The number 1 question we get asked from clients in relation to sales people is "where do I find a good one?"
The number 2 question would be "how do I clone this great sales person that I already have?"
Recently we've started working in partnership with the Sales Executive Council - they've undertaken reserach on a worldwide basis as to best practices in sales. They've undertaken some fascinating research into the different "profiles" of salespeople, and which of these is the most successful.
In an earlier post, we spoke of the need to "provoke" the customer. It appears the SEC research agress with us. Out of 5 sales rep profiles, their research indicates the "Relationship Builder" (builds strong advocates within the customer; generous with time; gets along with everyone) is MUCH LESS SUCCESSFUL in sales than the "Challenger" (understands the customer's business, loves to debate, pushes the customer).
Specifically - whilst the proportion of sales reps that are Challengers and Relationship Builders are roughly the same - 39% of Challengers are "high sales performers", compared to only 7% of Relationship Builders.
But it's not just about provoking - the Challenger teaches customers something new about their business, something they didn't know before. For example - in the IT world - I would think the Challenger salesperson could marshall the forces of their own organisation to bring the benefit of their experience in helping MANY IT departments to lower their costs, in a way that any individual CIO might not have thought of. Provoke - Question - Teach Something New. The art, obviously, is to teach them something new in an area where the salesperson's organisation does things differently to other suppliers.
As we say in our solutions sales training - if you've got something the customer wants and you're the only place they can get it - then it's game over.
So - are your sales reps "challenging" your customers? When the CIO says they have no budget - does your rep meekly agree, or do they say "listen - I understand the pressures you're under - but do you realise if you invested in this virtualisation solution you'd actually end up saving your organisation money within only 5 months? Here's a new approach for you, based on our experience with many other customers."
We're fortunate to be working with the SEC to build a process to identify Challenger sales reps within a sales team - and to then identify those with the POTENTIAL to be a Challenger, and to work with them to move to this profile - and hence sales success.
Are you looking to find that elusive Challenger in the marketplace - or would it be easier to take the members of the team you already have and train/support them to become Challengers?.........
