Sales: An Often-Misunderstood Profession

When you’re meeting someone for the first time, and they tell you “I work in Sales”, what’s your immediate reaction? Do you think “That’s interesting—I want to learn more!”, or is your reaction more like “Oh—you’re one of THOSE people?”

If it’s the latter, you’ve got plenty of company. Multiple surveys you can easily find online show that salespeople (most notably, car salespeople) are some of the least respected professionals—ranking below lawyers, and just above members of Congress. It’s likely that this low respect stems from a perception that salespeople are focused on extracting money from potential buyers, and not on serving their needs.

Of course, not all people who sell products are viewed with disdain—consider department store clerks, for example. But from my observations, there’s not a lot of love for any kind of salespeople who operate under a quota system, whether they’re selling condominiums or complex medical equipment.

Though some salespeople certainly fit the negative stereotypes, I’ve come to understand and appreciate Sales Professionals much more than I could at the onset of my Product Management career. I learned how important they are to my own success, and how to work effectively with them for our mutual success. Whether or not you need to work directly with them, learning about them can provide you with perspectives and techniques that can help you in your own job, such as when you need to sell your ideas to other people or make a compelling case for why you deserve a raise or promotion.

My term “Sales Professionals” does not include telemarketers who spam strangers, nor people who sell second-hand goods at flea markets or on eBay. It refers specifically to people who have chosen Sales as a profession, who are committed to being excellent at it, and who develop mutually beneficial relationships with their customers. These professionals are the salespeople I’ll focus on this article, which will:

• examine a few common stereotypes about salespeople
• share some truths about salespeople
• describe several different selling archetypes I’ve experienced

I hope you will come away with some ideas that help you understand salespeople better, appreciate them more, and apply some of their best practices for greater success in your own career.

Examining Some Common Stereotypes About Salespeople

We all have encountered salespeople, either in real life or vicariously through media or through the experiences of people we know. Our impressions can shape the profile we associate with a salesperson, which may be quite different than reality. Here are some common stereotypes?, and why they are often inaccurate.

1.    Salespeople are extroverts

While it’s certainly true that many salespeople are extroverts, there’s no evidence supporting a correlation between sales performance and extroversion. In fact, introverts typically exhibit traits that are associated with higher sales performance, such as good listening skills and thinking before speaking.?

2.    Salespeople are always talking

There are certainly many salespeople who seem to talk more than they listen, but the most successful salespeople listen more than they talk, and ask good questions that draw out the needs and desires of prospective buyers. (Good listening skills are key to success in all kinds of relationships, both professional and personal.)

3.    Salespeople are greedy

Many sales compensation plans have a base quota, and then pay increasing commission rates for achieving certain targets above quota. Salespeople who fail to achieve their quota for more than a quarter or two will find themselves without a job, so there’s a lot of pressure to close orders. There’s also a lot of incentive to exceed quota; bonus commissions can dramatically increase earnings for incremental efforts. If you could earn 20% more income by working 5% more, wouldn’t you? Would that make you greedy, or just rational?

(There IS a disincentive for salespeople to consistently sell well beyond quota—they usually find that their quota gets increased and/or their territory gets split, making it harder for them to achieve their new quota in the next fiscal period.)

4.    Salespeople are pushy

Salespeople are under constant pressure to achieve quotas, and some allow this pressure to be felt by customers. Some salespeople may attempt to close a deal too early, but doing so can scare off the prospective buyer, resulting in a lost order.

True Sales Professionals ask for the order only after value has been established in the mind of the customer, and will keep following up politely at appropriate intervals if the buying process gets stalled. (Here it’s important to know the boundary between persevering and pestering.) 

5.    Salespeople act in their own interests, not yours

Salespeople who prioritize their own interests over their customers’ interests will not be successful for long, unless they have a steady supply of new customers and can outrun their own reputations. Sales Professionals know that sustained success depends on thoroughly understanding customer needs and crafting mutually beneficial deals. (As Zig Ziglar famously said, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”)

A true Sales Professional plays the long game and always puts the needs of the customer first, even to the point of recommending a competitor’s solution if that will best serve the customer. The trust, goodwill, and referrals this practice produces can be worth more than the gain of the short-term deal. (See related article Gaining More by NOT Closing the Deal.)

6.    Salespeople are unethical

Again, only fly-by-night operators can outrun their reputations. Sales Professionals know that getting repeat sales from current customers is much easier than getting initial sales from new customers, and they take great care to always behave in ways that build trust. (Your reputation is one of your most important assets. It takes years to build, and can be damaged in an instant. Protect it.)

7.    Salespeople are manipulative

Salespeople often need to get people to change their perceptions, opinions, and decisions. Doing so gets much harder when people feel like they are being manipulated, so sales professionals focus on the art of persuasion instead. Effective persuasion requires trust, understanding, and compelling arguments—arguments that resonate with the needs of the customer. (Seek first to understand, so that you can build trust.)

8.    Salespeople are hyper and disorganized

Salespeople have a lot of tasks to manage. Anybody struggling to keep up with the challenges of the job is likely to appear somewhat hyper and disorganized at first, but you’ll find that seasoned salespeople develop strong organizational skills and project a calmness that builds trust.

Some Truths About Salespeople

Over the course of my career in Product Management and Product Marketing, I’ve worked with dozens of salespeople, and learned some truths about them:

1.    Salespeople are important

Cash flow is the lifeblood of any company, and most companies rely on salespeople to drive that cash flow. Salespeople bring in the money that pays the wages and salaries of all other employees. And sales professionals also provide important services to customers: they solve customer problems by deploying their specialized knowledge and resources.

It’s easy for marketing and salespeople to get into counter-productive blame games (“You’re always making excuses for not closing deals!” vs. “You aren’t generating good leads for us!”), but it’s important to remember that they’re part of the same team, and both parties will gain more by striving to understand each other and collaborate for mutual success.

2.    Salespeople have a very challenging job

Succeeding in sales isn’t easy. Under constant pressure of time, salespeople must organize themselves, develop strategies for achieving quotas, and execute effectively. Tasks they need to manage include:

• learning their product and service offerings
• nurturing relationships with current customers
• prospecting for new customers
• following up on leads
• uncovering customer needs and customer resources
• creating offers that align with customer needs and budgets
• working through customers’ political situations
• understanding and outmaneuvering competitors
• logging information into sales management systems
• managing schedules
• documenting expenses
• keeping their manager informed

Amid all this, salespeople need to maintain a positive attitude, despite the fact that they will typically lose more deals than they win, especially in highly competitive markets. Staying positive gets especially challenging when too few orders are coming in, because there’s rarely much leniency; failure to meet your sales quota for more than one or two fiscal periods can get you fired.

3.    Salespeople are self-directed

Most salespeople I’ve met really enjoy being in charge of their own work schedule and activities, and getting out to meet customers in different places. Many can’t imagine having to work in a traditional office setting, seeing the same people in the same place day after day, and having to follow schedules and priorities set by other people.

With that freedom comes responsibility. Salespeople have to be organized, disciplined, and persistent in order to achieve their goals.

4.    Salespeople are determined

People who choose Sales as a career are motivated by winning. They get a reward from closing a deal that goes beyond the commission; it’s the satisfaction of achieving success through their own effort and resourcefulness in an endeavor that has many variables outside of their control. Salespeople tend to be naturally competitive; you’ll see this first-hand if you build some kind of contests into your sales meetings.

5.    Salespeople are unique individuals

Though most salespeople have a few characteristics in common—such as self-direction and determination—they’re all individuals, each with a unique approach to their job. I’ve seen a few broad patterns (see next section), but even within those styles, there are countless variations.

A Sampling of Selling Styles

I’ve observed many different ways people have approached the challenge of meeting a sales quota. Here are some you may recognize:

1.    The Technical Expert

This man knows his stuff. He’s done his homework on his product, its specifications, its applications, the competitive landscape, and more. He’s able to analyze a customer’s requirements, and design an optimal solution that meets every need. His extreme competence and his focus on problem solving creates confidence and trust, so customers feel confident in buying based on his recommendations.

2.    The Traffic Director

This woman is the kind of person you’d want planning your wedding. Her product knowledge may be limited, but she’s phenomenal at finding the right resources and bringing them in at the right time to make great things happen. She’ll call in a technical specialist to perform a demo or run a seminar, coordinate a call between the customer’s VP and her own to discuss roadmaps, and usher orders through purchasing departments to get them in on time.

3.    The Ombudsman

This guy builds trust by being every customer’s friend. He’s amiable and likable, and always creates the impression that he’s acting in the best interest of the customer. He’ll go to bat against departments in his own company if he thinks that the customer isn’t being served appropriately. The trust he earns through his advocacy generates referrals that lead to additional sales opportunities. (Don’t be too surprised if you get a nice box of chocolates from him on your birthday.)

4.    The Charmer

This gal has incredible charisma. When she walks into a room, everyone takes notice, and they sometimes come up with contrived reasons to get her to stay there longer. She’s well aware of the effect her presence has on people, and she uses it to her advantage, but she never flirts or does anything else inappropriate. People—regardless of their gender—are pre-disposed to saying yes to her recommendations, so she’s often able to close orders with less resistance than many other salespeople encounter.

5.    The Social-Proof Seller

This person knows that people like to buy things, but don’t like to be sold things. Instead of making a case for why the prospect should buy, this person provides referrals to satisfied customers, so that the prospect can ask them, in separate conversations, about their experiences with the product and the vendor. When the reference customers are candid, and share both the positives and any negatives, the prospect tends to trust what they hear—certainly more than they’d trust the one-sided story they’d expect to hear from a self-interested salesperson!

Clearly, the social-proof seller must nurture reference accounts, and check in with them before offering them as a reference, to make sure no new problems have recently developed.

6.    The Intimidator

This guy uses personal convictions and force of personality to make prospective customers uncomfortable with the idea of choosing a competitor’s product. “You don’t want to do that—it’s a career-limiting move. You need to talk to Dr. Lucretia—she almost made that mistake, and she would have fallen years behind in her research.”

The intimidator exploits the fear and uncertainty prospects have around making an important buying decision, and uses social proof to reinforce his message.

Notice how dramatically different these approaches are. Clearly, an approach that works for one salesperson may be completely wrong for another. Each salesperson has to figure out what approach works best for them, and build on successes. Perhaps you can get some ideas of different approaches you could try when selling your ideas.

The Final Close

By now, I hope you’ve been able to gain a more nuanced perspective of salespeople, an appreciation for the value they bring and the challenges they overcome in doing so, and some ideas about how you might apply some of their best practices for greater success in your own career.

If you found this article interesting, I suggest you look into the work of Roger Grannis, who has some excellent material that provides guidance to Product Managers on how to communicate effectively with salespeople.

Please feel free to share any thoughts in the comments.

? https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-stereotypes

? https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/326716

Jim Schibler leads product management teams that deliver software experiences customers love, and he coaches professionals on job search and career management. He writes on a broad range of topics; see more of his articles at his website.

Image credits: Used Car Salesman courtesy Columbia Pictures ("Used Cars" movie); Salesman's Bag and Woman with Laptop courtesy Pikrepo.com; Good Listener courtesy [email protected]; Gold Coins courtesy Jeremy Schultz; Handful of Cash courtesy Liz [email protected]; Guillotine courtesy [email protected]; Multitasker courtesy Needpix.com; Trophy courtesy Creazilla.com; Technical Expert courtesy bongkarn [email protected]; Charmer courtesy le temple du [email protected]; Intimidator courtesy auguste de [email protected].

Copyright ? 2020 Jim Schibler — All rights reserved