Sales Leaders: We need you
Good sales people have the gift of the gab…
It’s one of those urban myths isn’t it: when we think about salespeople, we think of people who can “sell ice to the eskimos” and can “talk the leg off a chair”. In our mind’s eye, the common picture is one of a “convince and persuade” kind of person, who either wears you down into buying or inspires you to act.
In actual fact, Zig Ziglar, one of the fathers of modern sales training cites that introverts are indeed better salespeople than extroverts. He says that the reason is because they’re better listeners and are more likely to build rapport more easily with other introverts and can modify their style more flexibly to also build rapport with extroverts who find the reverse more challenging. It made me think.
Because what I love about Mr Ziglar (besides his obvious passion for selling), is his love of the sales profession. He made salespeople feel proud of what they are doing, and acknowledged that it is a skill, and an ongoing challenge. He helped salespeople develop the internal framework to be successful as well as providing them with very sound tools to be effective in the field.
But where have all the sales trainers gone? Sure there is a world of business and life coaches out there, but when it comes to real technique building, skill development and inner game, there aren’t many around now.
And I’m on a mission to change that.
I love sales as you may already know, and remember when I was lucky enough to work for The Body Shop and be developed as a sales person, a sales manager, as a sales trainer and as a market sales manager. The investment they made in their employees’ professional development was immense and the results spoke for themselves. I’d go interstate to train, jump in a cab and when I told them where I worked the response without fail would always be one of a brilliant service experience in one of the stores. How many retailers today would pay to get that level of informal feedback? How many would actually get that sort of feedback? Service, real service is hard to come by. Not necessarily because of lack of desire on the part of the salesperson, but because of a lack of knowing how.
In the meantime though, I highly recommend downloading The Advanced Selling Podcast which is a breath of fresh air to sales people wanting to hone their skills and improve their results: www.advancedsellingpodcast.com
I’m on a mission so watch this space!