What Makes A Great Sales Professional Great
April 26, 2011
What Makes A Great Sales Professional Great?
By Manoj Sharma
A great sales professional is someone who brings extraordinary revenue for an organization, does it consistently over a long period of time and does it while adhering to legal, ethical and moral guidelines. So now that we’ve defined what a great sales professional is, we can then explore what is it that makes these great sales professionals truly great.
1) They have a great sense of their business
They know their organization well, they know the role their organization plays in their market place, they know their products and services and they know the value they add. They also know the challenges both their customers and potential customers face and how they are able to provide solutions to their problems.
This places them heads and shoulders ahead of most other sales professionals in their field, as they are not just focused on selling a product and/or service but actually understand how what they do fits into a much bigger picture. This gives them an edge in sophistication when the rest remain superficial in their sales jobs.
2) They completely segment out their market place
They divide all customers and potential customers into segments.
If their focus is on individual customers they break them down according to age, gender, occupation, income, designation, education, marital status, geographical location and other relevant segments. If their focus is on institutional customers they also segment them according to industry, revenue, immediacy of needs and other relevant criterions.
The reason they do this is to get a bird’s eye view and gain clarity on their entire marketplace. This gives them a very good sense of who their A+, A & A- grade customers are. It allows them to differentiate and customize their product and services offerings as per demand and thus further target their marketing efforts. This makes them truly smart workers as opposed to just hard workers.
3) They know what is really going on in their customers’ minds
They take the time to find out why their customers are conversing with them. They listen carefully and end up naturally or technically distinguishing a few things…
a) Is my customer looking to attract a new status quo, repel an old status quo or maintain an existing status quo?
b) Do I need to address the price issue from a “too much”, too little” or “just right” perspective?
c) Is the quality and quantity I am providing, “too good”, too poor” or “just perfect”?
d) Esoterically what is the intangible value my customer is keen to gain? Is he/she looking to do some good, be helpful, feel successful, enhance his/her identity, gain knowledge, promote security, enjoy happiness, feel free and/or gain peace of mind?
Great sales professionals distinguish not just the big but also the small things and pay attention to areas others often don’t even know the importance of.
4) They take a long-term view
Great sales professionals understand the importance of meeting short-term targets and they have the discipline and integrity to deliver upon them while others make up excuses, play the blame game, argue things out endlessly, complain about whatever they can and thus remain in denial as to their shortcomings. While great sales professionals meet their short-term targets they also take the time to establish long-term relationships. They know the cost of acquiring a new client far outweighs the profitability of continuing to serve an existing client.
Because of this they do not play the “hit-and-run, just-get-the-money-forget-the-value & tell-the-customer-what-they-want-to-hear” games that sales people have a reputation for.
Great sales professionals genuinely take the time to build long-term value by solving both short-term and long-term problems. They make themselves available at all times and keep the relationship warm, even when there is no potential sale to be made. They truly care to put the interest of the customer as a priority and not just pitch what needs to be moved or cleared. They continuously make valuable suggests as to what the customer should consider next, even when they are contrary to the customer’s own thinking and they are never pushy while doing this. They give their customers the room to make their own choices.
Above all else, they unequivocally treat their customers as they would like to be treated and in the process build the hardest things in human relationships – trust.
Conclusion
So, how do you stand up in relation to the above and what do you need to polish up in you to be a truly great sales professional?
Excellence Mindmap
April 14, 2011
Some Great Tips For Handling Service Related Feedback by Manoj Sharma
April 13, 2011
Some Great Tips For Handling Service Related Feedback by Manoj Sharma
Many organizations still do not truly value feedback and thus they do not have sufficient feedback mechanisms. Because of this, they miss out on opportunities to add further value to both their clients and potential clients. Left unaddressed, over time, they lose out on valuable feedback opportunities.
The First Thing
First take a look at your organization and ask yourself, “Are feedback mechanisms placed at every touch point?” If not, start by placing feedback mechanisms at every available physical and virtual touch point, cause you never really know at which touch point, what feedback may come in, that could significantly enhance your organization’s value proposition. Next value all feedback – don’t avoid any of it. There are generally speaking 3 types of feedback that your organization can receive. Constructive, neutral and destructive!
Dealing With Constructive Feedback
We all love constructive feedback that showcases our great points even though for most organizations this is often not the bulk of the feedback they receive. Let us be fair – the lack of constructive feedback may have nothing to do with your specific organization; it is just that people tend to take the great work organizations do for granted and rarely write in appreciation of it.
Because of this human tendency, your organization needs to put in special effort to gather constructive feedback. You can solicit constructive feedback by incentivizing your customers to provide it when you know you have done a great job for them. And by the way, when you get constructive feedback share it round as it boosts morale.
Dealing With Neutral Feedback
Neutral feedback is usually considered feedback that neither praises nor criticizes your organization. Often this is feedback related to the value chain and not necessarily specifically to what your organization does. An example would be when you receive feedback on the car parking facilities at your organization’s premises under the circumstances that you do not run the car park. Can I suggest that even though this sort of feedback does not necessarily relate to your organization, your organization still need to take the lead and forward it to the relevant parties and get them to do something about it! The reason being, if it is important to your customers and part of the entire experience of them interacting with you, then even thought the feedback is neutral, you need to do something to have things improve.
Dealing With Destructive Feedback
Destructive feedback is considered feedback that has the effect of diminishing your value proposition if other people – be it customers, potential customers and even competitors – found out about it.
Think of it this way, if a customer has taken the time to complain either verbally and/or in a written format, it simply means one of a two things. They want you to recover the situation (for them and/or for yourself) or they want you to suffer the consequences of not meeting their standards.
Because of their general frustration at the point of putting together the feedback, this sort of feedback can often be poisonously worded and put forward in anything but an empowering way. Regardless of how it is worded or even what the agenda might be, this is feedback that needs to be acted upon with immediacy if you plan on retaining the customer and thereafter being given the opportunity to add further value to them.
The key here is to engage the customer not to avoid them. The idea is to get as in-depth an appreciation as you can of the situation and ultimately to use this as an opportunity for your organization to correct and not protect. Why? Cause correction results in improvement and enhanced value propositions, while protecting your mistakes simply keeps you stuck.
The Bottom Line When It Comes To Feedback
The bottom line when it comes to feedback from your customers (internal & external) is, “If it is important to your customers, it has to be important to you!”
After all in today’s world if they are not providing feedback to you, in the world of social media, they will still be providing feedback about you to the whole world out there.