The 3 fundamentals for successful selling

There's an endless amount of posts and articles written about what salespeople need to do to be successful, some are high level and some focus on specific aspects of the sales process. 

They are written with advice on what you need to do to improve, this article is about you and what you need to be.

Let's start by taking a general view of sales. It's a huge global industry. 

Guess how many people there are on LinkedIn within the sales profession? There's a whopping 73 million.

Our abilities as salespeople are defined by performance measurements and achievements and how we're judged by others can be categorised in many different ways. 

For the sake of simplicity let’s look at them like this:

• Great - These are high performing professionals (could sell sand to the Arabs, snow to the Eskimos, you've heard all of the expressions). But don't think great numbers automatically makes someone a great salesperson because numbers don't tell the full story.
• Average - They make a reasonable living, so can't complain. They do what they need to do to get the job done.
• Poor - What I like to call the 'Couldn't sell a black cat to a witch' group, OK that sounds harsh but I like the expression. Once again poor numbers don’t automatically make someone a poor sales person, there can be a bunch of reasons behind this.

The split is pretty uneven across GAP categories, maybe I need to rethink the use of GAP here as I don't want to get some ear ache from Keenan who wrote the great sales book GAP Selling (different context of course).

The amount that are truly Great is declining, the number that are Average is much higher, but it's not a sizeable chunk. It's the Poor group that has become the largest of the three and is becoming larger as the way prospects decide and buy evolves.

Now I'm a realist and I know that the achievements of some salespeople create a false impression of their real sales capabilities. 

They may have a great set of accounts to pillage, the best territory, a generous quota, a product or service that is super compelling, a company brand that generates loyalty or some other unfair advantages that make them stand out from the rest of the pack. So, results alone doesn't give you the right to be considered a great salesperson.

There are many poor salespeople achieving good results, but much of it isn't down to the value they add.

Different people will have different opinions on what makes a salesperson great but fundamentally it relies on three main characteristics - the thrill, the skill and the will.

The enthusiasm, the ability and the mindset. It's common to find one or maybe two, but it's rare that someone has all three

Thrill

The best salespeople enjoy selling, it gives them a buzz, they have enthusiasm for the sale.

Why is this important? Because enthusiasm is infectious that's why.

I couldn't even try to estimate the number of times I have sat through sales pitches that could induce narcolepsy.

'I'd rather stick my head into the open mouth of a lion and flick his love spuds with a wet towel than have to listen to this sort of monotone droning again'

If the salesperson can't be enthusiastic about what they're trying to sell why should the prospect?

A word of warning, enthusiasm is difficult to fake, it needs to be genuine.

If you don't have the enthusiasm to sell your product or service, then change jobs and go somewhere and sell something that inspires you.

Enthusiasm is the starting point.

You need to be thrilled

Skill

The skill and ability to sell is obvious, without this part it doesn't matter how high you score in thrill and will you're doomed.

Unfortunately, many salespeople mistake telling for selling and repeatedly regurgitate everything they know about their product or service with the hope that some of it will resonate. That's telling not selling.

Selling is a professional skill that needs constant development and advancement to stay in the game.

Now I'm not going to jump on to my soapbox and rant on about researching, planning, listening, questioning, presenting, proposing, closing and many other skills with an 'ing' in them.

There are plenty of people out there writing about this in a far better way than I could, but I will sneak in one of my own favourites, it's helping. Helping is now a major differentiator and highly valued by prospects.

How often are you polishing your sales skills, how often do you review what you do and self-analyse what you could do better, after all as the saying goes 'the day you stop learning is the day you become uneducated'.

This is oh so very true within the sales profession, the expectation of your markets, your prospects and the buyer contacts are now so much higher than ever before.

Sales skill is an essential

You need to be skilful

The need to adapt and change leads us very nicely into the final fundamental, and it’s a big 'un.

Will

This is all about the sales mindset, not all of it just the will part.

Plenty of people have the thrill, there's a good bunch with the skill, but when it comes to the will that’s a different matter altogether.

There's a whole bunch of things that most salespeople know they need to do, but don't.

These things vary from person to person, but the root cause of not doing them is the lack of will.

The inner workings of a human being are complicated so I'm not even going to try and write about why, but let’s look at a few examples of what we see day in day out.

The lack of will to:

• Research
• Prepare
• Prospect
• Share/Collaborate
• Review
• Update systems
• Ask for referrals
• Try something new/different

There are others, but you get the drift.

It's ironic really that what most people sell involves change management yet they're some of the most reluctant to change what they do, when they do it and how they do it.

Buying has changed and selling is becoming tougher, especially in the absence of obvious brand, product or price dominance.

Successful selling means you need to have the will to change, evolve and adapt, and that can mean doing things that take you out of your comfort zone or that may benefit others more than you. 

Think bigger picture.

You need to be willing

It's easy to dismiss this as high level bla bla, but good selling needs to be built on good foundations.

Take the time to reflect on your own.

About the author: Kevin Dixon is the founder and CEO at Boxxstep, a sales platform that aligns selling with buying. Kevin has spent 20 years in EVP sales leadership positions within complex and enterprise sales.