THE FOUR MOST IMPORTANT THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT GREAT SALESPEOPLE
1. Whether you like it or not, you don’t pay salespeople to sell your products. You pay them to paint your company and your products in the best possible light. When they do that, great salespeople will usually win. But sometimes they lose deals for reasons that are completely out of their control. They can’t help it if the prospect’s new CFO used a competitor’s product in a previous job and has a bias, or if the prospect’s president’s brother-in-law is a competitor’s sales rep. You should still acknowledge their effort in some material way if you’re convinced they represented you well, even when they lose the deal. 
2. Great salespeople are happiest when they are asking prospects for money, and the more money they are asking for, the happier they are. Most of humanity hates doing that. Great salespeople just aren’t like the rest of us. Determining this should be part of the discovery process when you interview sales candidates.
3. Remember the store Santa in “Miracle on 34th Street”? The toughest and the most important thing, for any great salesperson to know, is when NOT to sell a product. They know that your profitability and your customers’ happiness are their two highest priorities. Great salespeople recognize when there’s not a great fit for your product, or when there’s not a good match between a prospect’s needs and your company’s skills, or when a prospect has unrealistic expectations. It kills them to say “No”, but all the great one’s know-how.
4. Great salespeople are raging optimists. When they hear “No”, they are thinking “Maybe”, and when they hear “Maybe”, they are sure that they’ve closed the sale. That’s why great technical people don’t often make great salespeople. Great technical people are raging realists, not raging optimists. They communicate subliminally to their prospect that things might possibly go wrong, but when they do, it will be fixed right away. That’s reality. Prospects would much rather buy from someone who believes and makes them believe in, a problem-free future.
About the Author
Doug Deane is President of DSD Business Systems, an international provider of on-demand (cloud) and on-premises ERP and CRM software, specializing in wholesale distribution, manufacturing, warehouse management, inventory, business intelligence, and eCommerce software. DSD offers Sage 100 (formerly MAS 90), Sage 300 (formerly Accpac), Sage 500 (formerly MAS 500), NetSuite, Sage FAS, Sage HRMS (formerly Abra), Sage CRM, Sage SalesLogix, Extended Solutions, and Custom Programming.
