Profile of a Sales Person

Don't hide from the truth!

Is your our company holding you to the highest standards of professionalism, your customers surely are.  You need to learn and practice your sales skills daily. Why?  Simply because from your first contact with a customer, you’re being graded – by the customer. Often times, the first impression that you make may determine whether or not you’ll later make a sale. Be positive and upbeat without being overbearing. Practicing your opening dialogue (presentation) will allow you to ease the flow of conversation and listen to cues from the customer. By setting a level of comfort that extends from you to the customer, you will dramatically increase your ability to obtain information and close sales. 

In addition to developing your speaking and message delivery skills, you will also need to work on your listening skills. Since your overall goal is to motivate and direct a customer through the many stages of the sales process, you must be a good listener. To effectively ensure that one call will lead to the next stage, you must develop superb notetaking skills, noting and recording key points along the way. The key points are your signposts to help you know where you are in the sales cycle.

How important is this?

Extremely important.  Here’s why.  I was entertaining two executives from a large Fortune 500 company interested in doing a joint venture for computer hardware.  We were in my office and I was explaining how our company monitored and recorded sales calls for training purposes.  At any given time, I could enter a call and listen to the conversation between the sales rep and customer. The execs asked for a demo so I clicked into one of our newer reps line.  This rep was a law school grad but decided he hated practicing law and came to us.  I won’t go into all the details of the call but suffice to say it was eye-opening.



The customer made some comment about the Cleveland Browns and the sales rep responded by saying our chances looked good this year with the new pitcher the Indians had just traded for.  It went on and on with the total disconnect. In other words, the sales rep just wasn’t really listening.  He was so delighted that the customer was talking, he ignored the real conversation.  The whole call lasted nearly 20 minutes without so much as one customer problem being uncovered or any product being offered. 

The rep did mention we had a big inventory, so he was sure we could help the customer.  The problem was, he had no idea what the customer needed.  Why?  He, the rep, talked too much.  When the call ended, I said to the two execs that he was new but that was no excuse for the dismal performance.  To make matters worse, I told them, I’ll bet you lunch that the sales rep will be knocking on my door in a few minutes and telling me that he just had a great conversation. 

True enough a knock was heard and in walked the rep, excited to convey his happy call performance.  It’s easy to confuse conversation with sales dialogue.  In sales, you need to be directing the action, not merely responding to it.  You need to get the customer to tell you about his business.  You need to listen to what the customer is saying and respond accordingly, constantly shifting the conversation back to the customer’s business and what pain or problem they are experiencing.