am I potentially losing out on another opportunity of similar or higher value? 

Customer Relationship Management software (Salesforce.com, Pivotal, MSCRM, Oracle, SAP, etc.) allows an organization (specifically the front office) to efficiently manage the flow and constant interactions associated with an intricate sales cycle.

  • Marketing

–      Integrated marketing and sales application with automated lead conversion

–      Real-time analytics to measure and optimize campaigns for best results

–      Multichannel campaign management (email, direct mail, trade shows etc.) and analysis for a complete marketing solution.

–      Client profiling and lifecycle management.

  • Sales

–      Account Management

–      Contact Management

–      Opportunity Management

–      Activity Management 

–      HTML email management (creation, reporting)

–      Territory Tracking/Permissions

–      Imbedded Action Plans for Best Practices

–      Individual Forecasting

–      Proposal Generation (integrated MS Office)

–      Order Management

–      Commission tracking

–      Collaboration: Team productivity/automating workflow

–      Report on sales activities and effectiveness

–      Integrated Outlook

  • Client Service

–      Issue tracking and resolution tools needed to quickly resolve customer questions, issues, and requests and deliver a high-quality customer experience

  • Management

–      Scalable solutions rapidly integrate with existing applications and hardware investments

–      Immediate report on sales activities and effectiveness

–      Immediate overview of pipeline (group and individual)

–      Immediate forecast of company revenue

–      Creation of corporate best practices to be institutionalized

–      Create a collaborative environment for managing opportunities and service requests

–      Enable employees, partners, and customers to engage in discussions, share files, and manage tasks

A Customer Relationship Management package will NOT, on its own, create demand for or sell a company’s product/solution.  However, A CRM tool will allow a corporation’s talented front office team to maximize their time spent selling the right prospect

As a sales person who sold CRM, implemented CRM and uses CRM on a daily basis, my advice to buyers would be to decide early on if your company really wants to support the application, or should a Software as a Service model be considered?  Managing a CRM system is extraordinarily resource intensive; if you take the application in house, dedicate the appropriate talent.  While researching, do NOT rely on the opinions of industry analysts – they are a shill for any ISV that offers them cash.  Instead, evaluate a subsection of Best of Breed providers, and INVESTIGATE their deployments (both good and bad).  Get a realistic representation of what can be accomplished in a defined time period…..current clients will talk.

If you can justify the investment, have a sales operations person assigned to owning/managing the deployment.   This individual should not only understand the marketplace, but they need to clearly comprehend your company’s specific business.  Once committed, create defined business objectives with an educated resource; this person needs to truly understand CRM, and how your marketing/sales/service processes work. 

Prior to beginning the implementation, set realistic goals and defined milestones with your partners.  Pay the hired partner a retainer up front, and then only compensate them when they achieve agreed-to performance goals.  If the hired company says they can do something pre-sale, hold them accountable post-sale. 

Finally, be selective and demanding when assessing the different vendors in the CRM marketplace.   Once you choose a company, truly partner with the ISV/ implementation provider in order to gain the most return from your CRM investment.

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