The Surprising Traits of Successful Sales Leaders & Their Explosive Wealth
By: Subha Shrinivasan
Tags: Growth, Sales, Entrepreneurship, Business, Money

Courtesy: The greatest salesman in the world, readingraphics

Movies such as “the wolf of wall street” have made us to believe that Sales is a dirty word. That, sales folks are persuasive and focus solely on making a fortune by selling us products through mesmerizing language. But I believe that sales is about rallying people to buy your product, vision, or a cause. Not everyone can be in successful in Sales role. To be in Sales requires being at the top end of the money & risk pyramid. It is daunting, risky and tough.

And very unfairly so and for the reason that they make big money selling, the world hates sales people. Salesmen are considered as greedy, money mongering, selling customers stuff they do not need, superficially sweet talking, loud and pompous, evil daemons. Even now, when we say someone is in Sales, we think “Oh that guy who made his way into millions”. There is half jealousy and half suspicion.

But I set out to investigate if that could really be true. Could it be really possible that Sales people rake millions of dollars by bluffing their way through customers? Even if they did, was it sustainable? You can fool others once or twice but can you, for long? In our current times where customers are well equipped with information?

And so I went about interviewing a 30 odd really successful sales guys across various professions. Some really rich and very successful ones. I read and re-read the book “The greatest salesman of the world” and many other books on sales published for the modern times.

And the perspective and the learning that came out of this exercise was the complete opposite of what I had imagined about sales guys earlier. Unlike what we all imagine, a sales job is not just about wining and dining and having fun. That is what it seems on the surface. But behind all that loud talk and laughter lies a secret code. Sales guys that crack that secret code alone survive in the long run.

What are those traits?

a) They are patient as a Saint

“Sales guys can never lose patience”, I am told.

“If you are short tempered, and do not have the ability to live through hours of repeating the same product pitch to hundreds and thousands of restless, impatient, some time rude, different types of customers, don’t consider sales.”

And to be patient with people, one needs to love & be empathetic with people. With all their flaws and warts and all. A highly judgmental person that expects people to behave in a certain way, and cannot stand resistance wont be patient with people or successful in selling.

And sales usually takes excruciatingly long cycles. Customers debate, analyze, procrastinate and then walk away after a long conversation. In spite of all of these, a success rate of just 15% out of total prospecting, a sales guy needs to maintain patience. Patience is tolerance and kindness exhibited to people that think you are selfish.

The first test of eligibility to do a sales job is to have patience. Patience through countless hours of brutal days — of waiting, rejection, loss and insults. And persisting.

If the front end sales guy is a snob and restless, the business stands to lose.

b) They are masters in psychology

In a good way. Sales guys need to change themselves with every customer they meet.

“One of the greatest proven human strategy to influence the other to agree with you is this : People like people that like them & People like people that ARE like them. With every sale that is successfully made, you have made the buyer believe that you are trust worthy, one among them, their guide that has understood their need and empathizes with them”.

A sale is always based on trust. In a situation where there is an element of doubt, no sale happens. And how to build trust? By using a little imitation, flattery and completely shedding self perspectives and getting into a customer’s shoes & mind. Almost like a chameleon, a sales guy needs to shed his skin and adopt his customer’s behavior, mindset and body language.

Good sales people research and understand their target customers very well. They often ask questions to themselves that a customer would ask. How would i like to be treated? What are the features i am looking for in the product? What is the price point? How do i make buying decisions?

By always putting customer first, understanding and shifting to a customer’s mindset, successful sales people sell through trust. Hence they don’t start with a pitch, they probe by asking empathetic questions & completely mapping the product to a customer’s mindset. And then framing the pitch and product for the customer’s needs.

c) They are happy by practicing emotionally intelligence

“Grumpiness, being sad, loathing etc are the privileges of the back end team — — engineering/manufacturing, designing team. People in the field, mainly the sales folks cannot be grumpy. There are moments where I want to have “ME time” after an overwhelming event. But we don’t have that luxury. Imagine doing business with a dull sales guy. A lifeless, brooding person that sits across the counter. Emotions are contagious and you need to be happy and radiate optimism in spite of what happens in their internal world”

And no one can fake happiness for long. Happiness is an inward thing and the most adept sales people are happy because they are also light hearted and keep emotions at check. Learning to stay the course amid the noise, and to perform to the customers through day and night requires a different level of emotional intelligence.

Warren buffet said “If you cannot handle your emotions, you cannot handle money”.

How does one build emotional intelligence? By constantly observing and being watchful of oneself, through several years of practicing to handle resistance in life, resisting impulsive behavior and by taking total responsibility for one’s actions in life.

But more than all that, sales people are born people pleasers too. They love people, they love making people happy. They light up on seeing customers.

d) They are big thinkers and focus on acceleration

We are used to believing that Sales guys focus on extracting money out of everyone walks their path. What I observed was quite the opposite.

“Successful sales people focus on strong prospects. A select set of prospects that can build 10X the momentum as compared to a whole bunch of prospects that that give 1X the momentum. You need to understand the difference between catching a whale and a bucket of jelly fishes.

The focus is therefore to create a big impact and large enough return from the best prospect(s) rather than try to extract a sale out of every customer. For instance, I do not let my team spend their energy on prospects that not fall in line with our acceleration journey”

Yet, they make it a point to refer the prospect to where their demands will be met — thus serving as a guide to help customers achieve their needs rather than serving every customer.

A tight control on focus and straight line execution, keeping focussed value prospects is what gives the successful sales guys edge over the less successful ones.

e) They have extraordinary creativity

The last one. Somehow, creativity is called out only when it is in some art form. Such as a painting, drawing or a sculpture. And hence sales folks have always been type cast as empty talkers with no substance.

Nothing can be far from truth than this. Creativity is anything built new to create something better than what was before.

“Sales people need spontaneous, creative thinking as they are thrust into a world of unknowns and objections every day. Prospecting requires creativity in getting the prospect interested and to speak up. Interrogative questioning requires creativity to get the desired answers. Objections require smart responses to overcome them at the moment without referring to a playbook of questions and answers. Every minute of the sales life requires creativity in selling and bringing home deals

The creativity of sales people may not be found in museums but in the greatest businesses that has been built all over the world.”

Businesses, products, institutions run because of the biggest risks and intelligence brought by the sales teams. Trashing sales team because of few poor business practices does not make sense anymore.

Courtesy: DREAMSTIME — “BUSINESS WARRIOR”

Only the tough warriors are cut out for long lasting success in sales. Imagine being on the war field every day, day after day in your life for the next 30–40 years and helping your teams win. Do you have what it takes?

Write to me : subhashrinivasan@gmail.com