At the Top of Their Class | Advanced Selling Techniques
As we close out the month of May, here is a shout of congratulations to all the graduates who are moving on to the next phase of their life. Whether that is a high school graduate or a college graduate, their accomplishments are worth celebrating. Some of them (and for the record I was not one of them) graduated at the top of their class.
That got me to thinking about salespeople and how they are doing in their sales career. Some are just getting by as they experience the ups and downs of bad quarters followed by good quarters. They are on the struggle bus of trying to hit their quota. But some salespeople are elite – they have mastered what I like to call advanced selling techniques and they rarely ever have a bad month or a bad quarter. They are at the top of their class.
Their attainment of those advanced selling techniques has happened outside the glare of the presentation lights and outside of core business hours. Somewhere along the way, elite salespeople made the decision that being good was not going to be good enough and they recognized they needed to make an investment in their skill set that most salespeople are not willing to make. And just like the high school and college students, they have graduated with honors at the top of their sales class.
I see 3 advanced selling techniques on their resume:
- They excel at relationship building. The do it naturally and they do it all the time. They understand that the payoff is huge when they invest in the gradual buildout of relationships with people. They never enter a sales call worried about making a sale. Their focus is on creating value and making the prospect glad they took the meeting. Finally, they know they could be one new relationship away from meeting someone who needs their help, so they are constantly networking.
- They have a relentless mindset in terms of the effort they give every week. They have figured out there are only three things they can control, and their effort is one of the three things (attitude and skill are the other two). Even if they find themself in a slump, they never slow their roll in terms of their effort. Just like a sports team who is doing all the right things in a game but might be losing early on, elite salespeople conclude that the scoreboard is not reflective on what is going on at field level.
- They are not afraid of pushing back. They believe in the art of appropriate and respectful confrontation when their prospect says something that is simply not true or is something the salesperson might disagree with. While average salespeople will let it slide, elite salespeople recognize these moments in a conversation as being quite valuable.
Again, congratulations to all the recent graduates. And to all the salespeople out there – are you willing to do what it takes to get to the top of your sales class?
From Mark Trinkle, Chief Growth Officer
Anthony Cole Training Group
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