People oftentimes ask me “what does it take to be a top salesperson for a company” and I’ll ask the question back to see what answers I get. Here are some of the answers I get:
- “You have to be fearless, courageous, and a hunter.”
- “You have to understand your product or service better than anyone else.”
- “You have to control the conversations with your prospects.”
- “You have to be a good influencer (i.e. bullshit artist).”
- “You have to put your nose to the grindstone.”
- “You have to know how to talk to people.”
I wouldn’t say that any of these above answers are incorrect, but they are flawed. They are flawed because they don’t really answer the question of “how to become a top salesperson for your company?”
To become a top salesperson you need to acquire certain sales skills that can be developed. I was not born with advanced questioning skills. I wasn’t naturally good at understanding tone and inflection. These were skills that I developed over time and through experience…and through practice.
There are lots of different educational platforms out there that will “promise” you that they can turn you into a top salesperson. Some are most likely legit, while others will dangle a lot of promises, but rarely deliver.
I’ll start by saying that it does NOT matter what industry you are in. One of the scariest things I can hear when I interview ‘salespeople’ is when they tell me “I’m a great salesperson, I’ve sold everything under the sun – solar, insurance products, high-ticket tech items, cars, etc.” But WHY does this scare me?
Because great salespeople usually only sell 1-3 products/services their entire career (because if they are great – they stick with a good product or service and they sell the crap out of it).
What do all these top salespeople have in common? The first is they follow a structure – this is the most important thing when it comes to sales – making sure that you have a structure in place that can be repeated, tested, and improved.
Sales Structure
Sales structure is simply a process for turning leads or prospects into buying customers/clients. I’ll break this down into 3 areas:
Pre-Sales Activities
Your pre-sales activities are all the things you do before you engage your prospect (meaning, before you actually speak with them). This includes research on your target consumer base, gathering marketing materials, compiling prospect lists, etc.
Sales Activities
These are all the things done when speaking or engaging with the consumer (prospect, buyer, customer, etc). Activities like discovery phone calls or meetings, proposal presentations, etc.
Post-Sales Activities
All the things done after you sign on a new client or make the sale. These will be activities like client advocacy, customer check-ins (temperature gauges), getting referrals, etc.
But….what’s fascinating about the above structure is that each one of these buckets (Pre-sales, Sales, Post-sales activities) can be broken down further into more structure or processes.
Focusing on Sales Activities
For me, this is the most fun part of any sales position. Actually engaging with the prospect and attempting to influence their buyer behavior is enjoyable. However, depending on what type of industry or company you’re in, those activities can look wildly different. I’ll give an example:
Let’s say I’m working for a web agency that redesigns marketing websites. Well, the sales activities might include a screener questionnaire, a discovery session, then a written proposal, presenting that proposal to the prospect, then moving into a round of negotiations, and getting the final contract signed by the new client. This could take several months to a year.
BUT – if I work in the insurance field selling home warranties, then my sales activities might only be ONE phone call where I give the prospect all the information they need and they sign up on that one phone call. This could realistically be a 20 minute call.
It doesn’t matter what you are selling, whether that’s products or services, but you always need to follow structure – without that you have nothing. Structure should be baked into your sales process.
Take the above examples:
Web Agency Sales Person: they have to go through a structure or process to close their prospect. First, they make sure the prospect seems like the right fit by doing a screener and having a discovery (a.k.a qualifying) session. Then the propose the solution and go in for negotiations.
Insurance Sales Person: they have to do the same thing only in a shorter period of time. In a 20 minute phone call the first thing that would happen is the sales person would “qualify” the prospect by asking questions like “what is the value of your home?” or “how much protection were you looking to get?” Afterwords, the sales person is going to have to present an insurance program to the prospect and possibly negotiate and go in for a money-ask.
In Closing
In order to CLOSE your prospect, you will need to ask questions that get them to illuminate their own problems. Problem-find in your openings/qualifying/discovery sessions and then problem-solve in your closes. Closing a prospect, no matter the industry, will require a relentless (don’t make it seem desperate) approach. You do this by empathizing with your consumer, then isolating objections the consumer is giving you, then negotiating a “better deal” – all of that will make the “buying” part simple and easy. Although closing is NOT easy, I will go into that structure in an upcoming blog post.