The Three Types of Salespeople
There are three types of sales people:
1. The Lazy Salesperson
2. The Employee Salesperson and,
3. The CEO Salesperson
The Lazy Salesperson
This is the standard sales person. They are the ones who have been trained through major enterprise sales programs, and they have learned a formula for how to sell. They don’t necessarily have a passion for sales as much as they have a passion for the commission – still a decent motivator.
Lazy Salespeople have learned methodical processes of sales – for example, this is the salesperson that will send out email campaigns on auto-repeat and cold call with the opening line of “I am following up on the email I sent you”. The “email-first” approach gives the Lazy Salesperson an excuse to call the Prospect. But the proposition becomes different, and the call is no longer about the product or its value to the Prospect, but rather a check-in to see if someone received a transactional communication.
Prospects field all kinds of phone calls and emails from sales people. No one ever remembers anyone who just emails him or her. They sometimes remember the ones who call to “follow up on their email”, but always see them as Salespeople who are following Step 2 in a process. Because of this, there will always be a wall between the salesperson and the Prospect. The salesperson never gets past Step 2 and eventually the Prospect will mark their emails as spam.
The Employee Salesperson
The Employee sales person is a good sales person to have, and they are about 99% of the employable (if you have standards) sales population. They will cold call – but within reason – and they will bend, but not over backwards. This person will hit all of their metrics, and consistently follow the Rules of Engagement and processes. They bill a solid number, and are just good enough to be considered for management or leadership positions.
This is a great salesperson for a company to have, for a number of reasons:
a. The Employee Salesperson wants a good, steady employment with income and benefits
b. The Employee Salesperson can be molded and developed by the Company
c. The Employee Salesperson wants to go in to management
The Employee Salesperson keeps a company’s lights on and maintains a solid book of business. If a company has many Employee Salespeople, they will consistently hit their numbers, and maintain a good momentum – but nothing out of the ordinary or spectacular in terms of revenue will ever happen.
The CEO Salesperson
The CEO Salesperson is 1% of the sales population. This salesperson has a mentality that is completely opposite from the other two types. The CEO Salesperson does not think about getting fired or going in to management. They act now and ask for forgiveness later, all with the intention of driving revenue for their company. And that means laser focus on both Prospects and Competitors while maintaining a birds-eye view and forecast of the company’s roadmap – something every CEO must do.
While the CEO Salesperson generally makes the most money, money is not their final motivation. This type of Salesperson is a deal closer, and they will never be happy in another role, including management.
CEO Salespeople sell based on vision as equally as they sell based on numbers, something that the Lazy Salesperson and the Employee Salesperson have a hard time grasping. The CEO Salesperson will also innately know the product and will be not only an employee of the company, but also an evangelist.
The CEO Salesperson knows that every decision they make is a final one, and they execute with the same mentality as running a smaller sub-company within a larger one, hence becoming the CEO of their own territory.
Good, Great, and Exceptional
Imagine you are looking at a yardstick where the Lazy Salesperson is equal to a value of Good and the Employee Salesperson equals Great, while the CEO Salesperson is Exceptional. The distance between Good and Great is one foot apart; the distance between Great and Exceptional is miles apart. It’s a chasm that some sales people can get to the brink of, but not to the other side. When you find someone who has made it across, grab them before anyone else can – pay them well, stay hands off, let them be the CEO of their own territory and watch your revenue skyrocket.
Farah Patel, Account Executive at HackerRank is a passionate sales leader with a natural talent for closing deals of value for both parties. Laser focused on driving revenue and growing early stage startups.
Listen To This Interview with Farah Patel
Get To Know More About Farah Patel Visit Fun Facts
Columns
July 2015: Utilizing the Wisdom of Crowds in Predicting Future Revenue
June 2015: Be The CEO of Your Own Territory