The aspirational virtues of sales professionalism.
People tend to hold a negative stereotype in mind when thinking about those who sell. We know salespeople are paid to persuade us to buy whatever they sell. Yet good salespeople, those who embody sales professionalism - sales leaders, and they are many, make a tremendous contribution to prosperity.
This series of short perspectives chisel out the positive attitudes and virtues coveted by those sales professionals who contribute the most value from both the employer and customer point of view.
Why is selling about leadership?
Salespeople must be prepared to lead. To step out with an unshakable certainty.
Leaders lead with the consent of their followers. Leading others where they want to go, is a vital service.
Leadership is something practised in a moment of other people's need.
Some people are called on to lead more than others because they are willing.
Leading comes with inherent risk, uncertainty, and anguish. Sales leaders are exposed. With the potential for glory comes an equal chance of accidental blame.
Sellers must lead, or merely offer alternatives and stand by while others put their reputations in peril.
Sales professionalism is about leadership.
Why must sales professionals be empathetic?
Shutting down one's agenda and listening to the song of another's heart grants anyone revered power. Sales professionalism is rooted in this ability. The best salespeople are extraordinarily good at it. And those who understand us cannot help but have power over us. Top sellers come to know things about us that we might rather they didn't know. There is a fear that those who know our thinking will take advantage of it. Sales professionals who divine our soft underbelly are certainly in a position to do so. With great skill comes great responsibility. Sales professionalism is about using the knowledge gained in this way to help people do what they want to do.
Empathy comes from observation, introspection, and intuition. Those with the sensory acuity to see micro-expressions, hear the subtle signals of speech, appreciate personality differences, and notice the play of emotion can look inside themselves and accurately intuit unspoken thoughts.
Listening for intent is a tacit skill. Teaching is difficult because attentive listening is the teacher. In some ways, it is easier if you can't see someone because you can concentrate just on the sounds, their meaning, and what isn't said. When you have facial expressions and body language to take into account, the brain has to work hard. Perhaps this is why many people readily switch off or ignore their innate skills.
Reading people's thoughts and circumstances might seem sinister. Yet how can better understanding ever be a bad thing? Sales professionals must read people to do their best by them.
How is sales professionalism about choice?
Doing things right is a waste of time if we don't first choose the right things to do. At first, this doesn't seem too hard. Simple qualification prompts like 'Money', 'Authority', and 'Need' are easy to follow.
Peeling back the layers, three other fundamental questions need to be asked about any sales opportunity.
1. Will it happen?
So many sales fizzle out and never result in the purchase of anything.
2. Can we win?
This is an often overlooked question because it is so difficult to answer. A salesperson's natural optimism gets in the way.
3. Will it be worthwhile?
Assuming so has led to many a disaster when the cost of winning turned out to be higher than the margin.
Use our Win Predictor for free, to leverage 17 underlying questions.
Sales Professionalism is about anticipating and answering the hard questions.
Is professional selling hard work?
Selling provides plenty of scope for hard work. A first step might involve making yourself an expert in what you sell be it a product, service or solution. A sales professional should also have an expert understanding of their market, industry, and customers.
A vital skill that requires regular re-learning is the ability to shut up and truly listen to others. This is harder than you might think, especially if you carry a big ego.
From the outside, a sales job might seem like a lot of swanning around talking to folks and buying lunches - schmoozing. In fact, like most jobs, 90% of it is research, learning, administration, and rejection.
Results correspond to the effort invested in these things, particularly rejection. "Fail forward faster," wrote Tom Peters. Sales leaders who want more success, have to endure more failure.
Selling - an easy life? If you love doing things that others don't like doing, perhaps.
Why do sellers often make people feel uncomfortable?
Can you tell when someone makes an effort to make you feel welcome, liked, respected, and appreciated? This is why customer-facing people are asked to smile and engage customers in small talk. You may have noticed that small talk has become standard practice for some supermarket checkout staff.
A standard 'nice' response may not make someone feel comfortable. Just being nice can have the opposite of the intended effect. Making people feel comfortable requires some focused attention rather than an automatic response. People can tell if a person is genuinely concerned for their wellbeing. It shows in the body language and sounds in auditory nonverbal cues.
Anyone can pretend. Sales professionals must make themselves genuine, especially when advocating change.
Why does sales professionalism require creative effort and energy?
Salespeople promote what could become true in the future. It takes creative energy to project an idea, sustain it through inevitable criticism, and propel it forward over obstacles.
Customers often need this supporting energy to help overcome their disbelief, reservations, and fear.
This is true for individuals and organisations. People resist change, even the change they initiate.
Businesses are collections of people doing things in traditional comfortable ways. From the inside looking out, newness such as changing procedures and behaviours threatens to upset too much. Yet failure to reinvent and continually push the boundaries of what's possible leads to stagnation and decline.
Sales professionals must be change agents.
Article by Clive Miller
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